Pain-Free for 5 Months - Emotional Trigger and Sudden Return of Low Back Pain

Hi everyone, I hope to get some helpful input and to share my partial success story along with a recent relapse.

I suffered from chronic low back pain for about a year (September 2024 to September 2025). I have two lumbar herniated discs (L5, right side), discovered through an MRI after months of pain. For a long time, I believed the pain was purely structural. After discovering TMS and starting to resume normal activity without fear, the pain gradually disappeared. I was mostly pain-free for about five months. I am moderately active, I go to the gym, climb, occasionally run and hike.

After Christmas, I had a difficult emotional realization about my dad. The very next day, the familiar low back pain returned. What’s interesting is that when I went back to the city where I live, the pain disappeared immediately upon landing. That quick change made me strongly suspect a mind–body component again.

Recently, I tried a yoga class. During one stretch, I felt a slight “pinch” sensation, which triggered fear because of my herniated discs. Shortly after, the pain returned — but this time it was diffuse across my whole lumbar area, more like a “blocked” or tight feeling rather than following a clear nerve pattern. It doesn’t even match the location of my disc herniations.

At the same time, I’m currently involved in a complicated romantic situation, with a lot of uncertainty and emotional tension. I suspect this ongoing stress might be contributing as well. I am far from home. I love where I live, but sometimes I miss my family, and I know that I cannot have both realities: being close to my family and living where I love. Work can also be stressful at times. I’ve improved in managing my stress triggers, but I guess I still have more work to do.

The TMS-educated version of me is continuing to train and move normally, including movements that used to scare me (bending, lifting), without avoiding them. I’m trying to approach this as a TMS flare rather than a structural relapse.
The key realisation for me is that I had a pain free period and I returned to full functional movements. My hernia didn't magically disappear, yet my pain did. This has to mean something. Now the pain is back. The hernia is a constant, but doesn't explain the pain free months where I enjoyed my active lifestyle.

I’d be curious to know if others have experienced a similar “environment switch” or emotionally triggered relapses related to relationship uncertainty.
From my end, I will start reading and following the daily TMS program. I never needed to in the past because I managed to become pain free, but I will give it a try this time.

p.s. bonus topic: I have suffered from weak wrists my whole life, prone to injury. X-rays and MRIs never found anything. Lately my right wrist is often in pain after some heavier workouts. I wonder if it's again mind-body related

 

100% to everything you say. My pain fluctuates when I’m in different areas, invariably worse I’m at home (currently living in childhood home-source of a lot of emotional turmoil), always at lower levels when I’m out and about. Before I was TMS aware Moving to a new city temporarily reduced my low level chronic symptoms. I think before the nervous system reaches a point of total dysfunction that changes like excitement of moving, a new relationship, a new job or leaving an old one can bring our stress down a threshold and lower symptoms. Once you reach a certain stress threshold you’ll have to make some internal overhauls to see any change.


the sour end of a relationship ( almost entirely my fault) is what played a huge role in priming my nervous system to let my symptoms become nonstop and unbearable. All that guilt, shame self hatred had to go somewhere.

I think you’re very wise to treat this as TMS. What you describe is fairly common regarding relapses. Life carries on, we accumulate stress our nervous system slides further and further into fight or flight and then we get a mild injury that we obsesses and panic over and can turn chronic. Whether it’s just the nervous system in a panic or the brain acting intentionally to distract you from underlying turmoil, it’s the way that we’ve been living prior to the injury that led us here, not the injury/event itself.

have you mentioned your concerns to your partner?

 

Absolutely to both of your questions - pretty much any emotional trigger can cause TMS pain though (but I've experienced what you are saying and have seen it constantly)

 

Yes, all my relapses since my initial recovery in 2013 have had an environmental or emotional trigger. You are very wise to realize this is what is going on with you, and to start a TMS recovery program. Just take it one day at a time and you will make it to recovery.

 

Your reaction at yoga is my own physical reaction to pain sensations and fear - especially when accompanied with other emotional stressors and stressors. Your cup simply runneth over.
What other physical changes do you notice in these cycles? Changes in breathing, difficulty relaxing, mind running non-stop? TMS. Just get back to the work you’ve done to overcome symptoms, be gentle with yourself. Perhaps journal about your Dad and your romantic life. Notice your TMS personality traits and where they fit into this - can you soften those towards yourself? What boundaries do you need to make in your life so you can keep your peace and stay true to your own authenticity? What have you been compromising without conscious thought and decision ( oh, the rage this can create!).
I’ve been going through a relapse that “feels” physical and it is, somewhat (not structural) so if you have ongoing medical “stuff” that might be fluctuating just get a quick checkup (eg. Thyroid, diabetes etc.) as they can impact the nervous system when a bit off, and give yourself time. There is noting to fix. Perhaps there are things to curiously discover but nothing to fix.

