Tootache Facial pain

Thank you very much for your answer, thank you, thank you.

Is it also possible if you follow the method in Alan Gordon's book and follow these instructions that you can do it without a therapist?

Do you have to find out the cause of what is causing you this pain?
It could also be a trauma that I don't remember?
Of course I've been through a lot in my life, the suicide of my childhood sweetheart because I separated, or the fact that my mother never or barely showed me any motherly love, she is a very cold person, or that I also broke up with the father of my child , was a single parent at the beginning and it was very difficult, and then I hardly have any friends, I'm lonely, and this relationship right now is not good. And when the pain came back, it was nine months after my dad died. But I also had dental treatment at the time and I keep wondering whether my nerve was injured. It's difficult for me to separate from this relationship, this fear of being alone or that I'll feel even worse is simply great.
But could these be reasons why I feel so bad with pain due to all these events? I think so, but sometimes I doubt.
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You do not need a therapist, but they will take you through Alan Gordon’s work if it is difficult for you.
Emotionally, keep an open mind that you may need therapy. Alan Gordon’s book is not about the broader base of causes of TMS -like trauma.
You may need to face these traumas. It is very difficult, but you can do it in other ways (journaling, which Alan Gordon’s book does not take you through) may help.
What you need to learn deeply, in your heart and in the brain is that it is safe to experience these difficult feelings again. To explore not just the hurt but the anger and other raw emotions, and that you’ll be just fine dealing fully with them. Especially anger if you have not been able to be angry with all your loss and feeling of abandonment. This is what makes us feel so powerless, and then to have symptoms you feel powerless over somehow brings all this up again in hidden places of the mind.
You don’t need to know the cause of the pain but you need to be willing to feel the emotional discomfort of feelings in the body; not to fear the anxiety. I think you already are very aware of the cause, and how this repeated loss has effected you. Now you need to just be ok with those emotions. To see that it can get better. Eventually you will feel more empowered. You will be more comfortable with yourself and feel less alone.
 
I have this pain and I just feel so trapped in this fear, I can hardly calm down, I can't switch off the fear of this pain. Like now, I was sleeping and woke up because I suddenly got stabbing, pulling nerve pain that I've never had before. My pain is constantly changing, something new is always being added. Until now it was always the case that I could sleep, and now I get pain while I'm sleeping, so that it wakes me up. How does it happen that my brain reports pain even when I'm sleeping? I do not get it. And of course it scares me.
 
pudding flower said:
Could an unhappy relationship have also caused me to have these symptoms?
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JanAtheCPA said:
Okay,
YES - obviously! I have to wonder, how could Alan Gordon not answer this question in his book?
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That is puzzling. His book is about Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and the testing of its efficacy in the Boulder Back Pain Study. He says on page 46 that the first goal of PRT is "to teach your brain that the pain is not dangerous” and on page 47 that the second goal of PRT is “to foster an overall sense of safety.” He, Howard Schubiner, and the twelve more clinicians and researchers who did the Boulder Back Pain study published the results in a professional journal called JAMA Psychiatry. Their article is accompanied by online supplemental content. An Appendix in the online material includes this statement about the second goal of PRT: "When we are in a state of high alert, we are more likely to interpret everything through a lens of danger. Loud noises will make us jump, light touches will cause us to recoil, and sensations in our body are more likely to be experienced as painful. PRT thus aims to lower a person’s overall threat level. This can include helping someone process threatening emotions, a history of trauma, [B]difficult relationships[/B], and more.” (I added the bolding.)
 
Thanks, @Duggit, as always, for your thoughtful research!:) I figured it had to be in there somewhere, but if that's the only reference to emotional stress, I can see why @pudding flower missed it, because she's too wrapped up in fear to be able to absorb educational material, and the language barrier doesn't help. We've made recommendations that she instead look to Dr. Sarno and Claire Weekes for what is essentially more basic information about the TMS brain mechanism and about anxiety.

In any case, I have to admit that I haven't yet read The Way Out. The sense I've been getting since the book came out and since a new web site and forum for it was developed, is that PRT may be a higher level of self-training than the TMS work we generally recommend, for example in the SEP. Am I right in surmising that it doesn't appear to spend a lot of time addressing repressed emotions (if at all)? If so, I can see that it would really appeal to people who want to avoid the emotional work! I generally PRT for people who have successfully done the older-style of TMS work in the past, and who are struggling with reoccurences and/or maintenance, or with very old symptoms still hanging on.

I really should read the book...
 
Thank you for the post, then I must have overlooked it, but I'm really still too stuck in my fear at the moment.
I also don't understand the difference between PRT and TMS and SEP work.
I'm currently reading up on a TMS Facebook group in the hope of understanding it all better.
I also bought the book by Dr. John Sarno bought it for the back pain because it is in German and I will simply replace the back pain with my pain. To simply understand the whole thing better.
 
pudding flower said:
I also don't understand the difference between PRT and TMS and SEP work.
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TMS is the brain mechanism which is keeping you in fear, it is a phrase invented by Dr Sarno to help him describe his theory. It simply means "muscle tension syndrome".

The SEP is the free Structured Educational Program which is on the main website at tmswiki.org. The SEP is the easiest program to do. It is broken up into single days, and is very structured. It is free, and there is no registration needed.

PRT is stands for Pain Reprocessing Therapy, as described by Alan Gordon in his book The Way Out, which you said you have read. It describes his new therapy, but there is no self-help program for it other than reading and understanding the book. I believe it is too advanced for where you are at. It's probably better for people who are experienced with previous TMS recovery, who have better control over their fear and their anxiety.
 
