It is enraging, for sure. You do the work, journaling, exposure, meditation, breathing, emotional release, messages of safety etc. and your limbic system goes "wow this guy is clearly out of his mind, here, more pain". Not to say every life event you miss because of it...
Then you read stories about people who had an emotional epiphany and boom, healed in 2 months. And you think "wait, should I be inspired right now?"
But one thing this forum taught me is that TMS recovery is way harder than what the TMS circle makes us believe in the beginning. I know they mean well and are worried about not scaring people, but c'mon... TMSers are intelligent people who thinks too much actually. (And of course, a book called How To Get Rid of Pain God Knows When wouldn't sell at all).
But here we are in the TMS pool trying to figure out how to accept and heal, each morning closer to the day when pieces start falling into place.
May I ask what you think likely triggered your sensations? I heard anecdotally in Japan that fibromyalgia is treated as a condition of poor sleep and I believe severe insomnia was the cause of TMS pains.
Basically, I’ve been trying to figure out what triggered my central sensitization (CS) pain, and here’s my theory.
I have Crohn’s, which constantly sends pain signals to my nervous system. Then I likely had a severe H. pylori infection, which added more nerve signals and inflammation. My brain’s primitive threat-detection system — the amygdala, hypothalamus, and brainstem — interpreted these signals as danger.
This “lizard brain” reacts to raw nerve and chemical signals, not nuance. It flipped my nervous system into survival mode, triggering severe insomnia. I could barely sleep, because my brain thought staying awake was keeping me safe.
Sleep is how the nervous system resets and regulates itself. After weeks of almost no sleep, my autonomic and pain-regulation systems became dysregulated. Minor sensations and stressors got amplified. My brain then interpreted these distorted signals as life-threatening, producing severe pain, especially when I’m sitting or lying still.
Basically, my brain’s “safety system” became maladaptive: it tries to protect me but ends up causing a vicious cycle — insomnia → nervous system chaos → amplified pain → even less sleep.
From a scientific perspective, this fits with what researchers call central sensitization: the nervous system becomes hyper-responsive and interprets harmless signals as threats. In my case, the triggers seem to be chronic inflammation, post-infectious signaling, and sleep disruption, all combining to create this self-perpetuating cycle.
The point is that the lizard brain only understands electricity signals. It has no idea what the threat is or if there is indeed a legitamate threat. It runs on very basic code and in my opinion is a defect of the way we evolved. I was thinking of BloodMoon, Sita and Cactus and how they managed to get their life back together. I believe in all cases it was a case of regulating their nervous system (Brain) by calming the electricity signals to their lizard brain by getting good sleep, living their lives as best as they can and not freaking out. Rinse and repeat this time and time again. I think sleep is a big factor because without good sleep the brain will not be able to process nervous system messages properly. This is key for anyone looking to recover from fibromyalgia like pains. How is your sleep?
