Struggling to believe in ANY cure

Hi everyone!

I'm so excited to have discovered this place! You're all amazing! I have a million questions but they're being answered rapidly as I work my way through the material on here.

My biggest problem I suppose is that I'm still at the 95-99% acceptance level. When I'm on here it all makes sense, but when I try and explain it to other people, especially my friend with Fibromyalgia who has tried everything but has never heard of this and is 'sceptical of miracle cures' then I feel less sure.

I'm not really struggling to accept that it's an emotional rather than structural root cause – that's fairly easy for me as there's basically no structural abnormalities anywhere in my body, and I do fit the TMS personality type to a tee. I suppose I more struggle to believe there could be any cure, especially any that would work this quickly. I hadn't given up completely on the possibility that I could get better but I'd started to believe my physio and consultant who said that in their experiences recovery would take months if not years. And slowly and subconsciously I suppose I'd been conditioning myself to accept that there might not be a cure.

A brief history of my case: I'd done ballet all my life but the intensity and frequency was increasing quite a lot about four years ago, and I started to get a dull pain in my left achilles when doing certain steps, and a couple of months later another pain in my right foot. Both of them felt similar to other issues I'd had, which tended to go away within a month or so if I eased off a bit on my training. These didn't – though I hadn't really rested properly because I was preparing for a big show. Then the left foot started hurting too. Then, about six months after the pain had first started, something seemed to change, in addition to these three points of pain, I also had a dull ache all over both feet which bothered me at ballet but also outside of it, when standing up or walking, which was noticeably worse the longer I was on my feet or the more weight I was carrying.

Eventually, about a year after the first pain had first started, I accepted that I really needed this to go away because it was getting in the way of life too much, so decided to stop dancing completely. That I was sure would fix it. While the three specific points became less problematic, the general aching remained, and the three points came back when I did anything particularly intense.

After I'd been two years with the pain, and nearly one year without doing ballet, with no improvement at all (and my life getting steadily more miserable), I read an amazing book on ballet technique which convinced me that I'd been doing some things a bit wrong, which my teacher hadn't picked up on, and that was causing the pain. That seemed a quite common problem in ballet, and was worse for people with flat feet, which I had. So I started back at ballet at a very gentle pace, with a big effort to improve my technique. For the next year still nothing changed. I did some ballet, I did some climbing which was another hobby of mine, but I didn't do either to a very intense level, which wasn't particularly satisfying. I avoided walking and carrying weight.

By this point (last October), I'd been three years with the pain, and had seen: a physiotherapist, an osteopath, a podiatrist, a massage therapist, a consultant in sports medicine, another podiatrist, two more physiotherpaists, a foot surgeon specialising in ballet dancers, another orthodics specialist, a Raynaud's specialist, and London's best ballet physiotherapist, been given four sets of orthodics, numerous foot and core strength exercises, numerous stretches, and a steroids injection to my ankle. Xrays and MRIs had shown almost nothing of interest other than an extra bone in my ankle (hence the steroids) which subsequent doctors said was completely unrelated. The only thing that really helped was the massage, but only for a few hours.

Despite the lack of improvement I felt like I'd found a good physio who had a plan to get me better. I suppose I'd also got to the point of starting to accept the pain and not dwell on it too much. I could live with it and if I got better that would be a bonus. I was starting to find things I was interested in and passionate about again and actually enjoying most aspects of my life for the first time in years, when all of a sudden I got a terrible onset of RSI, followed a couple of months later by back pain, achilles pain, shoulder pain, jaw pain, neck pain and knee pain. These have all gone up and down in the last year, leading me to a consultant who specialises in whole body pain, who recommended regular physiotherapy, private pilates classes, core stability exercises and stretches, and put me on muscle relaxant (pregabalin), ibuprofen and continuation of the Raynaud's medication. His next suggestion was to try botox injections to ease the tightness in my muscles.

That's basically where I was at until a couple of weeks ago when my boyfriend, who also has suffered on and off with RSI pain and numbness for a number of years and has tried everything ergonomic and is starting down the physio/osteo path, found Sarno and I devoured everything I could find on TMS, plus started to think long and hard about repressed emotions.

So here I am.

I'm basically pretty angry at all the doctors out there because they've all told me different things, and all been basically wrong. The three most recent people I've been seeing though had all been converging on a common message, but it still wasn't particularly convincing (combination of weakness in some muscles and tightness in other muscles meaning certain bits got overused and strained).

TMS by far makes the most sense. I guess I'm mainly afraid of getting my hopes up, again, that this might be the key to fixing my problems, when every other time it hasn't been. But I suppose I have to believe there is a cure, unless I'm literally prepared to believe that there is no cure – which I think, on balance, is harder to accept, at least now I've met all of you.

I'm definitely willing to learn as much as possible about TMS: reading books, hearing others' stories and really starting to reflect on my life experiences, personality traits and emotions. I've been noticing I have other TMS equivalents: Raynaud's, ezema, etc. plus a whole bunch of other things that I think may be TMS related but not sure. I'm trying to dedicate as much time outside of work as I can to this – it feels like a great new hobby: project get life back.

