Huh, I thought I posted a response agreeing with Celayne, but when this one posted, the first one wasn't there. Maybe I will rewrite, but in the meantime, this thread was started by
@sepultura, and I'd like to let you know that there's a good reason why neither of our excellent and experienced members responded to your specific question:
The reason they didn't answer this is because if your pain is actually caused by the TMS fear mechanism, the details are irrelevant, and finding someone with the same symptoms is not just irrelevant, but it's a distraction, designed to keep you in fear. It's actually pretty much guaranteed that your fear brain will create custom-made symptoms just so that you will not be able to find someone with your exact symptoms. Even if someone responds with something similar, your brain will convince you that it's not
exact, so it doesn't count. Seen this here SO many times.
Your search for an answer to this question is a distraction. And THIS is your brain on TMS.
You need to understand that pain is not actually created by damaged tissues. Physiologically and neurologically, when there is actual damaged tissue, or perhaps where a bad thing is taking place (like viruses in the GI tract) what happens is that nerve endings at that location send a danger message to the brain, where a pain (or other) signal is created and sent back to the location.
This is a fact.
Therefore, all pain or other distress (like nausea) is created by the brain, NOT by body parts. It has also been accepted, by studying phantom limb pain, that the brain will create pain, or other sensations, without the existence of the body part. Mindbody professionals have been able to show that our brains will create pain/sensations for no physiological reason - it's just harder to study when the body part still exists, and still harder to explain why our brains would do this - but as Dr. Sarno (and many others, he wasn't the first, he was just really good at explaining it) have been able to show, our brains are more than capable of doing this in order to cover up emotional pain and distress. In fact, as neurologists have explained, our primitive brains were designed to do this so we would stay alert for danger instead of getting bogged down in emotions.
In any case, MRIs seem to be the cover-your-ass response to pain that a doc can't diagnose. It's getting to the point where if a doc says that they don't know what's going on, but you might as well get an MRI, then you might as well diagnosis yourself with TMS. But please be warned, neither I, nor anyone on here, is a medical professional, so we can't diagnose you. That being said, most of us didn't bother to get a TMS "diagnosis" from a TMS professional - we accepted that the inability of our medical professionals to provide a concrete diagnosis and treatment meant that TMS was the only other logical diagnosis.
(I've had one MRI - it was for a really painful and growing nodule next to my Achilles tendon, and after the regular ortho ruled out a fluid cyst, the special ortho said he was pretty sure it was a benign tumor of the nerve sheath - but before cutting open my ankle, he needed an MRI to be sure, and to evaluate the extent of the growth near the tendon. He authorized an out-of-network referral to an ortho surgeon who specialized in these things. I have some dead nerve endings near the incision/excision which will probably always feel weird, but my Achilles was undamaged. Now THAT was a good use of an MRI!)
Anyway, all that being said - if no one is alarmed about whatever your condition is, then why not take the plunge and assume it's TMS? I can't tell if you've ever done any TMS work at all, but I read your post back in 2021, and it's pretty obvious that no matter what else might be going on, that you suffer from TMS (most mindbody professional are now only referring to it as MBS or PPD - psycho-physiologic disorder, but we still call it TMS in honor of Dr. Sarno).
The thing is, you're not going to experience progress just by asking for reassurance on this forum - you've got to do the work. It's worth it!
The thing is, it can't hurt, because it's not invasive, and it won't impede any truly necessary medical (or dental) process. Heck, doing this work has helped me to get through dental work without taking Xanax ahead of time, and even without asking for extra numbing shots! (I feel sorry for my dentist "Before Sarno" LOL).
It not only can't hurt, but it doesn't have to cost anything. The two programs we have here cost nothing and don't require any kind of signup (even non-members of the forum can work them). You should read at least one book by Dr. Sarno, which is not a huge investment, but they are easily available used, and also from many public libraries - I read the Divided Mind as a library e-book back in 2011 (that's the one I recommend because he includes chapters by other mind-body professionals including five MDs).
Do the work, and good luck.
~Jan
