tms? just so hard to say

Hey everyone! My name is Joey. I am 28 years young.

For as long as I can remember (I can remember lol) (11 years) I’ve had pain in my neck. Specifically the left anterior side. (Scalene, SCM muscle). It started then, around the age of 17-18, as I graduated high school and began my college life. At the time, I had been working out for a good 6 months and it was the first time-in a long time, I felt good about myself and my appearance. It was an outlet for me, I was always shy about my height (I’m shorter) and as I started to gain muscle and shape my body, I felt good about myself in my own skin.

Well, neck pain lead to shoulder blade pain, shoulder blade pain lead to, shoulder pain and shoulder pain lead to numbness and tingling down the side of the same arm. Around the time my neck and shoulder hurt, I started my journey:

I saw chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, Chinese and medical grade, I saw nutritionists, I saw sports medicine, I triedART/shockwave/graston/manipulation/traction, personal training, yoga, physical therapy, rolfing, meditating, posture assessment therapy and nothing “fixed it” - I would go as far as to say nothing even made it better. It was not UNBEARABLE, but it definitely caused me weakness, distress, anger, frustration, and normal daily things were a hassle for me.

I continued with this pain and kept working out in spite of what I felt, while getting weekly adjustments and massages to keep things (at bay). At this time I’m roughly 24-25 still with the neck / shoulder / arm pain. I was told many things:

- forward head posture
- winged scapula
-rounded shoulder
-weak core
-over developed pecs, weak back muscles
- tmj - grinding at night
- weak shoulder stabilizers
-very minor scoliosis causing rotation in my trunk
- thoracic outlet
- myo fascial pain syndrome
- mild fibro
All imagining, including MRI, ultra sound, X-ray, ct scan, nerve study were NORMAL.

As time went by, I accepted this pain, and at the back of my mind was just going to live with it. I felt too busy to get to the “bottom of it”. I run a family restaurant business and stress is very high. My mother is the owner and I am there almost 7 days a week to make sure everything is running smoothly and to take the pressures off of her. Around my mid 20s, I then began to get a lot of rib cage pain, hip and knee pain, and then motivated myself to see new physical therapists, and chiros, to see if someone could get to the route cause of all this insanity. I was then told that a lot of my issues were stemming from my lower body, and my ankle which was throwing off all of the biomechanics upstream. I followed that route and stated strengthening and stretching what I was told. It didn’t change a thing for me. By the time I began obsessed with and determined to, find someone that would solve this, (I had the money from working so much and had little social life so my life revolved around solving this pain and getting my life back) (I will go into further personality and life later).

This is roughly age 27, a year ago, and I have neck, shoulder, shoulder blade, and arm pain, daily, as well as hip, Si joint, and glute pain. I am going to 1-2 appts a week, my training took so much of a hit that I was only doing cardio to maintain my look, and I stopped working as much. Fast forward to this year.
I quit the gym, I stopped working so much and my life was consumed with anxiety, uncertainty, pain, and confusion. Almost 10 years have gone by, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars, nights alone online “figuring myself out”, skipped social outings, forced myself to work so much to afford my appointments and I was fried and helpless.

This anxiety has gotten so bad I had two panic attacksand started to break out on my hands like exzema. I was in pain, full of fear, gaining weight, and going to appointments. Nothing was helping. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I was very negative about everything and I just wanted to be free again.

For as long as I could remember I’ve just wanted to live a balanced, fun, happy life. I am quite a serious person, but love to laugh (even if I find it hard to), I am a left handed-perfectionist (get teased about it even) I put a lot of pressure on myself to excel for my mom and I live with my dad who is divorced from my mom for about 15 years. I live with him, he’s a quiet, to himself - angry kinda guy- yet easy going. I pride myself on my hard work, my effort, my willingness to do the right thing & being “smart for my age”!

6 days ago, I was on Reddit in a chronic pain forum and I saw the name dr sarno. At this point I’m so desperate that I would google literally anything I thought could help, I found his book on Amazon and downloaded the book to my audible app and listened to healing back pain. I cried reading it. I’m not sure why I did, out of desperation & hope I believe. But it stuck out to me. As much as I feel that my problem is from working out, imbalances, posture, something about this book stood out. I read the divided mind and now I am sold on it. I believe this is my reality. TMS. It’s just so obvious of what all the therapists said about my shoulders and posture and lack of mobility in certain movements that I find it so hard to fathom, even though I trust this diagnosis more than any I’ve ever heard. I listened to sarno’s lecture. His two books and read this forum over and over in the last 6 days. My body feels more at ease and of course the pain is still there but it feels less than it has in the last year in the matter of days. Now I am really taking it easy and not working out at all or doing anything strenuous but I have started working on what I’m feeling, writing down past things that may contribute to my rage and just started to rationalize if this is my truth. And here I am writing on this forum.

I just want to take a moment and thank dr sarno. If this is my reality I will get better and get my life back. I just wanted to reach out on here to see if people can relate to my story. Pointers for me and things I can try. I quit all physical therapy and massages going forward and I’m focusing on this.

I am focusing more on moving with ease, not focusing on my symptoms, talking to myself, trying to do normal things with pain and just believing in each step I take. Thank you for your time.

 

Very hopeful that since you feel it’s Tms it is ad you will get so much better ! And you have still so much life in front of you to enjoy ☀️
I am just starting my journey but it’s already better a bit. I have been blocking in severe back pain on and off starting at 18 years old and it has been more then twenty years I am trying to solve it. I am planning to be more fit and in less pain at 50 then I was at 25.
Don’t give up I am sure you will get far++