What else is there - Seriously

I think I've truly 'got it', at last! So, if we regularly repeat other things instead that are positive, uplifting etc., -- that produces different chemicals and eliminates - or at least dominates - the chemicals we're producing that are keeping us addicted.

I re-read Ace1's keys to recovery yesterday and saw that in one of them he said he sometimes repeated just a single positive/soothing word as an affirmation where it felt appropriate to him as he went about his day. In 'Words Can Change Your Brain' by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Waldman, the authors talk about this too and offer their explanation for the 'mechanics' of why it works, which might appeal to other 'strugglers' like me who like to know the possible 'ins and outs' of a premise (as you say...'different doors, same room'...one has to find one's own way into that room). Newberg and Waldman say:

"A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress. By holding a positive and optimistic word [such as peace, love, gratitude] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.

Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality."

Now, there's just the (not so) 'little' matter of persistently putting this into action!

 

Virtual high-five! Yes, exactly. The skewed internal environment of the body that comes from the repeated, altered emotional states prevents homeostasis from occurring. In other words, we stay locked in the past experiences.

No matter how amazing an engine is, if the gas and oil are dirty, it won’t function correctly.

So in my personal experience (and others as well), we just started living, acting, feeling and thinking in a new way, and stick to that, as often as you can, every day, even if we felt like garbage. All the focus goes into the new state, no wavering. Thought, feeling, actions, words all line up, consistently.

If the mind is trying to think anew, but the body is still stuck in fear, obsession, etc. nothing will happen, because the mind/body are in conflict, like 2 waves crashing into each other.

But if they line up, and both go in the same direction, they will add strength to each other, and they will produce something much stronger than either (so just make sure the thought and feeling line up towards the end goal!).

In oceanography, that is exactly how a rogue wave is formed .

 

And that's why repeating over and over again to yourself ‘what would perfect health feel like right now?’ and persistently answering that question worked -- in asking and responding to this, you were combining and aligning the thought with the feeling .

 

No doubt!

And for anyone else reading this, this will require a leap of faith, and even if you do it correctly, it will probably take time. Exactly how long will vary, but just stick to it, day by day, and you’ll get there eventually.

 

If the mind is trying to think anew, but the body is still stuck in fear, obsession, etc. nothing will happen,because the mind/body are in conflict, like 2 wavescrashing into each other.

RogueWave, Could you please clarify something about the above statement? In my understanding I thought the fear, obsession etc. you speak of was created in the mind, not the body. I’m reading that the body is stuck in obsession and so on (not the mind?)So in effect we’re to change our way of thinking in order to achieve the desired results in the body- being pain free. Sorry if it seems like I’m not getting it. Hope this makes sense.

Fabulous posts by the way!

 

Not at all! And again, I can only provide my point of view and personal experience.

So where is the mind? We think it’s in the brain, but we now know that is false.

For example, did you know that when a person gets an organ transplant, they can have cravings, habits, and even memories from the donor?

Did their brain change? No. So it begs the question again: Where is the mind.

In the late 1500s, Renee Descartes had to convince the all-powerful church that the body and the mind are separate, because then science could have dominion over the body, and the church could have the mind. Plus this made medical experimentation a non-moral issue, because if was no longer the ‘person’ they were dealing with.

As another example, let’s say I’m super relaxed, and I decide to inject myself with pure adrenaline. Obviously my thoughts would change to ‘survival’, and I’d immediately experience a racing heart, dilated blood vessels, etc.

Did the thoughts create the shift in body chemistry in this case? Nope. The body chemistry changed the brain function (and thoughts) drastically and immediately.

So does the mind influence the body, or does the body influence the mind? The answer is they influence each other, ceaselessly, because in reality, they aren’t separate at all.

TMS occurs, and continues endlessly for this reason, until we change it.

But the change we are talking about (those of us that have healed), is comprehensive. If you just think differently, hope, are cautiously optimistic, it probably won’t work, or hold very long. This is because the body is stuck in the past, and so the chemicals and emotions repeat.

Have you tried to tell someone who is very upset to calm down? How’d that work? . Trying to think differently, with just a little effort, when the body is raging, won’t work very well.

The thoughts/mind are trying to say one thing, but the body is feeling another (tension, anxiety, pain, etc).

This is why creating a whole new state, for as long as possible, can help heal more thoroughly.

How would you think and how would it feel to be pain free right this second? Create the new thought AND feeling, right now, independent of how you are feeling.

