TMS connection with eye issues?

Dee

Dee

New Member
I have worn contacts for more than 20 years. (I'm 36.) About three years ago, I started having many issues with my contacts. It got to the point where I stopped wearing them and only wore my glasses for nearly a year and a half. I tried every sort of contacts available - even hard contacts, which were a nightmare. Nothing worked. And I had never had eye or contact problems before. The eye doctors said I had symptoms of dry eye, but not bona fide dry eye. I was put on different prescription drops, etc. Again, I still couldn't wear my contacts. For a year and half, they just couldn't figure out what was wrong or why no contacts would work. About a year ago, I was finally prescribed a type of contacts that didn't irritate my eyes and I stopped wearing my glasses every day. It was at about this same time that I read Sarno's book and my life changed completely. I started to gain control of my back, knee and shoulder pain. I started to gain control of my physical self again. And I started to understand all of the underlying emotional issues that were contributing to my pain. For the past year, I have had no eye issues. I have been wearing contacts with no problems. I have increased my phyiscal activity dramatically in terms of exercising again, and my pain issues have decreased by about 95%.

Today, I went back to the eye doctor for the first time in a year for a regular checkup. The doctor told me that everything looked extremely health and fantastic and "whatever I was doing was working." She said she couldn't believe we had had so many issues in the past. I asked her why she thought I had all of those problems and she didn't really have an explanation. She said sometimes the body will just throw up an "anti-inflammatory" response. She said I could sit and analyze it all day and probably never figure it out.

However, my theory is that my eye issues were just one more distraction my brain threw at me - along with the chronic pain in my knee, back and shoulder - to keep me from focusing on all of the other emotional areas in my life that were problematic. I really have no other explanation and I suspected it last year when I was in the throes of trying to figure out what was wrong. Now that I'm a year out from it all, how else could you explain the fact that I went from not being able to wear contacts to being able to wear them 14 hours a day with no issues? And I just happened to read Sarno's book at the same time...

I just thought I would post this because I find the timing to be so spot-on with the fact that I read Sarno's book and started getting my life under control at the exact same time that my eyes stopped bothering me. I feel it's all intertwined. Maybe some of you have experienced a similar situation - or if you haven't and something like this happens to you, perhaps it's an offshoot of TMS??? I know this could just be me jumping to conclusions. But something tells me this is all somehow related.
 
Dee - Congrats on how far you have come! Without question TMS can effect our eyes. TMS will always try to find a symptom that will make you worry and be concerned about. If you weren't concerned about it, then there would be no distraction. People with glasses and contacts focus more on their eyes a lot, and this could easily make you susceptible to TMS. I know of a couple of other people on this board who have eye problems as well. It is great that you were able to understand what was going on, and to get through it. Thanks for sharing your success!
 
This is going to sound more than a bit crazy, but I am fairly convinced that my lifelong eye problems have been mostly tms. I started with very poor eyesight by age six, then having to give up contacts because of "dry eye" in my early 20s, then a very usual response to laser surgery (my eyes didn't heal for many months - scared the pants off the opthamologists) and now cataracts in both eyes. I am scheduled for cataract surgery soon but am not sure that I'm going to have it until I feel more confident that some hidden agenda is not sabotaging my sight. Did I say sounds crazy? Such is tms, though. We seem to be willing to suffer almost anything to avoid our issues.

I'm not saying that age, etc. hasn't played a role. I think, though, that our mind seizes on the most useful distraction.
 
Eye problems are mainly due to TMS (tension). Dr. Bates knew it 100 years ago but few people listened. For the most part we get glasses as kids because of anxiety/tension/anger/fear. The eyes change shape with tension, and the vision blurs. But there's so much money in the business, to be made, that no one cares why. The glasses were a quick fix avoidance just like back surgery. Now we all have glasses.

Things like dry eye also occur with TMS. I started to get it while writing my book. I began obsessing on it, blinking, blinking, blinking, then I suddenly realized, "hey, I'm writing about not obsessing, and now I'm obsessing?" It went away. Age may have something to do with it for sure, but the brain is using it as a tool to hide behind.

LASIK surgery destroyed my left cornea. A TMSer should be very cautious about trying it. You have to be in a certain state of mind for it to work (there are also things like keratoconos that exclude you from laser surgery, which it now looks like is also TMS).

I did LASIK at the height of my TMS, big mistake. I have keratoconus, I was never a candidate for LASIK, it started the disease process slowly blinding me. Then as I went to the websites of all the people whose laser eye surgery had failed, it was a real "eye opener." They all had severe TMS! It was so obvious the surgery had failed because they were TMSers, or were suffering from a bout of TMS. Most of them had allergies and back pain and fatigue, etc. I knew then that the success of surgery depended largely on the person's personality and emotional state.

