• Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
  • Welcome to the new TMS Wiki server! Things aren't finished yet: email is not set up, so notification and password-reset emails don't go out, and new registrations are paused until email is installed. Details and updates are in this thread (click here). Locked out? Email tmswikisignups@gmail.com from the address where you receive TMS Wiki notifications.

Update it's not Fibromyalgia it's Lyme disease but it's all still TMS

caroldiem

caroldiem

New Member
Hi everyone,

It's been awhile since i have been on these forums, when i was here last i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and discovered TMS, for some reason i let TMS go for awhile i only read half of healing your back pain and I went down the path of seeing a functional doc did a whole bunch of testing and i have now been diagnosed with Lyme disease. Last night i was drawn to Steve Ozanich's book fortunately when i first discovered TMS i bought a ton of books on it, i started reading it and then went to the back and it stated Lyme Disease still meant TMS i believe this. The antibiotics have helped a bit and so does the food and the supplements but they probably act as a placebo telling the brain hey i am doing these things to heal but i still strongly feel TMS is the culprit. I know i suffer from TMS because i suffered from nausea, throwing up for most of my childhood I was a very emotional child and i have always suffered health issues started with asthma when i was 7 yrs old. Anyway when i hit 18 i had enough so i went to a gastroenterologist and discovered i had teh H pylori bug took tehy antibiotics the pain went away but then it returned about 3 to 6 months later. Went back to the specialist did all teh testing again he turned to me and said there is nothing wrong with you i went home my mum repeated the same thing to me THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU so becasue my mum said it i believe it went on with my life and bam pain went away that was TMS. Ofcourse now at 35 i am in more pain then ever i have had so much emotional trauma i look forard to reading Steve's book, journalling, and healing i created a youtube channel if anyone is interested in following it
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7VXV8yx9XkoJ9pvpxIni_g/videos
 
I love your title, Carol, and your story as well. Welcome, or welcome back, as the case may be.

You have really brought up some interesting things in your post. I'm quite taken with your mention of the H pylori bacteria that is thought to cause ulcers (having dated a guy in college who had an ulcer at age 20)(and I'm talking about back in 1970). I have always wondered whether the discovery of that bacteria wasn't a TMS equivalent on some level. Dr. Gabor Mate, MD (When The Body Says No) has convinced me that the stress of emotional repression leads to degradation of the immune system - and that leaves us wide open to things, for example, like the proliferation of a bacteria that is very common but which in most people is generally not a problem.

This should not be a surprise to any of us - even the most conventional docs tell us that we will stay healthier if we are less stressed, because stress suppresses our immune response. But somehow we often don't relate that to the conditions that often result.

And it's interesting how often Lyme disease crops up as a possibility in people who post here...

I hope you can find relief and healing from the many wonderful TMS resources and our caring community.

~Jan
 
Hi Jan thankyou so much for your message. I live in sydney australia so we don't have any TMS practitioners here but thats ok i am confident with the resources i have already i can conquer this. I will be documenting my journey via my youtube channel
 
Australia
James Alexander, PhD (Therapist)
Available via Skype
115 Keen St
Lismore NSW 2480
Australia
Phone: 0410836690
Fax: (02) 66224234
Website / Survey Response / Forum Posts / About The Hidden Psychology of Pain

******************************************************************************************

"All my friends in Los Angeles are the sensitive type. They all have like all the diseases like Chronic Fatigue, Epstien Barr, Fibromyalgia. Like all the diseases where the only symptoms seem to be you had a really crappy childhood and at the prospect of full time work ya feel kinda achy and tired."
icon_smile_big.gif


Comedian Maria Bamford, posted by Skizzik @ TMSHelp
 
Thanks tennis tom but lismore is too far for me if only it were closer. Also i had two bleeding duodenum ulcers so i had to have an embolism and obviously i have had pain and discomfort at the duodenum ever since due to the main posterior duodenal artery being embolised so less bloodflow and oxygen = pain but i hold onto the hope that the body is smart and it will build new blood vessels over the years to compensate. I had to have the embolism because i spent 5 weeks internal bleeding on and off :(
 
OMG This is so funny!
"All my friends in Los Angeles are the sensitive type. They all have like all the diseases like Chronic Fatigue, Epstien Barr, Fibromyalgia. Like all the diseases where the only symptoms seem to be you had a really crappy childhood and at the prospect of full time work ya feel kinda achy and tired."
icon_smile_big.gif


Comedian Maria Bamford, posted by Skizzik @ TMSHelp

The title of this post is perfect as I have two friends within hours of each other - telling me of their diagnosis of lyme's disease and the other one, fibromyalgia.
Caroldiem, I am confident that you are going to be relieved of the TMS as you go through the resources available on this site, reading and journalling. I'm glad you found us. Keep us posted on your recovery!
 
Hi Jan - Gabor Mate's idea that stress degrades the autoimmune system makes sense of the fact that some people have the bacterium for ulcers in their stomachs yet do not have ulcers and other people have the Lyme disease germ in their blood stream yet do not have the symptoms of Lyme disease. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Must be that certain individuals for a variety of reasons - both hereditary and social-environmental - are able to digest and process stress in more constructive ways than others. Again, easier said than done when life's trials and tribulations begin to pile up on your door step like unanswered mail and yesterday's papers. Of course, just because a patient has, as Dr Sarno puts it in the MBP, the "antibodies for the Lyme bacterium in their blood" doesn't mean that they will have Lyme disease symptoms. They may have in fact successfully defeated the Lyme bacteria. I guess that's how a certain proportion of the population of Europe survived the Black Death in 1366 - they were infected, but had stronger autoimmune systems than those who died of the Plague. Seemed that poor people in the slums died at a much higher rate than the aristocracy in their palaces, which warrants much more speculation than there's room for in this Forum string, I'd say!

