Day 1 Optimistic and Grateful

Hello!

I'm really happy to be here, and eternally grateful that there's an online resource like the TMS wiki for people like me.

I don't know if I'm ready to delve deep into my story at this point (feeling kind of lazy), but I've been working with the TMS concepts for about 3 months and the results have been interesting to say the least.

For the past 4 years, my hands have tingled, burned, and ached for no clear reason. Even as I type this, and my hands burn, part of my mind is screaming at me to stop here (but I know better now). It's led me to feel weak, depressed, anxious, and generally doomy, to the point where I've felt like my life has been irrevocably changed by my pain.

When my sister showed my Dr. Sarno's theories, I didn't really know what to make of it. I really did suspect that whatever was going on in my hands was not purely physiological. I had been to physical therapy, I had done dry needling, I had done EMGs, and nerve conduction studies, and had steroid shots, and it was all excruciatingly inconclusive (in hindsight, never getting a clear diagnosis might have been for the best). My Dr. prescribed the old school anti-depressive Nortyryptiline claiming that it helps calm the nerves down a bit and I was on it for almost two years (I was more into the the "anti-depressive aspect of the medication, I was still in pain). This is all to say that at this point, I figured it might be a at least a little bit caused by learned pain pathways in my brain.

But also, the idea that part of the healing process as prescribed by Sarno is to "resume your normal activities" seemed SO counter intuitive. After going through all this with my hands, my literal psychology had permanently changed. Anytime I sat down to play guitar, my first thought was literally "I hope this doesn't hurt too much".

I'm here now to finish what I started, to try and resolve this paradox in me. What pain do I seek to understand and comfort, but ultimately push through, and what pain do I actually interpret as a signal from my brain to stop.

 

Hey! Yay and welcome.
I hope we both arent on here for too long (lol). I feel you with having a life changed by your pain. AND ALSO with feeling that maybe not getting a clear diagnosis works out for the best- maybe this can help us FULLY accept a TMS diagnosis and heal with this mind body work. Sending you good healin' vibes.