Overcome past but knee pain continues

Hey there,

I'd been suffering from chronic knee pain for about two years (I am now 30) when I came across this site and read Healing Back Pain. After learning that chondromalacia in itself does not cause pain, the pains I had been getting throughout the day or when not sitting in a specific way immediately disappeared. Emboldened, I started doing exercise that was not physical therapy and while I was pleased to see how much I can do, knee pain or fear of it continues to prevent me from the level of physical activity I would like.

Journaling and processing feelings seems to be pretty central to treatment plans for mind body syndrome, but it just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me for my situation:
• I feel like I've already spent a lot of time digging into and overcoming childhood issues in recent years and thinking about it now really doesn't feel productive or relevant to me
• I have always kept a journal so I feel like I'm always pretty in touch with my thoughts and feelings
• I believe I have landed on the cause of the emotional turmoil associated with the onset of this pain and and really truly overcome it just in the past few months

So... do I have to? Why does my knee still hurt? Is it going to magically go away eventually or is there something else I can do?

 

I'm no expert on TMS, but from my understanding you need to return to all activities before the pain goes away.

 

Remember the strong role of conditioning in pain. It can take a while for the pain to fully leave, for some people. Keep reinforcing your TMS beliefs and not worrying about the pain when it does come, and it will fade out over time.

 

Great to hear about your progress!

For what it's worth, some people on this site have had full recoveries without journaling.