Temporary pain -> chronic pain

[Manjuno]

My apologies for getting back to what I've already mentioned in another post but I do think it might deserve a separate discussion.

So, do any of you find yourselves in a pattern: minor injury -> injury-related pain -> obsessive thinking about the injury -> pain stays for good instead of going away?

This happens to me all the time:
- I bent my knee incorrectly when playing football = pain lasting 4 years now
- I hiked for 80 kms with a heavy backpack = pain in the shoulder for almost 2 years now
- I straightened my finger excessively = pain in the finger for almost a year now
- I made a sudden move with my hand when fooling around = pain in the back for 6 months now
- I clumsily kicked with my leg while exercising = pain in the left knee for 2 months now
- Yesterday, while running, I got a cramp in my buttock = ???

I'm really trying to stay active but it seems every activity I take leads to some permanent pain. I find it difficult to not stress out about it while collecting all those pains throughout the years.

No therapist has been able to help with any of the mentioned pains despite my countless visits to them at one point (I must have visited about 10 different therapists, each with their own approach). What's curious, they don't really see any structural problem and they say my muscles aren't even that tense . They're all perplexed and amazed that their methods don't work on any of my pain.

Yes, I know I shouldn't be focusing on the pain etc. but I've been wondering how common this issue is in TMS and I guess I'm looking for some reinforcement at this point.

 

[Duggit]

Mark R. Hutchinson is a prominent pain scientist. About 5 years ago he wrote the following:

"When someone is asked to think about pain, he or she will typically envision a graphic wound or a limb bent at an unnatural angle. However, chronic pain, more technically known as persistent pain, is a different beast altogether. In fact, some would say that the only thing that acute and persistent pain have in common is the word “pain.” The biological mechanisms that create and sustain the two conditions are very different.”
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Although I know nothing about the therapists you've seen, I suspect that they have been trained to treat the mechanisms of acute pain and that, understandably given their training, they know little or nothing about addressing the mechanisms of persistent pain. Maybe you should regard the fact that their treatments have not helped your persistent pain as credible evidence that your problem is what Dr. Sarno called TMS and Dr. Schubiner calls psychophysiologic or neural pathway pain.

Yes, I know I shouldn't be focusing on the pain . . . .

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as an "unpleasant sensory and emotion experience.” The experience is so unpleasant that you can’t really ignore it. That feature of the pain experience is great if you have a physical injury like a sprained ankle. The pain induces you to take it easy on your ankle so you don’t injure it worse and so healing can occur uninterrupted. The trouble is that the pain of TMS can be just as unpleasant of a sensory and emotional experience as physical injury pain. There is more to recovering from persistent pain than not focusing on it, which I regard as a pretty unattainable goal. Maybe a better goal would be not fearing that the pain means you have damaged or defective body tissue that will never get better and will worsen if you are physically active. This goal can be difficult but is not unattainable. The task, at least in significant part, is finding evidence credible to you that the cause of your persistent pain is not damaged or defective body tissue.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

do any of you find yourselves in a pattern: minor injury -> injury-related pain -> obsessive thinking about the injury -> pain stays for good instead of going away?

This is the textbook description of TMS.

already mentioned in another post but I do think it might deserve a separate discussion.

This seems like your TMS brain is messing with your rational mind.