Resumed exercise pain worse today

[Dwiegman]

so I have been doing the work for around 3 months now. My pain which began as upper back and chest pain moved into my lower back/ butt about 6 weeks ago. I have had some days that are better than others but most days are pretty bad. Sometimes it’s concentrated in my lower back and sometimes in my butt but mostly it’s right around my tailbone. My TMS doctor was very confident it’s TMS when I saw him 6 weeks ago. Last night I exercised lightly for the first time in 6 weeks. It wasn’t too bad while I exercised but today the pain is really bad. Should I continue to force myself to exercise? Maybe get it checked out again? Just still having a lot of doubts at times and I’m not sure if it’s normal to get worse after resuming exercise. I really thought I’d see some results from the TMS work by now.

 

[Anne Walker]

Hi. I know how frustrating this can be. It never feels like it is going to happen until it does! If we could wish this to work it would be so much better!! Whenever you are monitoring your pain levels and connecting it to activities, you are operating in the physical realm. TMS has you and there is no real progress. Redirect your mind to either think psychological or if that is creating too much pressure, find some path to something enjoyable or that might distract you from thinking about the pain. Take off the time clock as frustrating as that is. You can acknowledge that it is really frustrating, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that the day will come when you are pain free. I used to play a game on my computer that took a tremendous amount of focus, landing trains in stations. I could not do it and think about my pain at the same time. Become sensitive to when you are forcing yourself to do things that are adding pressure, that is an indication you are trying to hard. Its okay to be mad. This really sucks!! But from reading your post, you are on the right track. Chicken and the egg. It is so hard to believe when you are doing everything you feel like you are supposed to and you are still in pain. But part of you still believes that the pain is structural, physical, and so you have your doubts. It is normal to get worse after resuming exercise. Look how effective it is in getting you to think about the pain. There is no time frame for healing and managing TMS unfortunately. Some people are pain free immediately. Some take 6 weeks, 6 months, a year.... Sometimes people are relatively pain free for year and then have a relapse, and have to start over. That's where I am right now but I feel like I have more tools to work with and I just need a refresher. Its not easy because pain is not fun, I almost forgot how all consuming it can be. I have a feeling it has to do with me getting older and all the responsibilities I have. My kids are leaving home and caring for them has been a huge purpose in my life the last 20 years. Yes, I think you should keep exercising.

 

[Dwiegman]

Hi Anne,
Thank you so much for your reply. It’s so easy to know the importance of not TRYING to heal but so hard to do sometimes. I know I was extra tuned into my pain today, wondering how it would feel after some exercise. I think I read about so many people who are either stuck or heal very quickly and it’s easy to forget there are a lot of people who take a long time to heal even after starting the work, but do eventually heal. It’s tough to keep all doubt away but it’s those random times when I have little or no pain that only make sense if this is TMS. Your words are encouraging and I will keep at it and do my best to not keep time. Thanks again!

 

[Anne Walker]

I know five years ago when I was learning about all of this, it felt really slow to me. Its hard not to think about others who seem to be mastering things faster or just beat yourself up for not doing things perfectly or well enough to get results. That's part of our TMS personality traits. I had to really focus on and give into the idea of outcome independence. I finally got good enough at it that one day I just realized I was painfree. I used to get up every morning and the first thing I would do was scan my body to see if my pain was less yet. So it amazed my that I was pain free and I really had no idea at what moment it happened. Now I have to focus on outcome independence once again and I am remembering how hard it is. And I am already having to ward off that big internal bully telling me that I have failed. But I haven't failed, here I am, years later, still living, still glad to be alive. I just watched an interview with John Sarno. He was so cute. He was talking about how even at his age at the time, he still had to pay attention to his inner child. He said "its never too late to have a happy childhood." I love that. He gave us so much and he had so much humility and awareness of what a continual process it is to.