The line between physical and mind

Hey guys

enjoying the forum so far, recently joined.

I have a question/thought that I’d like feedback on. I fully am onboard with TMS being my problem and I have seen huge strides in more recent times. My question/thought is this

physical injury can occur. Physical trauma can occur. And pain can be felt by something going on physically. Which sounds so very obvious.

how to people manage this? I’ll give an example.

let’s say you’ve had a very active week, with work and maybe exercise etc and you develop pain in a particular area of your body. It could be attributed to TMS or it could be that there has actually been a physical incidence that has caused discomfort.

have people in the community ever been at odds with this. You don’t want to focus too much on the physical, but based on activity it is possible you could have done something physical...or you might not have done. To focus on the physical would be to play into TMS, but we are all human and things can physically happen.

how do you guys manage this balancing act. Obviously I’m not talking about serious accidents here, in that case investigation may be required.

but something that you wouldn’t deem extremely serious, how do you manage the fine line.

You could have done something that has physically caused you harm and needs managing as such.

or it could simply be TMS running away.

Does anyone else see any dangerous balancing act of placing every single physical pain/ailment at the feet of TMS. I know a lot of it may be fear that prompts you to think it could be more. You don’t want to open the can of worms of going down the physical investigative route, but sometimes that may be warranted?

but physical things do happen and we cant surely place all of it, all of the time on TMS.


I hope that rambling makes sense to some at least

 

There is a difference between acute pain and chronic pain (or other TMS symptoms). Acute pain may well be the body signalling that there has been a physical injury that should be attended to in some way depending on the nature of the pain. For chronic pain we always recommend that people consult a medical professional to rule out any physical/structural/medical problems before assuming their pain is due to TMS. Most of us on this Forum have seen many medical practitioners before we embark on a path of treating our symptoms as TMS.

Once one has come to believe their symptoms are TMS, then physical interventions should be halted, and symptoms treated as having a psychological cause.

So in summary, not all pain is TMS, and therefore, physical treatments are sometimes warranted.

 

thank you very much for your reply and that makes sense

hopefully you can give me your thoughts on the below? I’m not looking for a loophole by the way lol I have seen significant improvements since learning about TMS.

let’s say you have had chronic pain in a particular part of your body. All physical issues have been ruled out medically. You then develop a pain/problem elsewhere. Now that would be typical of TMS.

but let’s say the new area has never been an issue before. Logic would say it could be TMS. But you might actually have a physical issue. It’s not practical to have every area checked, when you feel pain, to rule out a physical cause.

so how would that be managed? It’s a new area of pain, typical of TMS, but there is the possibility something physical is wrong. With TMS moving around as it does, without getting every area checked, how do you manage that and sit back safe in the knowledge it is TMS, without having ruled out any physical problems in relation to the new area of pain?

it’s something I have been toiling with at times

 

Once we have some experience with treating our TMS, if a new pain or other symptom develops, then we can apply some criteria to determining if it is likely TMS. Things like does it move, is it on both sides, does it disappear when I'm distracted, is it there some days and not others, etc. If it doesn't seem to be behaving as TMS, then it is a good idea to bring it up with your medical practitioner.

Going down the road of TMS treatment involves learning about our symptoms and ourselves. We get better at this as time goes on, and can more clearly determine if something is TMS or not. Still, I get fooled sometimes and go down the medical/physical route for a symptom before I finally realize it is another manifestation of TMS. This is a journey, and sometimes we veer off the path, but we can always get right back on as we learn and adjust.

There are no hard and fast rules or methods since we are dealing with the human psyche in all its incredible complexity. We can provide some guidelines, but everyone has to figure things out for their particular unique set of challenges.

 

thank you for taking the time to respond, that certainly makes sense.

the most powerful part ; ‘we are dealing with the human psyche in all its incredible complexity’

that in, in one line, sums it all up in my opinion