Thoughts—>body/feelings—->thoughts—->body/feelings.

The above is true, whether good or bad. The problem is we are usually waiting to feel better to think and feel differently.

Fill up on knowledge, use that to fuel absolute confidence, and change your thoughts and feelings right now. Use your imagination! Break the cycle repeatedly, and flood the body with an entirely new environment, including new thoughts and feelings. Then the body can’t ‘right the ship’ and you’ll be on your way.

 

Thanks for your explanation RogueWave. I really do get what you are saying. Now, as you say I must break the cycle. I find I alter my thought patterns for a while and then, BAM, back to the old way of thinking. I’ve really thought about all of this and why I keep in the loop, and I think it’s because in the past I haven’t really trusted myself for some reason. It’s as though someone else will have the answer for me, and I know at this point that just isn’t true.

 

Great, awareness of that is huge!! You see the pattern, or the ‘addiction’ to the old self. With thoughts/feelings come familiar chemical releases, and after being repeated often enough, they become part of you. Introduce a substance into the body often enough, and the body will adapt to it. Except in our cases, the substances aren’t coming from the outside, they are being produced internally.

“That’s just me!” “That’s just how I am!”

No. In most cases it’s who you learned to be, and unconsciously practiced to be. Day in and day out, year after year, the mind always validating the feelings by cherry-picking things in your life or your past bad memories to validate why you feel/think a certain way.

And as part of survival, the brain is invested in keeping the hamster wheel going, because if you keep repeating the ‘you’ (even if it’s awful/painful), it has a better chance of predicting your immediate future, and therefore a better chance of keeping you alive. This is another reason change can be difficult, and while it often requires crisis to really change.

The energy behind wanting to change has to be greater than the energy keeping people on the wheel.

 

Yes, but what about
"I tried the TMS work and it didn't work!"
You: "Ok, then we can rule out TMS as a cause"

You know that body and mind is so complex that we barely know how it really functions... what if somebody tried anti-inflammantories but dose was too low? What if dose was okay, but he/she should take it for longer? What if those specific anti-inflammantories were not working, but other anti-inflammantory drugs would work? What if there was some other problem when the person was taking anti-inflammantory and that's why it didn't helped then, but maybe they would work now? What if there are new anti-inflammantory drugs that works better?

 

Thanks RogueWave. You know what is incredible? My 80 year old father has been saying to me for a while basically what you’ve said in these posts and he hasn’t even heard of TMS. He just believes strongly in the mind/body connection and that your body will react to whatever your mind feeds it.

 

So how did the person ‘try TMS?’ As you mentioned, it’s not as easy as taking a pill. More intense, protracted cases will usually require a much more vigorous approach.

Sure, try a higher dose, change the timing, try this, try that, but pay attention to the results. Even if a person is TMS-ing, meds can be helpful. Try PT, injections, chiropractic, whatever. Try it all. But if it’s TMS, that’s really just chasing symptoms. Even if anti-inflammatories helped, my question is always ‘why is the body not fixing the inflammation?’ What’s the cause? If the body can heal a broken femur in 6 weeks, why should a neck ache last for years?

Dr. Sarno himself, even to the end of his life, admitted to stressing about how few people who had TMS could actually accept it.

We know more now about the mind/body connection than ever before, so don’t let what we don’t yet know yet dissuade you (and that’s for anyone reading this). Plenty of people have cured themselves of this having no science/medicine background at all. Do you need to know, down the tiniest level, exactly how healing is occuring? Not at all.

I can tell that you, like Eskimo, are intelligent and analytical. Normally this is a good thing, but with TMS it can work against you (it definitely did with me...Try having WebMD in your head!). As Dr. Abraham Low stated, over-analysis and self diagnosis are 2 of the biggest ways to sabotage healing, because they perpetuate the cycle we are trapped in.

If you haven’t seen a TMS doctor, I’d recommend it. @miffybunny has listed several of them. Sometimes hearing it clearly from an expert is what is needed to get to the point of 100% acceptance.

 

That’s wisdom for you . It’s always clearer when you’re seeing it in someone else too.

 

Chronic pain is NOT normal. That is NOT the normal state of homeostasis. The region of the brain involved in maintaining chronic pain is totally different than the region involved in acute pain. Analgesics do work in the case of acute pain but not in chronic pain because that is the region tied up with emotions and memories.

