harryhaller
New Member
I wondered if anyone had any advice.
Things have been progressing well albeit a bit slowly since I accepted TMS as the cause of my chronic neck pain. The pain had been fairly stable for years, being a low-level, aching tightness that occupied my thoughts constantly but was never excruciatingly painful. It moved around slightly but had mostly stayed on one side (switched sides a couple of times over the course of 1.5 years). On reading Healing Back Pain it started switching sides every few days which was my first evidence that TMS was the real cause (or rather, that Sarno had the solution, since I already intuitively knew that the pain was psychological before I ever heard about TMS or Sarno - I simply had no frame of reference to heal it, which is what Sarno gave me).
So after about 10 months now, the periods of time with no pain were growing longer and longer. I was going weeks with hardly a thought about pain. Every couple of months there would be a relapse into the old pain patterns, which would then stop after a week or so. Even during the pain periods, it wasn't that bad.
But yesterday, at some point in the afternoon (I could pinpoint it to practically the minute - it started very suddenly, unlike other relapses), I developed a sharp pain in my upper back/neck area (right side). Within a short time it was very intense, and persisted throughout today. It is a kind of pain I never experienced in all the time having neck pain. A stabbing kind of pain, going through my back to my chest. It actually hurts to breathe a little bit. Had I not had this long battle with pain in the same area, I would be worried it was a serious medical problem, but as it is I am sure it is related to my previous neck pain. The problem is that it is so much more painful than any of my previous pain, and quite a bit sharper and more specifically located. I never had pain breathing, and it hurts to move - for instance, stretching my arms behind me, as I frequently do, is nearly impossible.
How should I think about this, and what should I do? I could not help but start sliding back to dark thoughts such as "what if my previously slightly bulging disc just herniated, and my problems were all physical after all?" or "what if allowing this pain to continue is forging new neural pathways in my brain which I will be fighting for years?" or even "what if I have a blood clot in my lung?" (I don't really believe that though). It feels like something is stuck, and I have even had sinful thoughts about calling up a chiropractor.
Any advice? Has anyone experienced this? Is it an extinction burst, or the start of a new problem?
Things have been progressing well albeit a bit slowly since I accepted TMS as the cause of my chronic neck pain. The pain had been fairly stable for years, being a low-level, aching tightness that occupied my thoughts constantly but was never excruciatingly painful. It moved around slightly but had mostly stayed on one side (switched sides a couple of times over the course of 1.5 years). On reading Healing Back Pain it started switching sides every few days which was my first evidence that TMS was the real cause (or rather, that Sarno had the solution, since I already intuitively knew that the pain was psychological before I ever heard about TMS or Sarno - I simply had no frame of reference to heal it, which is what Sarno gave me).
So after about 10 months now, the periods of time with no pain were growing longer and longer. I was going weeks with hardly a thought about pain. Every couple of months there would be a relapse into the old pain patterns, which would then stop after a week or so. Even during the pain periods, it wasn't that bad.
But yesterday, at some point in the afternoon (I could pinpoint it to practically the minute - it started very suddenly, unlike other relapses), I developed a sharp pain in my upper back/neck area (right side). Within a short time it was very intense, and persisted throughout today. It is a kind of pain I never experienced in all the time having neck pain. A stabbing kind of pain, going through my back to my chest. It actually hurts to breathe a little bit. Had I not had this long battle with pain in the same area, I would be worried it was a serious medical problem, but as it is I am sure it is related to my previous neck pain. The problem is that it is so much more painful than any of my previous pain, and quite a bit sharper and more specifically located. I never had pain breathing, and it hurts to move - for instance, stretching my arms behind me, as I frequently do, is nearly impossible.
How should I think about this, and what should I do? I could not help but start sliding back to dark thoughts such as "what if my previously slightly bulging disc just herniated, and my problems were all physical after all?" or "what if allowing this pain to continue is forging new neural pathways in my brain which I will be fighting for years?" or even "what if I have a blood clot in my lung?" (I don't really believe that though). It feels like something is stuck, and I have even had sinful thoughts about calling up a chiropractor.
Any advice? Has anyone experienced this? Is it an extinction burst, or the start of a new problem?