 

Thanks for the reply. How is your unbearable pain going? Have you found something that works for you?
I find fascinating that my issues are causing such problems. to me it suggests either that I am prone to anxiety even if the cause is not that heavy or that I am unaware of how much pain is underneath to cause my brain to divert my attention elsewhere.

I haven't mentioned my

not yet, we had some things occupying both our attention, so that had to wait

 

thank you, for me the big realisation was my recovery followed by the relapse.
Hernias don't go away and come back, so why did my pain disappear for a while?
I will stick to the program, and good luck to you too with your relapses

 

this is a different angle, but the months leading up to my relapse were very intense in terms of self discovery. I untangled some of my repressed emotions and I discovered a lot of repressed anger which I am learning to let flow healthily.
During the relapse, however, I felt very emotional. I kept going to therapy and worked on self discovery. I experienced moments of deep sadness and pain while digging deeper inside my traumas. I was very emotional all the time, crying for little things and triggers. Now after a few weeks all of that is gone, but I doubt I worked through all of it. So this could be what the physical pain is distracting me from

 

I’m in the best place I’ve been maybe ever in my entire life. Mentally for sure, physically I still have symptoms but as a whole they’re all decreasing. Much greater clarity, much less catastrophizing, flares that would’ve lasted for a month are gone in days, I’m back to working 30ish hours a week after being out of work for a while. I’m sleeping several hours a night and fall asleep instantly rather than waking up dozens of times and maybe sleeping an hour, my GI system is only a minor wreck instead of being a disaster lol. This stuff works, and I’m confident in time I’ll be pain free. But I’ve let go of timelines and pressure. I’ve been manifesting TMS symptoms for decades it was unreasonable to expect all this to be resolved quickly.

yes a spiritual based nonguided meditation practice has helped me achieve the most results, and using that to help change my mindset, break dysfunctional thought patterns. My personal belief is that debilitating symptoms are the result of our brains no longer trusting us and our higher selves throwing a Hail Mary to get us to change course. My whole life has been dysfunctional, it wasn’t just one thing that threw my nervous system out of wack.

why does the cause have to be heavy or unheavy? That sounds like internalized pressure and shaming “what a baby I am, can’t handle these minor issues”. Regardless of scale or scope our suffering and problems are significant, self compassion is always the way to go. You’re doing the best you can with what you have and how you have lived up to the present moment.

You should definitely talk to your partner, that’s what a relationship is for. One of my greatest regrets is not being vulnerable in my relationship. Frankly we probably weren’t right for each other, but I never really gave it a chance. But again I was just doing the best I could with who and what I was.

vulnerability is such a good litmus test in a relationships, probably why I have no close friends, lol, but I’m working on it!

 

I think TMS is kind of two fold: it's emotional patterns and physical patterns that are absolutely interconnected. We can begin to recover some of the emotional patterns but the physical patterns can take more time - especially subconscious reactions to undiscovered false beliefs. Consciously we may have begun to forge new beliefs but sometimes the old subconscious stuff is stubborn, or it can simply re-surface. I don't think this is really a big deal, or anything particularly to solve or "work" on - only to observe and allow yourself grace as your mind begins to let these things sink in. My therapy of choice was EMDR to help my emotions/depression/anxiety and my therapist explained that the process can take a few weeks to really kick in, but it can take several months to do it's "work" after sessions are completed. I believe this process could be present with any type of therapy. Give it some time, see where you are at.
Relapses are often quiet emotional. We often have some doubt, guilt, shame, worry, and fixing re-surface. That's all ok, and a natural part of it all. You don't have to worry about any "reason" things linger - just let them be. I believe this is sort of what Sarno meant when he instructs us to get back to regular life. Not just physically but mentally so we can distract ourselves from worry and overthinking progress and just let the process happen. Some folks interepret this as not doing any active TMS "stuff" - I think it means to just integrate it into our daily lives.
Journal if that works for you "write shit down" and toss it.
Try meditation - experiment with it. It can be done in many ways from traditional meditation to more of the somatic work like learning "grounding" exercises.
Observe: observe your patterns and habits - look at reactions vs responses to your emotions and situations. Note with curiosity where you struggle and perhaps beginning to learn some better interpersonal skills will help you better express things like boundaries so you can deal with those frequent TMS personality traits that might trigger you.
JOY JOY JOY - Sarno focuses on inner rage, but "getting back to life" would encompass experiencing a full range of emotions. Our brains are biased to the negative and in today's world, many things are actually purposely exploit this bias. Recently I've been using a form of affirmations to tip that negativity scale, but I always make sure that the affirmations are true to my basic belief system. "Sunshine makes me so happy" (I say this three times to myself), or "That breeze feels so GOOD on my body" - I mean these things might seem obvious but it seems to work. You just remind your mind of the good stuff. It also helps you to redirect the worry that you aren't "doing anything" to actively find wellness.