Please help

Hi
Have learnt about TMS few months ago, initially read Dr. Sarno's books and did some journalling, my chronic foot pain was 75% gone. The past week have had intense left butt(piriformis pain) and ridiculous dry cough that is making my life and routine miserable. The butt pain makes me driving/sitting at work impossible/very painful and the coughing makes doing anything difficult. I got the cough checked out, was told have sinus infection, whole bunch of meds, but zero improvement in a week. I am convinced its TMS. Please help me and guide me what I should do. I read the excerpt from Dr. Sarno's book treatment section again. Started jotting down stressors. What else should I do, I am truly miserable. I need to go back to work but this cough and butt pain is really making it difficult. Any advice/good wishes will be so very kind and helpful to me right now.

 

I recognize the buttpain. I had it 10 years ago, when I also had backpain. What helped for me was going jogging (that made it go away) and imagine red blood flowing over and through it.
Might sound weird, but it helped me. Red blood is blood rich in oxygen. Now I would also imagine this blood when I was unable to jog, for example when driving a car.

The oxygen-rich blood counters the oxygen deprivation that Sarno talks about. In the end it's all a mind game. Don't pay attention to percentages and doubts, just know that it is your neurons appreciating the feedback of your stress. The world is completely upside down in there.

You can do it! Having learned about TMS is half the battle.

 

CMA, you may want to start doing the Structured Education Program in the left margin of the TMS Wiki:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki

This is a program that contains many elements used by Dr Sarno and others in the TMS treatment plans they use with their own patients and is largely the brain-child of one of the administrators on this forum.

It sounds as though you've already been checked out by a M.D. and given a clean bill of health (other than a sinus infection). So, treating your condition as TMS can't hurt you. You might want to try dropping in to the online chat on Saturdays that is also accessible via the TMS Wiki. There are usually others there who have had TMS symptoms similar to your own.

 

Hi CMA,

I know the difficulties of butt pain all too well, and in the last six momths have had the same cough you describe. I have finally concluded it too is TMS. I have just finished the wiki's educational program, and also use the red blood visualization, and both have helped so much with the butt pain. Give it a go, it really works! I still have the cough though; for the moment I just keep telling myself to think psychological instead of physical. Any suggestions are very welcome.

 

Thank you all..pls keep your support coming. I started the structured program and drifted off in a week, will start again. It is ok to rest and take pain meds right ? As I am in so much pain. I M hoping to keep visualising as I rest and so the education program but the pain is not even letting me think straight. Will drop in for the chat
Thank you again

 

I think I just read in The Great Pain Deception that Steve Ozanich also had a cough that lasted seven months or so. If it isn't getting better with meds, then I would treat it as TMS.

 

i can certainly relate. i had terrible pelvic floor problems. cramping in my butt, abdomen, thighs. I bought a Body Back Body to massage the butt and abdomen. Of course, it was only tempirary relief. I started walking. Now i am up to 4-5 miles each day. I love the blood flowing analogy.

i started the Structured Education Program. it has really helped with the pain. Meditation too for the anxiety. You can do it.

 

The conditions you describe, CMA, are really interesting to me because after I had a so-called herniated disk in 2002 later on after the lower-back pain went away, I had a recurrent cough that just seemed to come out of nowhere. With what Steve O describes in his book and what Terry says here, it sounds as though my cough was also a TMS equivalent symptom too. I wonder how many people with TMS also develop cold symptoms that are caused by a lowered autoimmunity associated with their TMS? Looking back over the last ten years, I notice now how I had all kinds of TMS equivalents that only appeared after my herniated disk, which occurred a short time after my mother's death. So how many other people out there have had mysterious coughs and colds after TMS symptoms have subsided in other areas, like their knees, shoulders, backs and hips.

 

I had butt pain too and I became unable to sit at all. It hurt really bad and I became unable to work too. But even though herniated discs and degnerative disc disease were allegedly the culprit per doctors, the TMS program was the answer for me. It was many years ago now.

I think a cough can have emotional components--there are books like Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life that give suggestions as to why certain ailments become targeted by our brain and cough is listed in there.

Best wishes for healing!

 

CMA:

I too have the butt pain on and off now that I've started the SEP and read a lot of great books. The Great Pain Deception was really helpful for me. I am six weeks into the program and have seen a huge improvement. It's not linear, there up days and down days. What help me a great deal was getting a diagnosis from a TMS MD. I also found a TMS counselor that I am working with as well.

Exercise seems to be a key component of healing. Yesterday I went for a long walk as the weather was beautiful, and then hiked to a near by stream and meditated.

Keep posting, you will heal.

Susan