If you have TMS, and it worked, you got very lucky, or didn't have much material obliterated. As Frank used to say, luck be a lady tonight.

Talk to your surgeon about TMS if you want to try LASIK, explain conus to him or her. It will make a world of difference. Once again, I had this problem like so many other disasters, lol. I suppose it was to warn others. To help, like a people's champion! Copyright, ForestForTrees, 2013.

Steve
 
Dee, that's a great story, and good for you!

All you have to remember is that our brains are in charge of every physiological process that occurs in the body.

Once you really, truly accept the reality of this statement, you will understand that your brain can create ANY kind of symptom that it is possible to have. And it will - it will go out of its way to create a brand-new symptom just for you, something you can't compare with someone else, something that will confound the medical so-called experts. It's your job to realize when it's doing this, and to stop worrying about it - which is what you did.

Keep up the great work,

Jan
 
AWESOME and thanks for sharing. I do also too believe eye issues can be emotionally caused. i also remember someone I met at Dr. Sarno's office who was diangosed with dry eye and Dr. Sarno told him it was TMS.

I have been doing a lot of work myself and my vision is one of the things I'm working on. I am thinking (and feeling) back to when i started to need glasses, I remember it was to see the blackboard in school, and what else was going on at that time that perhaps I did not want to see. Happy to report that my eyesight has improved the past five years in a row and my eye doc recently told me the same thing as yours "whatever you're doing--keep doing it". I told her I'm working on my issues from the inside out! We are proof you can see results when you are willing to look inside!

The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner (aka EFT) had a fabulous talk on their website on improving your eyesight that I found very encouraging and thought-provoking.

Cheers!
 
Just got rid of ongoing sore throat symptoms via journaling, etc. Now, I'm obsessing about two things going on with my left eye: lower-lid twitching that occurs periodically and, when my eyes are closed (overnight, during a nap, resting, e.g.) and I quickly open them in a brightly-lit room (light coming in the windows) or look at a bright white computer screen, I can see the branchlike image in my left eye for a very brief (milisecond) time. Now I am "anticipating" they will occur and, of course, they do. I have an appointment with my ophthalmologist soon, but I'll bet it's TMS. (I am sole caregiver to my elderly mother and am under a lot of stress.) Thanks!
 
Those lightning flashes in the corners of the eyes are common. People who are tense and anxious tell me they have them quite often. I remember seeing them too. If you move your eyes back and forth they flash. Quite a few people who work with computers tell me they have them. Of course they worried and got checked for glaucoma, etc. I've heard from several who said their checkups came back ok. It can take a long time to work through because of the billions of nerves involved in the eyes from the brain. Conditioning is like a bad habit, tough to break.

The twitching is also common, as you would guess. I was dating a girl who went through a tough divorce and got the ole eye twitches. It's anger surfacing. At first I thought she was hitting on me by winking at me. But it was just a nervous twitch. But I also thought that guy behind me at the football game last night was telling me his team was number one with his middle finger. I was wrong again.
 
Thanks, Steve: i have your book on my Kindle app, and refer to it frequently. I used to have the eye movement-flashing light from the corner of the left eye thing...ophthalmologist diagnosed posterior vitreous detachment, which happens to nearly everyone over 50, and is a benign, natural process. Those seem to have ended (I was never fully convinced they were caused by PVD, though, and didn't worry about them at any rate and they've gone away over the past few months.) They were "replaced" in the same eye with the "seeing treebranchlike blood vessels under certain lighting conditions when I open my closed eye or blink hard. I'll have it checked out in a few days, but it's either another benign, aging-eyes thing or TMS.

The lower eyelid twitch (also in the left eye....notice a trend here?) is just annoying. When it occurs, I try to just laugh at it or try to "think psychologically"...hoping that, plus getting back to my journaling helps.
I think a sense of humor helps with all this mind-body stuff, and that's probably why I like your writing style!

Excuse me while I twitch and see milisecond-long treebranches...:)
 
This is encouraging. Because I am having such trouble getting used to my new bifocals. Nausea, headaches, etc. However, the vision seems fine. How can I talk myself through this? I am under a lot of stress at the moment. Could this be the problem?
 
pgbeagle said:
This is encouraging. Because I am having such trouble getting used to my new bifocals. Nausea, headaches, etc. However, the vision seems fine. How can I talk myself through this? I am under a lot of stress at the moment. Could this be the problem?
Click to expand...

Um, YES!!!! How about doing some writing about how you're FEELING.
 
