Symptoms Worsening

[ARCUser831]

Hi all, I am having a hard time the past several days. I have recently started to earnestly apply the TMS principles to help overcome my symptoms, which has included ceasing all physical treatments.

I have had pelvic pain, urinary urgency, and sciatica symptoms on and off for almost a year. So for me, the primary physical treatments have been daily stretching and trigger point therapy. I have believed that with these treatments, I have not cured my symptoms but have been able to keep the worst of it at bay. Now, without those things, the pain and urgency is feeling worse than it has in a long time.

Part of me thinks that this is my fear, because if I've believed that has been helping, then it makes sense that stopping would make it feel worse. Unfortunately these worsening symptoms are making it hard not to think again that this is structural, or maybe I've chosen extremely poor timing to develop a UTI. But I've been there before, and it's never been a UTI.

I'm hoping to hear from people who have struggled through this...what if because I'm not doing physical treatments anymore, I've turned pain that I can fend off for periods at a time to a daily struggle? It's been almost 2 weeks of fairly constant discomfort, I wake up each morning thinking maybe it wont be so bad today.

I'm feeling really disheartened right now and working very hard not to let my anxiety get the better of me.

 

[Cactusflower]

It is actually not uncommon to have worsening symptoms as you do the TMS work. Your brain kept you "safe" by having you focus on the symptoms, and the "cause" as being physical. Now you've introduced to it that you are on to it's mechanism, that it was actually keeping you safe from feeling intense emotions from your true internal stressors. At times our brains will then amp up their safety mechanisms and anxiety can increase, symptoms increase.
If you are really doing tms work - (I don't know what you are doing for these "TMS principals" ) then rest assured, your brain and body are reacting in a common manner and you are headed down a good path. Keep going.
Sometimes our thinking that today is going to be a better day is actually a defense mechanism of fear - we really deeply think we aren't going to be better. We're doing the old slapping on the happy face and trying to make it all better. Sometimes this works, and sometimes we just need to really lean into the fact that today is hard, that you feel sad, angry, frustrated and that's all OK. It's pretty natural to feel that way. The key is not to continually get stuck there (this is what Dr. Hanscom calls "the abyss".) It's where self soothing, meditations, being with your self for a bit, doing self-care like a warm bath with a candle, reading a soothing book or watching a movie that we truly love, taking a walk in nature - whatever it is we can do to feel comforted, safe, and able to be with our feelings and emotions.
This process can take time.
Dr. Bri is a youtuber who focuses on pelvic health. Her channel has been all about exercise, yoga, sometimes mindset and other things...but recently she posted her story of a flare up of symptoms which she now realizes is pretty much all emotionally and stress related (although she avoids using the term TMS). She candidly discusses her anxiety, the reasons why she became so stressed out emotionally, her reactions and behaviors to her anxiety and symptoms and how she has been able to cover come them. You probably want to ignore the rest of her channel, but I think this will hit home: