Tingling/buzzing/prickly/itchy feet - Is this TMS?

Hi all,

I recently discovered Dr. Sarno and the TMS theory and I read the Mindbody Prescription in a couple of days. I am now moving onto The Divided Mind. I find TMS fascinating and I believe that it explains the debilitating symptoms that I have had for the past few months.

I am a 22-year-old male and a newcomer to this thread. I wanted to ask for your opinion on whether my symptoms fall under TMS and its equivalents, and whether anyone can relate to what I've been experiencing. To keep things as short as I can, here is what I've been experiencing:

(all symptoms occur persistently, 24/7...)

-Tingling sensation in the feet and legs; feels like little bugs crawling underneath my skin
-Buzzing sensation in the feet and legs; feels like a cell phone going off on vibrate inside my feet
-Prickly/pin-stabbing sensation in my feet
-Occasionally, feeling of electric shock sensation
-Random spots of itchiness in my feet, legs, and sometimes arms and hands

All of these symptoms started 3 months ago when I went through some major life transitions and life events, including the end of a serious relationship, graduating from college, and a potential change in career choice. During that time, I developed severe anxiety and was having several panic attacks every week. I have been put on medication and am in the recovery process. Although my anxiety and panic attacks have improved significantly, I still have these persistent physical symptoms in my feet and legs which have not stopped for months.

Actually, about 2 years ago I had similar symptoms and received blood work, MRIs, and nerve conduction studies, all of which came back normal. My symptoms eventually disappeared for a year, but now, 2 years later, they are back, worse than ever.

What are your thoughts on this? Is this TMS? What are some quick tips on how I can get started on the road to overcoming these symptoms?

Thank you all for your wonderful help and advice!

 

Yep, all symptoms you mention I can relate to, only nowadays they very rarely visit me. Anxiety and anger were a big issue with me, and since that died down, so did my symptoms.
Remembering being as old as you are, it was a very stressful and confusing time with some big transitions that I needed to go through. No wonder this can lead to all kinds of symptoms.
You might wanna go have a GP rule out anything serious, but they didn't find anything wrong the last time, so.... it's up to you. Maybe if you mention to him/her that you suspect an emotional cause, he/she may even approve with your self-diagnosis and give you a genuine smile of recognition.
take care!

 

Hi, Introverted. I wish I was 22 (I'm 84) and learned about TMS when I was that age.
You've gone through some major life changes so it's no wonder that you developed pains.
They will go away when you follow the SEP and do some journaling about all that has happened
to you, recently and back when you were a child.

Don't forget to add laughter to your healing. It really works. The more you can lighten up on yourself
and find ways to be happy, the faster you will heal.

Dr. Sarno says that we need to practice his 12 Daily Reminders. Herbie wrote an expanded version
that I like. I think it would help if you thought about them each day:

Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but its caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does cause real pain too.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or in anxiety then the the blood is restricted from going to your lower back for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain - remember, where theirs no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, The pain stays because of fear and focus to physical organic symptoms and repressions.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from tms healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. Tmsers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits,traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks its helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you wont have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed cause you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear then I feed the pain, If I fear Its impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless.If I want to work against the pain I could but its better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I=t have to be in pain trying to heal cause facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my bodies ability to heal now. I can move how I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how its hidden -- its illusion, Its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face everyone of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present, in flow.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling. The science behind mind-body/tms healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of tms. Tms will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off psychical symptoms and on emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore thus making the tms of no effect. This will in return, give us the cure.

 

Hi Gigalos and Walt,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my questions with your encouragement and feedback. I would like to follow-up with a few more questions that I'm hoping you can help me answer...

I am no longer scared of my symptoms as I used to be, but the biggest problem for me right now is trying to figure out why my symptoms continue to persist after 3.5 months. I have actually been working at addressing my underlying fears and personality traits for the past 3 months (working with a therapist who specializes in psychosomatic and anxiety disorders), but my symptoms have continued and present very erratically; they often get worse when I'm calm, and they continue to occur 24/7, which makes it very difficult to focus and to concentrate because my attention is always on my symptoms no matter how hard I try to divert my attention from them. I've learned not to react to my symptoms with fearful thoughts, but they still cause me a TON of discomfort and I can't seem to "move on" with my life doing things that I would typically do because my symptoms make it impossible for me to do so, i.e. rigorous exercise, studying, etc.