Already I've stopped all the medication and done everything I can to return to pain-free life: cycling, dancing, wearing heels, eating apples, etc. Though it's only been one week, some of the pain seems much better, while other bits are the same or slightly worse. Despite my remaining scepticism I'm incredibly excited, I feel more passionate about this than I have about anything since ballet. At the same time I am also fearful because if I have no restrictions on my life I will need to make some big decisions about what I dedicate my life/time to which is a hugely stressful prospect because I have never liked to make choices!

Looking forward to working together to fix this m*********** of a problem.

Whirling Dervish

 

Hi, Whirlign Dervish. A great name for a ballet dancer! I love Giselle and have seen it performed several times by European companies
including the Royal Danish ballet. I also love the ballet sequences in the opera Tales of Hoffman. My own dancing has been mainly
polkas and waltzes because I'm part Polish and Austrian.

Welcome to the TMS forums community. I healed from severe back pain through believing 100 percent that it was caused by TMS repressed
emotions and my perfectionist and "goodist" personality of wanting everyone to like me for everything. I journaled to discover why I was angry at my parents and older brother, since Dr. Sarno says most of our TMS pain comes from anger over things that happened in our childhood and that over
the years turns into rage which creates pain.

You are going to heal because you show you have a strong belief in TMS causing your pain. You have to believe this 100 percent, because even
90 or 99 percent will keep your subconscious into thinking you aren't a TMS believer.

If you haven't begun the free Structured Education Program in one of the forums, I suggest you do because it's an excellent way to learn about
TMS and how to heal your pain.

Be sure to read the success stories of those who have healed through TMS techniques.

You didn't mention any repressed emotions or emotional stresses, and that's where you will need to go to heal. It's a wonderful journey that
may not heal you overnight or in a week or two, but depending on your belief and willingness to practice TMS healing techniques,
you will heal. It takes some people longer but they do heal. You also will learn more about yourself and others in your life, both past and present,
and it will lead you to a happier, much healthier life.

It's even okay to resume normal daily physical activity and it won't make your pain worse. Even resuming ballet exercises or practices can be helpful in healing. Just don't push yourself too hard. Take your time in healing. It will happen.

 

Hi Walt,

Thanks for your post. It definitely helps to read success stories like yours and I'm sure that is the key to my final few % acceptance. I suppose I just need to tip the balance towards knowing more people that have recovered from chronic pain than haven't, so I guess that's only a matter of time. Should be simple really!

I didn't want to go into too much detail about my emotions because I thought my post was long enough already! (Goodist, wanting to be liked, etc.!) I'm also a bit self-conscious about posting anything before I've had a chance to talk to my boyfriend because I expect he'll join this forum soon to deal with his RSI and ideally we'd talk things through together first rather than read about each other's emotions online! But he's away and I'd rather wait til he's back before we talk, and I do feel like it is useful to get this off my chest while I think of it. (If you do happen to be reading this darling, welcome, and I hope nothing is too surprising!)

I'm sure there's a long way to go but so far I've discovered:

• I am overwhelmed by choice about what to do with my life, having always been told I was smart and 'could do anything I wanted', plus always having had a lot of things I was passionate about. I've always found it difficult to make decisions because I am generally enthusiastic about everything and want it all! At the same time I don't want to do anything half-heartedly, because I like to be the best at everything.
• I'm always positive and see the good in everyone and everything. I have a tendency to want to 'fix things' and always look for solutions to problems, especially in terms of mediating arguments (which I always did between my parents as a child), and see it as my duty to cause the world to be a better place. This excites me but I also resent it because it restricts my options somewhat. It's also driven by a guilt that I have had things 'too good' in life, and a worry that I'm not doing enough to make things better.
• I have repressed anger towards my parents for arguing a lot while I was growing up and me having to be the sensible one that resolved things. I have anger towards my mum for being quite protective of me and setting a lot of boundaries. For most of my life I was well-behaved and respected her rules, and where I disagreed she was mostly happy to reach compromises. But as I got older I did find it very frustrating that some of her boundaries were non-negotiable and I couldn't wait to break free and get away as far as possible to be my own boss.
• I am very rational and try to see patterns in everything and put everything in boxes. I always try to make rational decisions rather than going with 'gut feelings'. I did go through a phase in my life when I was much more emotional and spontaneous, though even then never really got angry. I miss this time in my life and would like to be able to be this way again, but I also really like being the rational and levelheaded one, which I always was in childhood, and have become again, mostly due to my boyfriend's influence. Again, I want to be both these somewhat contradictory things.
• My boyfriend is equally if not more rational and levelheaded than me, also highly driven and motivated to do things well and make things better, so I get the impression that he is very much a TMS type too. I have quite a lot of repressed anger at him for restricting my freedom and making me choose a way of life (i.e. to settle down with him in the UK). While I enjoy our life together it clearly excludes some of the myriad other things I would like to be doing. I also have repressed anger that he is so driven and better than I am at some things, which my perfectionism can't deal with.
• In terms of when my pain started, it was a year into our relationship, so I'd just finished uni which was when I had initially planned to leave the UK, but didn't, mainly because of our relationship. I didn't have a clear plan but I'd just discovered a whole new world of social justice activism, and was getting more and more into ballet than I'd ever been before. So I feel that my pain may have been a response to the anxiety of overwhelming choice of what to do next, combined with the anger that I was restricted in what I could choose. The sudden onslaught of new pain 12 months ago I can attribute to the fact that I'd stopped dwelling so much on the foot pain, or maybe because I'd started to fill my life with lots of things I was passionate about again and still hadn't dealt with the repressed anger/fear.