A sure way to never get better and stay stuck in the strategy is to come up with reasons why it's not TMS (mind body) and why it must be physical. Until one shifts from thinking physically to psychologically, they are just spinning their wheels. One needs to ask themselves: What do you WANT to believe??? How is this pain or symptoms serving you that you cling so desperately and debate endlessly with those giving a roadmap?? The statement "TMS didn't work"...what does that even mean???? It's about deciding that your life is more important than babysitting symptoms. It's about having the courage and willingness to change and undo habits. It's not a cake recipe as I've said repeatedly. If you wait for symptoms t go away before taking the leap, it's guaranteed they never will. The symptoms are there as messengers to wake you up to yourself. Wake up! lol. Stop hiding behind the "story", the "lie" that your mind creates endlessly.

 

So often people give examples like broken femur/ cut finger. 'Body is designed to heal itself, remember when you cut yourself? The body repairs itself!', I've read hundreds time about it. But is this REALLY the case? I would say that's a error in thinking. Just because body can heal A, doesn't mean it can heal B(also, not all people have the same body, some people think genetics doesn't play much role, some people thinks role of it is huge but I think we can all agree, that genetics, age, nutrition etc have SOME role). It's like saying that just because human can run 20 miles per hour, then it means humans can run 200 miles per hour too.

I don't know why for example neck could ache for years. I don't think there's just one cause, although maybe there's one MAIN cause. But if you work years and years thinking it's TMS and nothing is improving then is it logical to still try it like that? Maybe there's some cause that's really weird, yet true. For example some back pains are caused by problems in gut. And we know almost nothing about bacterias living in our bodies, for example the best option for restoring gut microflora is poop transplant. We are extremely primitive when it comes to understanding our bodies.

Sadly, it's hard for me to see any TMS doctors. I live in central Europe, probably the most knowledgable person about TMS in my person is myself, lol.

I don't want to put anybody down, to be a downer, or anything like that. I'm just tired really

 

And yet there so many things that are not normal, yet they exists. Is diabeties normal? No, but once you got it - that's it. Or I don't know, crohn's disease. Once it activates that's it - you sick for life. Sure, maybe by using drugs you can calm it down, but that's it. I'm in no doubt that at least part of chronic pain is created by emotions and memories. But once those emotions are lived through, and once those memories are made, can you really change it? Diabeties will not turn on(well at least diabeties type 2) unless you will eat poorly and not exercise, but once you got it, you can't un-eat all the things you ate in the past.
Although maybe there is solution, who knows. I just don't thinks it's that simple, nor that there's one solution that fits all cases.

 

Diabetes is an actual disease process (pathology) involving blood sugar and every system of the body. It's not "normal" but can be managed. That is not the same thing as psychogenic pain where doctors cannot find any causality with symptoms and no one dies. Of course not everything is TMS. There are diseases, infections, and actual injuries like broken bones. Once you have ruled out all of that though and the physicians found no structural etiology, , it's time to rule in neural circuit (learned) pain, which is psychological. I had visual manifestations (swelling, redness etc) and even bone changes on my MRI and an actual "diagnosis" but it was still stemming from my brain. If doctors have not diagnosed you with anything that has a known cause or effective treatment, it has to be psychological. It's either physical or psychological. The only other realm is spiritual and possibly unicorns? We are human organisms. The human body has an innate ability to heal without us doing anything. In fact studies have shown that most back surgeries were no better than doing nothing. The choice is yours. Defnd your suffering as to be "right" or decide how you want to live the rest of your life. No one can do it for you and the answers are not outside of yourself. They are within and free. People go broke and insane chasing therapies and magic bullets and waiting for someone to save them. The truth is there's nothing to "fix".

 

It’s ok, and I feel for you, I really do. I was there for years. But please read @miffybunny ‘s post above. She is correct.

This will be my final response about this because we are going in circles now.

I had 11 years of college, 16 years of practice treating 10s of thousands of people. I have cured my own severe TMS. And yet that doesn’t seem to be enough..? ALL bodies are designed to heal. Do you have any idea what humans have had to endure to make it this far? How strong and resilient the body is?

Yes, some people are born with bad genes, birth defects, etc. But that is a very small percent. For the rest of us, The environment of the body is what determines gene expression. You are responsible for you. Genetics loads the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Type 2 diabetes and Chron’s disease can both be reversed, but it takes a tremendous effort. I have seen this in my clinic. I’ve even seen cancer reverse in people who did heavy work on all aspects of their life. But In my experience, most people won’t do the work, for all the reasons I’ve listed before.