How long did it take to resolve all your symptoms? Do you have any suggestions on how I can recover FULLY? Should I go through the SED and Alan Gordon's recovery program -- is that enough, or are there other things that I should do? I'm trying to book an appointment with a TMS practitioner near my area as well.

I'm also finding it difficult to answer this question: Is the key to overcoming symptoms to simply FORGET about the symptoms and pretend like they don't exist and to not let them bother you, or is the key to face them head-on and everyday practice strategies that are supposed to help to eliminate them? It seems to me that all the exercises and strategies that I do, i.e. meditation, visiting doctors, studying the TMS websites and reading Dr. Sarno's books, only REINFORCES to me that my symptoms are HERE; that is, my life has been consumed by THINKING about my symptoms almost all day. Is this the wrong way to go about it?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

Hi intro,

I'll try to give you some thoughts that might help you,

The key is to ACCEPT symptoms for what they are; repressed emotions. In other words, feel or acknowledge them without reacting in a negative way. Mindfulness for example can help you with this. If you fear them, they'll persist, you've made progress with that. But also if you fight them, they'll persist. With this I do not mean that you should stop being physically active because of a symptom, but fighting as in resisting, getting angry at your situation. You can occasionally get mad at your mind for distracting you from an unconscious emotion, but don't get mad at yourself again and again for not making progress. Once you start to really accept them, the goal of the symptom (distraction) is gone and it will slowly (or quickly) start to die down. It is as if you not only accept the symptoms, it is indirectly accepting the emotions behind them. You sort of take away the emotion's cloak and start to learn more about what brings it on. From there you can start making changes in how you normally approach certain (made up) situations or thoughts that bring them on.

It seems to me that you are a little bit obsessed by getting better. Obsession is just another distraction and it makes you angry or anxious. This shows real determination, but it will stress you too and that won't help you very much. Again, accept that you have mindbody symptoms instead of fighting them by doing things in a strained way to get better. This doesn't mean you should sit down defeated, but just try to carry on living as well as you can without stressing yourself out all and every day. Be patient, don't set a date, live in the moment, not in the future. Work an hour max per day on your TMS by meditating or following a program, the rest of the day is to live your life. You might reflect once and a while or get distracted, but soon go back to living in the moment again.

I am still not fully recovered, although it's less than 10% of what it used to be, in severity and the time that it takes to let it die down. And I expect that TMS will always be part of me, only in a very mild form compared to what it used to be. I see it as my little personal barometer for internal stress

Go see that practitioner, it might calm you down a bit and give you some spot on advice. Or go do the program, but remember to do it in a way that doesn't stress you out. Journaling is fine, but don't do it three hours a day. Meditation is fine, but don't do it three times a day for an hour.

You say that symptoms rise when you are calm. I am not surprised. I get pain in my groin when I lie down at my sofa.... It is as if the mind sees a threat in you getting in a state of mind in which emotions might become exposed. It needs to distract you from this. You could also see the rise of symptoms as a result of you being less distracted from them by other things, therefore they seem to be more at the foreground.

One powerful tool that I developed during my trip here is an affirmation. Use it when you find yourself getting obsessed, angry, impatient or doubtful : I feel calm, relaxed, patient and confident. Hope you benefit from it too.

take care!

 

Thank you Gigalos for your insight!

 

Did he get better?
I have the same sensations @Gigalos

 

I was wondering the same thing! I have these sensations as well.

 

Yeah been battling this for 3 years with two great years just this years been bad.

wbu?

 

I have this come from time to time. I just found my tingling and shock symptoms changed to ice cold feet. It’s a sign this is most likely TMS. Even weirder I read on the message board about a guy who had cold feet too. He told the cold feet to move to another part of his body and it did classic tms. I tried this and within 2 hours cold knees. TMS is so strange. Have you tried the program on this site? If I’m being honest I start and stop. I need to fully commit.