I'm not really sure what to do with these emotions but I'm not worried because I'm sure that by the time I've finished all the books and hundreds of forum posts and wiki articles and have gone through and read all of the journals I've been writing since the age of 12 (for more clues), I'll have a much better idea what's going on. I thought I'd also look into parts therapy as I feel like a lot of this stems from contradictory desires and emotions. Also I'm sure I need to talk to my boyfriend!

 

You say you're involved in Social Justice Activism. The centerpiece of that movement is anger and victimization. Many of those groups, with which I've either been involved with or have observed, seem to be cheerleaders for anger, rage, defiance and battles against perceived injustices. What a witch's brew for TMS. It might be helpful to take a sabbatical from this part of your life, at least for a while, and see if things don't improve.

 

Hi Sam,
Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure which groups you're referring to but the groups I've been involved with haven't been defined by anger and victimisation at all, they've been fun, family-friendly and creative. But I agree with you that there is a lot of passion and frustration for the cause, a lot of people are very very driven and it is easy to feel 'not ethical enough' around them. My involvement has been on and off in the last four years and the pain hasn't correlated - thanks for the idea though

 

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Louise has a Master's degree in Guidance Counseling and diplomas in both Clinical Advanced Hypnotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Hypno-Psychotherapy (Hypno-CBT). Louise was one of the first practitioners to go through the SIRPA Practitioner Training Programme with Georgie Oldfield, MCSP, and became an Advanced Specialist of Chronic Pain in 2011. She says, “Working as a therapist means I am consulted on a range of conditions affecting the mind and the body. I am particularly passionate about supporting people with TMS and chronic pain as I myself suffered from severe TMS back pain for 12 years.” Louise offers both face to face and telephone consultations.

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Georgie Oldfield said, "Despite being a Physiotherapist, Dr Sarno's concept and approach was not a surprise to me. For many years prior to coming across this work in 2007 I had been looking for the answer to the many inconsistencies I had been observing with my own patients. I had also already begun to realise that pain often did not appear to be related to the structural problems patients had been diagnosed with. Coming across TMS was an epiphany moment for me and has completely changed my whole understanding and therefore how I work. Having seen the remarkable and often life changing recoveries in my own patients, I am passionate about working with people with TMS/PPD and 100% of my time over the past few years has been developing this work and raising the profile in the UK.

Since developing SIRPA I continue to work in a clinical role working with people who suffer from TMS/PPD. Although based in Yorkshire I also run regular assessment clinics in London and Bristol. Through SIRPA I also run training courses for other regulated Health Professionals in order to help them integrate this approach into their own work. Our aim is to raise the profile of this work by increasing the awareness of stress illness to the public and Practitioners as well as the Medical world.”(Source)

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Practitioner Jane ParkinsonJane Parkinson, UKCP (Therapist)
Jane Parkinson is a registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist in the United Kingdom. She trained at the Bowlby Centre and has over twenty years of clinical experience, 7 of those years has involved patients with TMS. In October of 2012, she attended the PPDA Conference: When Stress Causes Pain, where she developed relationships with other TMS practitioners. Parkinson uses an Attachment-based form of psychotherapy that has at its core an understanding of the importance of relationships to human growth and development throughout life. In addition, she works with TMS physician Nick Straiton, and does conduct therapy sessions using Skype.(Source)

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Rachel Stevens

 

Thanks Tom. I've seen there are a few people in the UK. I thought I'd wait 3-4 weeks before visiting someone, to see if symptoms subside through the work I'm doing on my own. Though would value people's thoughts on whether there's any advantage in seeing someone straight away.

 

You've seen a g'zillion other white-coats who have filled your mindbody with NOCEBOS. They are our modern day shamans, our culture is taught to believe what they tell us is TRUTH. I've played too much tennis with docs to believe all their calls, they miss some too. But, I try not to piss them off too much since they might save my life if I keel over on the adjoining court or in the hot-tub someday. I've seen people brought back to life at least three time by docs, or those who knew CPR, and didn't just run around hysterically trying to call 911 not knowing where their location was.

So, either way, you don't need a TMS physician or practitioner to cure you of TMS, but if the other allopaths haven't emptied your pockets completely it wouldn't hurt to consult with one to make sure you're on the right path--it's like having a great dance coach, they can hasten your journey so you don't have to reinvent the wheel or the pirouette.

Cheers & G'luck!
tt