Doing that. It helped a little. I'm just not sure if this prescription is right, so I might seek a second opinion. If the second opinion is that it is correct, then maybe I can relax. I'll keep exploring to see if it is stress related. I know some of it is.
 
Chemgirl, I know what it's like to be the sole caretaker for an elderly mother.
It's a real hard job. I hope you're being easy on yourself. You can only do so much
and some elderly, like my mother was, are very hard to please, if not impossibile.
Their focus can be entirely on themselves, so we have to find time for ourselves.

Take breaks deep breathing and relaxing, doing things you enjoy.
 
Thought I'd share my eye story on this thread for anyone wondering if their eye issues might be TMS related. This is all before I knew about TMS. I'm the only person in my family who has never needed glasses. Never had any vision problems. But in the past year, my vision has started to get really blurry, on random occasions. I thought this was due to looking at a computer all day. I would go outside to get some fresh air, and look down the street and all of the mailbox numbers were literally blurry and "double-vision." But it would come and go and was very frustrating - I thought I was developing some serious vision issues now that I had turned 40. Sometimes it was blurry close-up; sometimes distance was the issue.

Fast forward to about 6 months ago - I went for normal eye exam. Turned out perfect. He couldn't figure out why I was having these issues. Sent me to a specialist 1.5 hours away - you know, the doc that all the weird "can't figure out" cases go to - the best in the field. He also ran every test possible. Checked and double checked again. Couldn't find anything wrong. Nice, healthy eyes. Now I was really starting to get worried. Told my husband that I'm tired of being "the mystery case" for all these docs. Nobody can figure out why my back isn't healing from all the treatments I'm having done. And now they can't figure out what is wrong with my eyesight. I felt so alone and like a freak job - if professionals can't figure out what is wrong with me, then I'm in big trouble.

Fast forward to two months ago when I finally read Dr. Sarno and SteveO's books and realized that what we're dealing with is TMS. I was SO happy to find out that I'm not a mystery case after all. It all made total and complete sense. I now understood why my eyesight was blurry on occasions, and still is (as I'm still healing). In addition to the blurriness, I'm also getting watery eyes - the liquid that turns to "sleep" when you wake up in the morning, but before it gets hard. (Yes, I know. Gross. But TMS isn't pretty! And at least it's random and not constant!) But I can't tell you how thrilled I am to know what is going on. It doesn't scare me anymore - I recognize that it is just a distraction and will go away.

No more expensive and time-consuming doctor treatments for me - I have freedom now that I understand. And all it took was reading a couple of books for the pieces of the puzzle to come together!
 
That's great, Tigerlily. You had all the examinations and nothing was found wrong with your eyes,
so now you know for sure it is TMS. I'm sure it's a great relief to know your eyes are structurally fine.
Something in your repressed emotions is giving you eye trouble. Relax and take your time to figure
out what may be troubling you.

I was kind of uptight this morning so I just had a cup of hot milk and did some deep breathing and
feel a lot better.

Give Smeagle a pat from me and Annie.
 
I got to this thread because a few weeks ago I thought the police were behind me because I kept seeing flashing lights--then I realized they were in my right eye! I did go to the eye doctor, who I had seen within the last year and he found me to be great all-around. On this day (besides the flashing/floaters which he says are not related and may or may not go away) the pressure in my left eye was elevated, warning sign for glaucoma. My original symptom, sciatic pain, is much improved--75% gone. Time to get more serious about addressing the emotional side of life, in particular work and marriage.
 
Wow. I have had every type of TMS symptom I thought. On Sunday I developed a feeling like something was in my left eye. It was an hour after I ran on the beach and it was windy so I thought maybe I got something in my eye but it was weird it was so delayed. I went to ER they did an exam with a slit lamp and could not find anything wrong. Gave me a PX for antibiotic eye drops and antihistamine drops for my eyes. Went back to house put eye drops in but not AB because I could not get it filled on an a Sunday night. Eye drops did nothing but next morning feeling was gone. I did not take the AB drops but brought them home with me thinking I could use them later if something was really wrong (this was a mistaken thought) Sure enough 3 days later I was starting to work out and the feeling came back and I started to freak out a little bit. Then I stopped and thought if my eye exam was normal this must be TMS. I looked in Steve Ozanich's book and sure enough dry eyes was there. I was not convinced though until I got to this site and while I was reading these entries the feeling went away...Wow, wow wow.
 
I'm so glad I posted this two years ago and that it's helping people identify another symptom of TMS that we might not recognize as symptoms. The brain is a very powerful thing! Best of luck to you Seanpat! And thanks for replying to this thread! That made my day!
 
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