ian360
New Member
Dear all
I wanted to write to you all sometime ago after watching Forest’s videos on YouTube but never got around to it. After reading his story and watching his movies etc, I realised that we have quite a lot in common with regards to pain and TMS. To cut a long story short, I started getting pain in 1995 when I was only 21 years old following a traumatic event. At the time, I played music a lot, in particular drums. It started with pain in my thumb joints. Doctors told me it was RSI and eventually I had to quit playing completely one year later. I became anxious and quite depressed about it all as music was my life at that time. A year later, after a terrible year, I decided a change was needed and went to uni to train as a school teacher. A few months into uni my hand pain settled a bit (due to not playing music I assumed) but I started getting terrible pain in my neck instead. I attributed this to a car accident I had had 4 years earlier which gave me a whiplash. The neck pain got worse and worse until I could no longer move my head to the right. The pain was located from the atlas joint down the left side of my neck and involved trigeminal nerve pain across my face. I tried everything I could to fix it - physiotherapy, chiropractors, osteopaths, massage, exercise, hot and cold, alexander technique, had pills, potions, shots etc, nothing helped for more than a few days or hours. I had all the scans etc but nothing was found. The pain was so sensitive that just touching me around the head, neck or shoulders would bring or terrible pain for a week or more. I have been told from 3 rheumatologists that I have fibromyalgia.
Now, the really bad news - I still have that pain today, and I have not had one complete pain free day for 20 years now. The pain has decreased a bit but still exists. My girlfriend will massage my neck when it is really bad and that eases it a bit. But that and a good dose of tramadol are the only things that help. In the last 20 years I have also had many surgeries on my teeth and jaw due to pain which would move around from tooth to tooth or jaw joint to jaw joint. Oh, and I can add ear pain to the list and restless leg syndrome (both since 2008).
In March, I lost my teaching job due to cut backs. I decided to leave teaching permanently and I started designing again. I was also a website designer for about 8 years but now I create 3D artwork for architects and building companies. I use a computer a lot for this, and so what started happening recently? Yes, surprise surprise, the thumb joints start hurting and burning again, just like 20 years ago! My doctor said it sounds like tendonitis blah blah blah…
About a year ago, I read The Mindbody Prescription by Doctor Sarno. It sounded like me a lot. I then read The Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich (a brilliant book) and more recently I read The Hidden Psychology of Pain by James Alexander which also tackles the subject. Deep down, I think I have TMS. Strange pains that build up in intensity and sometimes move around with no concrete medical evidence of its cause. I’d say I have a typical TMS personality - I’m a perfectionist, ambitious, organised, responsible, feel guilty often, self-critical etc… Even though I think it is TMS, something in my head still says maybe it is physical and doctors just can’t see it. My mother is crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, as was her mother and sister. That plays on my mind despite the fact that I know I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis as my symptoms are different and no test showed any signs of it. My other thought I get is, do I deserve to get better? Maybe this is a punishment for something? Or maybe I’m just punishing myself?
I saw another psychologist a few months ago and told him my TMS theory. The more I told him, he seemed to think it sounded like a really physical problem but had no solution except to meditate and relax more. Him thinking it could be physical actually put me back in my recovery a bit.
I’m sorry this post is kinda random, it is hard to put it all in one post.
Thanks guys.
Ian
I wanted to write to you all sometime ago after watching Forest’s videos on YouTube but never got around to it. After reading his story and watching his movies etc, I realised that we have quite a lot in common with regards to pain and TMS. To cut a long story short, I started getting pain in 1995 when I was only 21 years old following a traumatic event. At the time, I played music a lot, in particular drums. It started with pain in my thumb joints. Doctors told me it was RSI and eventually I had to quit playing completely one year later. I became anxious and quite depressed about it all as music was my life at that time. A year later, after a terrible year, I decided a change was needed and went to uni to train as a school teacher. A few months into uni my hand pain settled a bit (due to not playing music I assumed) but I started getting terrible pain in my neck instead. I attributed this to a car accident I had had 4 years earlier which gave me a whiplash. The neck pain got worse and worse until I could no longer move my head to the right. The pain was located from the atlas joint down the left side of my neck and involved trigeminal nerve pain across my face. I tried everything I could to fix it - physiotherapy, chiropractors, osteopaths, massage, exercise, hot and cold, alexander technique, had pills, potions, shots etc, nothing helped for more than a few days or hours. I had all the scans etc but nothing was found. The pain was so sensitive that just touching me around the head, neck or shoulders would bring or terrible pain for a week or more. I have been told from 3 rheumatologists that I have fibromyalgia.
Now, the really bad news - I still have that pain today, and I have not had one complete pain free day for 20 years now. The pain has decreased a bit but still exists. My girlfriend will massage my neck when it is really bad and that eases it a bit. But that and a good dose of tramadol are the only things that help. In the last 20 years I have also had many surgeries on my teeth and jaw due to pain which would move around from tooth to tooth or jaw joint to jaw joint. Oh, and I can add ear pain to the list and restless leg syndrome (both since 2008).
In March, I lost my teaching job due to cut backs. I decided to leave teaching permanently and I started designing again. I was also a website designer for about 8 years but now I create 3D artwork for architects and building companies. I use a computer a lot for this, and so what started happening recently? Yes, surprise surprise, the thumb joints start hurting and burning again, just like 20 years ago! My doctor said it sounds like tendonitis blah blah blah…
About a year ago, I read The Mindbody Prescription by Doctor Sarno. It sounded like me a lot. I then read The Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich (a brilliant book) and more recently I read The Hidden Psychology of Pain by James Alexander which also tackles the subject. Deep down, I think I have TMS. Strange pains that build up in intensity and sometimes move around with no concrete medical evidence of its cause. I’d say I have a typical TMS personality - I’m a perfectionist, ambitious, organised, responsible, feel guilty often, self-critical etc… Even though I think it is TMS, something in my head still says maybe it is physical and doctors just can’t see it. My mother is crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, as was her mother and sister. That plays on my mind despite the fact that I know I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis as my symptoms are different and no test showed any signs of it. My other thought I get is, do I deserve to get better? Maybe this is a punishment for something? Or maybe I’m just punishing myself?
I saw another psychologist a few months ago and told him my TMS theory. The more I told him, he seemed to think it sounded like a really physical problem but had no solution except to meditate and relax more. Him thinking it could be physical actually put me back in my recovery a bit.
I’m sorry this post is kinda random, it is hard to put it all in one post.
Thanks guys.
Ian
