I've been here on and off over the past few months, following some pretty debilitating mid-back and rib pain that turned out to be TMS. In its peak, I couldn't sit for extended periods in any chair, and couldn't sleep well at all as the pain would show up the longer I stayed lying down for.
I managed to tackle the pain once I realised it was TMS. The daytime pain went away first, as that was the easiest one to out-think. The night time pain hung around a bit longer, but eventually (once I became convinced that the reason it felt better when I slept on my sofa was simply because I was conditioned to think that, rather than because it actually provided benefit to me) it did. Since then (I think it was some time in July) I've slept on a normal mattress, with no foam topper pads, and been completely pain free at nights.
...Until recently...
For the last couple of weeks, I've noticed feeling the same pain when I awake in the mornings. Sometimes, I'll get it a little during the night too. It's nowhere near the stage it was at last time, but it's enough (and frequent enough) to get me thinking I need to act on it.
But I'm not totally sure it's TMS. Earlier this year, I got sick with a couple of illnesses within close succession, and after that, my body felt totally wiped out for some time. I couldn't really do any kind of physical exertion as it left me feeling totally zonked the next day. So I took it easy for a while. Throughout this time, there was no TMS pain whatsoever. I'm only mentioning TMS now for context. At the time, I wasn't even thinking about it. It was a distant memory. My main concern was getting my energy back.
Once the fatigue subsided, I went back to being more active again. In late october, we had a public holiday here in NZ, and I spent a lot of it outside in the garden. This has always been a bit of a trigger for back pain for me, and interestingly, back at work the next day, there were a few others complaining of back pain as they too had been active outside for a while.
That was really the first memory I have of the night-time pain starting back up again.
Since then, I've been trying to be active more, and succeeding. But it also occurred recently that the timing of that does coincide with the return of my night-time pain.
So my question is, how do I know whether the recent return of my back pain has been triggered by daytime activities, or TMS?
I know I've had it before where TMS pain kicks in DURING exercise (which is ironic, given I used to think that exercise helped ease the pain) so there does seem to be some kind of subconscious association in my mind between using the back muscles and TMS pain. Hmm... reading that again, it kind of sounds like I've answered my own question. It's probably not the daytime activities. It's the fact that they trigger TMS that's the issue.
Ok... Suggestions, anyone?
I managed to tackle the pain once I realised it was TMS. The daytime pain went away first, as that was the easiest one to out-think. The night time pain hung around a bit longer, but eventually (once I became convinced that the reason it felt better when I slept on my sofa was simply because I was conditioned to think that, rather than because it actually provided benefit to me) it did. Since then (I think it was some time in July) I've slept on a normal mattress, with no foam topper pads, and been completely pain free at nights.
...Until recently...
For the last couple of weeks, I've noticed feeling the same pain when I awake in the mornings. Sometimes, I'll get it a little during the night too. It's nowhere near the stage it was at last time, but it's enough (and frequent enough) to get me thinking I need to act on it.
But I'm not totally sure it's TMS. Earlier this year, I got sick with a couple of illnesses within close succession, and after that, my body felt totally wiped out for some time. I couldn't really do any kind of physical exertion as it left me feeling totally zonked the next day. So I took it easy for a while. Throughout this time, there was no TMS pain whatsoever. I'm only mentioning TMS now for context. At the time, I wasn't even thinking about it. It was a distant memory. My main concern was getting my energy back.
Once the fatigue subsided, I went back to being more active again. In late october, we had a public holiday here in NZ, and I spent a lot of it outside in the garden. This has always been a bit of a trigger for back pain for me, and interestingly, back at work the next day, there were a few others complaining of back pain as they too had been active outside for a while.
That was really the first memory I have of the night-time pain starting back up again.
Since then, I've been trying to be active more, and succeeding. But it also occurred recently that the timing of that does coincide with the return of my night-time pain.
So my question is, how do I know whether the recent return of my back pain has been triggered by daytime activities, or TMS?
I know I've had it before where TMS pain kicks in DURING exercise (which is ironic, given I used to think that exercise helped ease the pain) so there does seem to be some kind of subconscious association in my mind between using the back muscles and TMS pain. Hmm... reading that again, it kind of sounds like I've answered my own question. It's probably not the daytime activities. It's the fact that they trigger TMS that's the issue.
Ok... Suggestions, anyone?