This whole thing about Lyme disease makes me think there's a distinction between psychogenic symptoms (like TMS, IBS, rashes and other TMS equivalents) caused by the autonomic nervous system and more serious auto-immune disorders (like lupus, ALS, rheumatoid arthritis etc.) that are caused by the autoimmune system. I guess because the overt symptoms are so similar in both cases, that's why Dr Sarno insists that you should get checked out by an M.D. before jumping to the conclusion that your symptoms are caused by TMS.
 
Last edited:
Stress and I are old companions. I've been a fulltime freelance writer for more than 40 years,
living day to day and month to month with uncertain income. Dr. Sarno says financial worries
are one of the main causes of TMS. So of course I had severe back pain two years ago as I turned 80
and worried about expenses for a senior. Somehow, I've kept stress from getting too much a hold on me,
largely through a very strong positive attitude. I hadn't realized it, but I have been LIVING IN THE PRESENT
all these years, enjoying today and not worrying that much about tomorrow.

Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow's troubles, that today's are enough in themselves.
He got that right. But I've wondered... He didn't have a wife or kids (I don't either)
or a mortgage and credit card debt (I have both), and His computer never drives him up the wall.

I try to find tranquility and serenity all the time. A friend said my little house is like an oasis of peace.
What a nice thing to say and for me to think about and appreciate. I hope you are finding
tranquility and serenity in your life.
 
Heya, Carol, I just checked out your YouTube channel, and your two videos about your stillbirth story were very powerful. As a man, it helped me to see that experience through the eyes of a woman.

That's very interesting about Dr. Mate and ulcers, Jan and Bruce. It's an interesting case, because while stress may lead to ulcers, I gather that they sometimes require medical treatment. This is in clear distinction to classic musculoskeletal tension myositis syndrome, which Dr. Sarno has clearly said is perfectly harmless.

It may be common sense, but it's another example of how it can be vitally important to rule out serious disease before taking a mindbody approach. About ulcers, Dr. Sarno writes, (MBP, p. 110) "Serious disorders like cancer should always be ruled out before one concludes that stomach symptoms are stress-induced. This is true of every painful condition. Fortunately, benign stomach ulcers are far more common than malignant ones."

On the other hand you, don't want to be one of the rare malignant ones. According to Wikipedia, there are 6000 deaths from ulcers every year in the US. I'd truly hate it if someone I cared about to treat a bleeding ulcer with self-talk! On the other hand, focusing on stress and tension might (stension, as SteveO calls it) might be perfect for preventing an ulcer in the first place.

By the way, Dr. Sarno tackles Post-Lyme disease syndrome in the second half of chapter 6 of The Mindbody Prescription. You may have seen it already, but I'll put it in here for anyone who finds this thread via our search engine. Here's what Dr. Sarno writes:
Dr. Sarno said:
Lyme Disease
Although it differs considerably from those already discussed, another medical condition warrants mention. In this case we have a bona fide disease process to which a variety of physical symptoms are mistakenly attributed. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection acquired through the bite of a tiny tick that can manifest itself in neurological and arthritic symptoms. If someone has pain that cannot be explained by any of the usual diagnoses and has immunologic evidence (from a blood test) of having been infected, the symptoms will be attributed to Lyme disease. Whenever a foreign substance like a bacterium enters the body, the immune system activates protective measures. One of these is the creation of substances called antibodies that link up with the bacteria and neutralize them. Antibodies are specific for each bacterium; each of us has many different antibodies circulating in our blood. The amount of a specific antibody can be measured in the laboratory. The amount is known as an antibody titer. By this test one can determine whether or not an antibody for a specific disease is present in the blood, and how much. I have seen many people with TMS whose pain was attributed to Lyme disease because they had antibodies for the Lyme bacterium in their blood. One of many cases I encountered was a man I saw with severe TMS who did not accept that diagnosis and was later found to have antibodies for Lyme disease. He sued the neurologists who had attended him originally for malpractice, claiming that they had failed to test for Lyme antibodies. His symptoms were blatantly TMS, but in the absence of medical acceptance of TMS the neurologists found it difficult to defend themselves.
Click to expand...
 
Thankyou Forest I hope through my own suffering and experiences i can help others. There are many more videos for me to make so much more trauma has occurred which is why i know i am in this terrible physical state now.I want to spread the message about TMS as well I believe i am the only person that can heal myself. Thankyou for posting Dr Sarno's words he truly is a genius. Regardless of my pain i am very determined to start back at work full time next year and start on the plans of building our new home :)
 
Hi Carol,
It's funny that you post this because I was just wondering last week if Lyme's could be TMS. I have neighbors that live down the road. They have always been really healthy, constantly biking, hiking and fishing. The mother has had back pain on and off her life. But her two daughters never had any health issues. She started seeing a new homeopathic doctor and he wanted to test her for Lyme, because he said he had seen it in a lot of patients recently. Turns out she tested positive for Lyme's. Well... since her and her daughters always travel together she got them tested. And apparently they all have Lyme's. Now I have seen this family go from healthy, happy to sickly. They are on all kinds of medication and one of the girls told me she was concerned because this will cause her problems the rest of her life. All I could think is Nocebo. I think you are taking the best approach to curing yourself!:)
 
Hi Carol,
There is a sub-chapter on Lyme's in the Mindbody Prescription. I read MBP in Korean, so I don't know the page number on the original version, but I'm sure it'll help. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top