Hello dear community,
I first discovered Sarno's work about 6 years ago — after chapter 1 of his book, disabling back and hip pain I'd had for years disappeared. I just recognized myself immediately and knew it was TMS!
I revisited TMS healing a few year later while suffering from Long COVID. At first I didn't think being bedridden with chronic fatigue, nausea, brain fog, pain everywhere, etc could be TMS, which I had only associated with back pain. But one day it occurred to me to google this and I found stories of others who had recovered from Long COVID and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome using Sarno's method. I immediately got out of bed and walked up and down the stairs a few times — I hadn't been able to do this for 2 months. This time my symptoms had become so complex that I needed to dedicate more consistently to journalling and mind-body work. But I fully recovered in just a few weeks. I've since applied the Sarno method to a few unexplainable pains with success.
I'm now wondering if TMS can manifest as vocal strain and fatigue (also called Muscle Tension Dysphonia — a diagnosis I haven't received officially but matches my symptoms. Does anyone have experience with this?
Here's what's happened for me: I started experiencing pain after singing this past year, but it was inconsistent and usually disappeared if I warmed up well and could feel relaxed while I sang. A few weeks ago, I joined a choir which requires me to sing for long periods and I've have pain during and after rehearsals. My vocal coach identified that my throat is tightening a lot when I sing. She taught me new techniques to sing without the tightness and I immediately saw results during our session together — when I sang differently, I wasn't in pain anymore. I even practiced a couple times at home with success — no pain. Singing differently means changing my muscle memory, so we agreed it would take some time for me to re-learn my technique and not fatigue so much.
After our next (most recent) choir rehearsal, I felt fatigued and some pain. I woke up the following day feeling okay, but when I had to speak more (during a therapy session and then when I saw my own therapy clients) I started to feel horrible burning. Over the next few days, I could barely speak. My whole chin/neck/throat area has become tight feeling. It's like having a lump in my throat all the time, or a sore throat only if I'm talking. I had to take days off of work and avoid socializing. A week later, there's still some pain and tension when I have to speak for very long, despite self-massage (using techniques learned from an RMT and vocal coach) and vocal rest.
I'm starting to feel similarities with TMS — the ways the pain is terrifying me and taking over my life but I can't see any other evidence that something was injured (no change to voice, can still sing/speak if needed). I have been feeling very overwhelmed in my life — caring for lots of people (including being an underpaid therapist for low-income clients) while struggling to afford or find my own care. I was talking about this during my last therapy session — how I have so many obligations and wish I could just not do some of them. I also went through weeks of deep depression last month, which I connected to childhood trauma coming up (neglect, abandonment, abuse). So there's certainly mental health material there and I know my feelings can manifest psychosomatically! I've been in therapy for over a decade and it's been immensely helpful, but this period of depression felt untouchable by talk therapy — I even talked about all my grief feeling caught in my throat at one point, and how it's impossible to cry.
One of my difficulties in taking this seriously as TMS is that I haven't found any other stories of TMS manifesting as vocal strain/tension or Muscle Tension Dysphonia. In my past recoveries, it's always been really game-changing to me to have that evidence that my specific diagnosis could be TMS because it was so for someone else who recovered. Believing in TMS has always been essential for me to heal. Any advice for dealing with this dilemma?
Posting with so much gratitude to anyone who has time to read this!
I first discovered Sarno's work about 6 years ago — after chapter 1 of his book, disabling back and hip pain I'd had for years disappeared. I just recognized myself immediately and knew it was TMS!
I revisited TMS healing a few year later while suffering from Long COVID. At first I didn't think being bedridden with chronic fatigue, nausea, brain fog, pain everywhere, etc could be TMS, which I had only associated with back pain. But one day it occurred to me to google this and I found stories of others who had recovered from Long COVID and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome using Sarno's method. I immediately got out of bed and walked up and down the stairs a few times — I hadn't been able to do this for 2 months. This time my symptoms had become so complex that I needed to dedicate more consistently to journalling and mind-body work. But I fully recovered in just a few weeks. I've since applied the Sarno method to a few unexplainable pains with success.
I'm now wondering if TMS can manifest as vocal strain and fatigue (also called Muscle Tension Dysphonia — a diagnosis I haven't received officially but matches my symptoms. Does anyone have experience with this?
Here's what's happened for me: I started experiencing pain after singing this past year, but it was inconsistent and usually disappeared if I warmed up well and could feel relaxed while I sang. A few weeks ago, I joined a choir which requires me to sing for long periods and I've have pain during and after rehearsals. My vocal coach identified that my throat is tightening a lot when I sing. She taught me new techniques to sing without the tightness and I immediately saw results during our session together — when I sang differently, I wasn't in pain anymore. I even practiced a couple times at home with success — no pain. Singing differently means changing my muscle memory, so we agreed it would take some time for me to re-learn my technique and not fatigue so much.
After our next (most recent) choir rehearsal, I felt fatigued and some pain. I woke up the following day feeling okay, but when I had to speak more (during a therapy session and then when I saw my own therapy clients) I started to feel horrible burning. Over the next few days, I could barely speak. My whole chin/neck/throat area has become tight feeling. It's like having a lump in my throat all the time, or a sore throat only if I'm talking. I had to take days off of work and avoid socializing. A week later, there's still some pain and tension when I have to speak for very long, despite self-massage (using techniques learned from an RMT and vocal coach) and vocal rest.
I'm starting to feel similarities with TMS — the ways the pain is terrifying me and taking over my life but I can't see any other evidence that something was injured (no change to voice, can still sing/speak if needed). I have been feeling very overwhelmed in my life — caring for lots of people (including being an underpaid therapist for low-income clients) while struggling to afford or find my own care. I was talking about this during my last therapy session — how I have so many obligations and wish I could just not do some of them. I also went through weeks of deep depression last month, which I connected to childhood trauma coming up (neglect, abandonment, abuse). So there's certainly mental health material there and I know my feelings can manifest psychosomatically! I've been in therapy for over a decade and it's been immensely helpful, but this period of depression felt untouchable by talk therapy — I even talked about all my grief feeling caught in my throat at one point, and how it's impossible to cry.
One of my difficulties in taking this seriously as TMS is that I haven't found any other stories of TMS manifesting as vocal strain/tension or Muscle Tension Dysphonia. In my past recoveries, it's always been really game-changing to me to have that evidence that my specific diagnosis could be TMS because it was so for someone else who recovered. Believing in TMS has always been essential for me to heal. Any advice for dealing with this dilemma?
Posting with so much gratitude to anyone who has time to read this!