Hello everyone, I've had almost no pain for two weeks now.
And suddenly I start having facial pain and toothache again.
I'm pulling at a certain tooth, it was once root canalized, and now I think that this tooth has something. Even if cold air or sweets come into contact with it, it hurts. Can TMS really cause such problems? I still find it difficult to believe this. But in the past I also had pain when I bit down on a tooth, but that's gone now. Other teeth also cause me pulling pain. It comes and goes. Yesterday evening I had an electric shock or lightning-like pain on a lower incisor, as if it were deep in the root. I had that once a few months ago and then not again. And now it just came back so suddenly. Since then, of course, I have been very afraid of the pain, that it will come back or get worse. Everything was better for a few weeks. Is my brain trying to deceive me again
 
Look up Phantom Limb Pain, then come back and tell us your understanding of how and why it works, and how it is the same as pain in a tooth where the nerve has been removed.

Let's not forget that your tooth pain has been checked out many times by different professionals, and you received a mindbody diagnosis of "atypical face pain", or what we call TMS.

Of the recommendations we gave you, what have you done?
 
pudding flower said:
And suddenly I start having facial pain and toothache again.
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Had that. It's pretty much gone.
Like yours, it began in teeth that don't even have nerves anymore???
I noticed it only happened when I was emotionally strung out.
It usually was a gross feeling of pressure...sometimes it was hot or cold.
Now, whenever it catches my attention (usually right after I wake up from a nap...conditioning) I just say "Hmmm... I wonder whats bugging me that I need this distraction?"
Just trying to think about THAT has reduced the discomfort 95%..yeah, sometimes it bugs, but the trigeminal nerve is just as subject to ischemia as our backs. Sarno wrote about it in 'the mindbody prescription'
Just another thing to keep us distracted from emotions and anger.
 
Baseball65 said:
Had that. It's pretty much gone.
Like yours, it began in teeth that don't even have nerves anymore???
I noticed it only happened when I was emotionally strung out.
It usually was a gross feeling of pressure...sometimes it was hot or cold.
Now, whenever it catches my attention (usually right after I wake up from a nap...conditioning) I just say "Hmmm... I wonder whats bugging me that I need this distraction?"
Just trying to think about THAT has reduced the discomfort 95%..yeah, sometimes it bugs, but the trigeminal nerve is just as subject to ischemia as our backs. Sarno wrote about it in 'the mindbody prescription'
Just another thing to keep us distracted from emotions and anger.
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I look for anger or suppress emotions, but I can't find anything, I don't know what to change.
 
JanAtheCPA said:
Look up Phantom Limb Pain, then come back and tell us your understanding of how and why it works, and how it is the same as pain in a tooth where the nerve has been removed.

Let's not forget that your tooth pain has been checked out many times by different professionals, and you received a mindbody diagnosis of "atypical face pain", or what we call TMS.

Of the recommendations we gave you, what have you done?
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I read a lot about TMS, wrote a diary, and did SEP. I just don't know what my suppressed emotions are, where I should look
 
pudding flower said:
I look for anger or suppress emotions, but I can't find anything, I don't know what to change.
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You don't necessarily have to change anything in the 3d 'out there' world, but the change will happen in the 'in there' YOU world and how you perceive yourself and the world around you.
Have you read the books? These symptoms are here to keep us focused on THEM because there is a growing/unchecked reservoir of RAGE about things in our life that we have no access to.

I can never 'find' anything either...but I have to look. If it was obvious, I wouldn't need the symptom..if that sounds odd, I can only tell you to read Dr. Sarno's books where he explains it much better than I could. "Mindbody prescription" is the one where he mentions Trigeminal nerves and his own mystery tooth pain

and as Jan said, if you are really stuck, you might begin to get a glimpse by speaking with a counselour, therapist,etc
 
Baseball65 said:
You don't necessarily have to change anything in the 3d 'out there' world, but the change will happen in the 'in there' YOU world and how you perceive yourself and the world around you.
Have you read the books? These symptoms are here to keep us focused on THEM because there is a growing/unchecked reservoir of RAGE about things in our life that we have no access to.

I can never 'find' anything either...but I have to look. If it was obvious, I wouldn't need the symptom..if that sounds odd, I can only tell you to read Dr. Sarno's books where he explains it much better than I could. "Mindbody prescription" is the one where he mentions Trigeminal nerves and his own mystery tooth pain

and as Jan said, if you are really stuck, you might begin to get a glimpse by speaking with a counselour, therapist,etc
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Yes, I have a book so far by Dr. Sarno read, and Alan Gordon's book.

I'm so torn at the moment, now I think maybe I haven't examined everything after all.
Ea could also be an inflammation of the jawbone (osteomyelitis).
At least I was told to get it checked out, my symptoms would indicate that. Now I'm confused again.
 
Cactusflower said:
@pudding flower
Who told you about the inflammation of the jawbone?
You say you already have been checked out by a dentist and neurologist, and they find no reason for the pain.
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There is an acute or chronic inflammation of the jawbone, and I came across it because I read about a woman in a group who had the same pain as me and she was diagnosed with chronic osteomyelitis. You probably need a special MRI to diagnose it, and I haven't had one like that yet.
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@pudding flower - with all the therapy you have had, did anyone suggest OCD? I'm just curious. All the signs are similar to other people who have told us they received that diagnosis. In English this stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - I don't know how it would be expressed in German.
 
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