steps forward and back - nerve stuff

[Stephanie71]

Hi all,

Checking in for today. I am up and down with my symptoms and sometimes feeling so fully full of hope and 100 percent in acceptance that my pain and symptoms are generated by TMS ... and sometimes not. Sometimes it just feel so structural. It is really challenging to get beyond this, especially because it's my left leg and I'm "on it" every day.
One catch that I haven't been able to find in TMS forums is this strange sensation I get when I press on the peroneal nerve (the place on the outer leg at the top of calf just below the knee) there is often pain there and if I massage it I always feel nerve-y zapping sensations down to my foot. It scares me that there is some kind of nerve entrapment or damage. If it weren't structural, wouldn't this not be there every time I rub that area? It is always there. This was the very first area I started having symptoms years ago - a feeling of weakness and pain in the knee and leg area, back of knee area - and when I straighten both legs the left one feels much weaker and "unsupported" than the right, like the leg is hyperextending. The knee also repeatedly clicks. So hard to explain. But there are symptoms in the whole leg (diagnosed with piriformis syndrome and sciatica years ago.)
I saw a TMS doctor recently and he says the knee clicking is not necessarily a problem and that he thinks I have TMS. I think I have TMS, too. I mean, I know I do. But...
Advice on how to combat last nagging "it's structural" thoughts? Anyone have strange nerve sensations that seemed to always be there, not just tingling that comes and goes? (I have had that too; this seems different.)
Thanks for any replies. Much love,
Stephanie

 

[JoeHealingTms]

Ok, you have already a diagnosis. If you had an entrapment of a nerve most possibly the doctor would have tell you. I would have to assume that you have some sort of MRI, Xrays or newer conduction studies done already??That particular area you are saying hurts when you touch, is a common symptom of trigger points. And that is also how TMS uses the nervous system to activate spasms by oxygen depravation. A pain in the same area for years dont necessarily mean something broken but many times the opposite. IF you already have cleared everything else out with a medical doctor, then you should not worry so much. The body heals. Every body part have time frames of healing. A muscle takes X times, a fracture x time, etc. If you had this pain for a prolonged period of time, then it might possibly not be structural, because your body should have healed the structural part long ago. How a about a pain for more than 10 years in the same place that makes some of your shoulder muscles to be on continuous spasm until you do everything and end up having an unnecessary surgery?? That is part of my story, and still after the surgery pain was there. I have now lowered the pain considerably with the TMS approach, and sometimes even have no pain at all. How can this be possible? Did my shoulder muscles and tendons healed and then damaged themselves in a couple of days? NO. That is impossible, specially if it is continuous, specially if by doing certain meditation and journaling practices the pain lowers. It is just muscle relaxation attained and flow of blood what takes the pain away, so I KNOW for sure this is NOT structural. Can a muscle being in spasm for years cause some permanent pain? Well, in a certain way yes, because if the same area is full of trigger points and not getting properly oxygenated then some of the muscle tissue can get damage and need recovery. How you restore flow? Massage, trigger point injections and exercise. Doing what you are afraid to do is exactly what starts the recovery. Just by seeing that you know what the "peroneal nerve" is, tell me that you have let fear get you anxious and obsessive. If I were to tell you all the "sensations" I had in the past 12 years, from tingling to ticks to pains "running wild like a pack of coyotes " all thru my body you would see that you are ok. You are focusing on the symptoms and you need to learn to think more psychologically , less structural. Only the shoulder sensation have been almost there always in my case, and in a part of my back. The rest comes and go. But even the "permanent" one have been turned off by the TMS approach so I know is not structural. Check Davies books on trigger point and self massage, and see how this might be a good "placebo" to help you visualize this are trigger points activated by the TMS.

 

[Stephanie71]

Thank you so much for your response. I had a low back, hamstring, and knee MRI, which all came back normal. I also had EMG testing done many years ago when I first started having pain and super weird symptoms (like shoes felt too tight on left foot/nervey stuff, etc.) which I think was for the sciatic nerve. My only injury was a hamstring tear/pop and some sprained ankles, which I know have healed. They diagnosed me with piriformis syndrome and physical therapy. You are right that I need to focus psychologically and not structurally - where I get tripped up is when I do the treadmill, for example, or vinyasa yoga, I start focusing on every little thing my left leg is doing, and I compare it to my right leg. Then I get scared. The pain has definitely diminished at times or been better/worse, but it has never fully left. I have always felt like something is off/wrong/screwed up in the leg ever since the symptoms began. I suppose that is part of TMS and what I have to keep working through.

 

[JoeHealingTms]

where I get tripped up is when I do the treadmill, for example, or vinyasa yoga, I start focusing on every little thing my left leg is doing, and I compare it to my right leg. Then I get scared. The pain has definitely diminished at times or been better/worse, but it has never fully left. I have always felt like something is off/wrong/screwed up in the leg ever since the symptoms began. I suppose that is part of TMS and what I have to keep working through.

Your brain is making a very through evaluation of how to scare you silly into pain. When you say you "have always felt like something is off/wrong/screwed up" you are conditioning yourself for the pain to not go away. See how you describe it yourself, you first get scared and then you feel the pain. Stop scaring yourself and learn to feel these sensations without being scared. If you had anything like you make yourself believe, you could not do either treadmill or yoga. Your subconscious anger and conscious personality have more to do with it than anything else. Try to start recognizing which triggers in both of them you might have that are activating your leg and back pain.