Pudendal Neuralgia TMS encouragement

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well in their journey. I’ve found it helpful/hopeful to scroll through this forum and find others with my diagnosis heal themselves with TMS. One symptom that Im having a lot of trouble with and am hoping to get some additional encouragement that I’m on the right track is genital numbness. A bit of backstory on me is that I went through a pretty emotional time dealing with a family member's health issue early last year. It was about 4 months of stress/sadness. During this I was masturbating too frequently, eating an awful diet, and getting no physical activity. In April I started experiencing some testicular pain and only two weeks later I was diagnosed with chronic orchialgia. This obviously only worsened my anxiety at the time. Then the dull pain turned into nerve pain and spread to my legs too. Then after another month of stress going from doctor to doctor, I was diagnosed with Chronic pelvic pain. I started pelvic floor physical therapy and now 8 months later since I’m not responding to the treatment they are diagnosing me with pudendal neuralgia. I can’t help but think it’s suspicious that my pain started after emotional turmoil as it mirrors so many other's TMS stories. I also am a big emotion avoider, I don’t really deal with my emotions instead I distract myself and push them down. I really believe I am experiencing TMS instead of an actual body issue but what’s hard for me to ignore is my most recent symptom which is genital numbness. In the 3 months since it started, it’s only spread and it never goes away/gets better. It's not just numbness to sexual feeling but complete to all forms of touch, like I can’t feel an ice pack placed in the area. Did anyone on here experience numbness that wasn’t intermittent and improved with TMS therapy? Doesn’t have to be genital region, I just notice people on here mostly talking about pain (which I have too), and some of the stories of numbness I have read either end in the people stopping posting or they just talk about their pain improving.

Thanks everyone.

 

Hi @EddyCorvette, and welcome.

I think that the most common misperception we see here, over and over, again and again, is an assumption that one symptom is TMS but another one is a so-called "real" physical problem.

This is rarely the case unless there is a clearly diagnosed injury or illness with a clear treatment plan, in which case the individual is busy getting the recommended treatment instead of asking for a diagnosis on this forum - right?

It's all connected. TMS is just an acronym for mindbody conditions, and it is now widely accepted that mindbody conditions encompass every possible physiological process or sensation. That's because our brains are the ones that manage every process and produce every sensation.
This is a fact. Phantom limb pain is proof of that fact.

A phenomenon that I've seen happen regularly over the years is that someone who is a bit obsessed by reading all of the stories about their particular set of symptoms will often report a brand-new symptom that they are unable to exactly compare to anyone else. This is what you are reporting, and this, THIS is your brain on TMS.

The TMS mechanism is very tricky, and it is really happy to keep you worried and searching for a non-existent success story to compare to, because if you're busy being worried, you're supposedly looking out for danger and you will be safe, and you won't be thinking about your repressed negative emotions.

It's a brain mechanism that is tricky, but it's not smart enough to know that this behavior in the modern world is actually obsessive and ultimately harmful to our mental health.

Since no medical professionals are expressing urgent concern, you might as well take advantage of the free help on this forum and start working on your emotional repression. You've already got a good sense of what you need to work on, you just need some structure to keep you on the path. The Structured Educational Program on the main tmswiki.org is a good place to start.

 

Hi @JanAtheCPA,
Thank you very much for your response. That is true, I read about numb genitals before it happened to me. And thank you for giving me a place to start, I'll get on it!

 

@EddyCorvette I’m experiencing genital numbness too. It started last week and you can check my most recent post for details, but generally seems like we’re in the same boat right now - down to putting ice packs on our junk to test the sensation.

I’ll keep you updated how things progress for me and hope you’ll post any updates as to what’s working or not working.

Best of luck, let’s beat this!