I also do not know if I should continue searching for IBS
success stories using TMS. I have a feeling that if I read more stories with ibs I would be super encouraged but perhaps the search is making me anxious and discouraged.
I think all of this is true,
@Nana. Looking at your history, it's shocking, as well as disheartening, how susceptible your GI system is to so many different problems. And it doesn't make sense from a purely physiological point of view, does it? When you mentioned food poisoning, I was reminded of the story Steve Ozanich tells in his book
The Great Pain Deception (which I think of as the encyclopedia of TMS), about an incident of food poisoning (affecting no one else in the family) which, looking back from his TMS recovery, he ascribed to his immune system being weakened by TMS. Dr. Gabor Mate, MD, in his brilliant and compassionate book
When The Body Says No, effectively describes how we can trash our immune systems by exposing ourselves to constant stress and emotional distress. Even traditional western medical professionals have accepted that stress has a negative affect on our health, making some people more susceptible to illness. Our immune systems don't just fight bacteria and viruses - they exist to fight everything. One of the immune system's responses is inflammation, which as we know, can become an over-response, causing actual damage, and resulting in chronic inflammation and auto-immune conditions - although "they" don't know the cause. Gallstones are caused by some kind of imbalance for reasons that can't be explained - "they" only have guesses. But we here know (especially after reading Dr. Mate) that if it can't be explained, guess what?
Unfortunately, once you've reached the point where your body is experiencing physiological changes, you've got to engage in physiological interventions - but at the same time, it's vital to keep working on the underlying source of the dis-ease (as Steve O would say), and make a commitment to releasing yourself from the stress-disease cycle (Dr. Mate's subtitle is "Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection).
You said at one point that you were at Day 20 of the SEP - but books and free programs might not be enough. How about therapy with a TMS therapist? I had years of significant recovery from TMS back in 2011, but 2020 really set me back after several years of dysfunctional world affairs, and I ended up with late-in-life RA. So - I have to follow the treatment, but I engaged a TMS therapist for the first time, and it's been incredibly helpful - and valuable to learn how my brain seems to be addicted to constant anxiety.
For me, it's still a work in process, with slow steps forward, sometimes steps back... Even when I'm fully mindful of when my brain is sabotaging me, it's really hard not to give in to it - and being mindful all the time is really hard to achieve. I often find myself hunched over my keyboard, furiously typing away at an email, or deep into a complex tax analysis, and realize that my jaw and stomach are clenched and my breathing is shallow - and I don't want to stop! I feel like the key is to convince my negative brain that stopping, relaxing all my muscles, and doing even just a few seconds of meditative breathing is something that will feel good (and it does!) - with a goal of THAT state becoming the addiction, instead of the tensed-up opposite. Practice practice practice.
How about your gut? Do you clench it a lot? And have you seen the post about Breathing for Stress? Look on the Recent Posts page, people have been adding other great resources so it's still near the top. Just learning to breathe is incredibly therapeutic - as well as being free and easy - IF your brain will allow you to just STOP and do it.
Less expensive options to individual therapy would be a TMS coach, or an intensive group program such as ones offered by
Nicole Sachs, LCSW, or
the PPDA or Curable.