One of my first diabetic patients was a pleasant lady in her early 50s who was losing her eyesight because of her blood sugar. I gave her a pep talk, told her it was still reversible, but if she kept down this road she would go blind. She smiled at me sheepishly and said ‘but I can’t live without cake!’ You’d think the fear of losing your sight would be greater than a love for cake, but no.

We’ve already discussed at length that yes, emotions can be changed. And we’ve discussed at length how to do that. There are many techniques, but they need to be done rigorously, including 24 hour vigilance. Yet your post above tells me either you didn’t read our posts, or just don’t accept them. Either way you are keeping yourself stuck in the cycle you are in.

If you are convinced there is some other problem behind your pain, why are you still here?? Check for parasites, get more in-depth blood tests, keep looking, maybe you’ll find an answer. Is there a chance it’s not TMS? I suppose so, but I highly doubt it. This is not a forum to diagnose, just to discuss. So which is it? If it’s something else, keep looking, but if you stay here, arguing this point, you will stay stuck.

The repeated lack of changing any view on this will just keep you where you are. Exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, what have you done to ‘try TMS?’ I used to work with only diabetic patients, and the very overweight ones would almost always tell me “I swear I don’t eat that much, and I’ve tried exercise but it doesn’t work!’ But after I had them write down exactly what they were eating, and journal their exercise, they realized they were eating far more than I thought, and barely exercising at all. All of it was just a justification to continue doing things the way they were doing them.

So I’m ending this with a re-post from several pages back. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it explains all you need to know. Do you see yourself in this?:

"There is a chapter in Abraham Low's book that spells out exactly why people don't recover when they are in the midst of suffering from nerves/TMS. It is simple as pie, so logical, and yet so very, very difficult to come to grips with.

Here he was, an erudite physician with a roomful of cured patients telling their stories of suffering away, being unable to leave their homes, go to work, care for their young. Multiple hospitalizations, shock therapy, addictions, abuse, negligence, a morass of human suffering. New patients and those still suffering after years of treatment were brought in for meetings and given the chance to account for themselves in front of the group and get feedback. The ones who got well absorbed the doctor's explanations and got back to life. Their symptoms hung around for a while, but the power of the many exhortations from the doctor and those who had come through, many of whom were thought to have little hope before, buoyed them between meetings.

The cases were summed up so beautifully and eloquently, that it bears repeating here. He says, and I'm paraphrasing, that the patient sees his suffering as special, unique, is jealous of others who've listened and done as they were instructed, doubts that the suffering of others is nearly so acute as theirs, thinks it's very easy for the doctor to give instructions to do things that cause them to have panics and pains because he doesn't suffer, and on and on. That resonated with me because that is EXACTLY what I thought and believed at the time.

And despite whatever cure rates that he could publish or espouse, some people just simply couldn't believe that their nerves could cause such widespread havoc within the body's functions. He would remind them each week that they didn't find him by accident, that they had all seen a litany of physicians, had a battery of tests, and what ultimately convinced them to try was that there wasn't anything left to do but give in and comply with doctor's orders, to join the group instead of standing on the sidelines and criticizing and holding themselves out as special and unique. Humility is a very powerful healer because it calms, orients, and instructs.

This board and the many like it that are dedicated to functional illnesses and conditions, is literally peppered with examples of this. There's a new symptom of the day, a post about anyone who's dealt with it, asking is this TMS, and does anyone have experience dealing with it. Yes, we've all had it or something similar, yes, it disrupted our lives and drove some of us to the brink of sanity and/or suicide, and yes, it is curable in the same manner that others have followed. But do you believe it and will you do what's necessary to overcome it and take responsibility for your own suffering and your own healing? Only you can answer, and it makes little difference what you can come up with in way of a pithy rebuke or well-documented rebuttal.

What do you believe is causing your symptoms? If you think something other than nerves is to blame, then why did you find this board, how did you post this question, and why are you reading this answer? If it is because you are still gathering information, that's fine. But there isn't anything anyone can say to assuage your suffering other than, "Wow! Sorry to hear that. Hope that doesn't require surgery." For those of us who remember full well how badly we suffered, how we thought, whose minds have been changed through reading and sharing and even arguing, we can simply say accept it. It is nothing, and you are healthy as a horse. Be glad and of good cheer. You will thank us later. For now, you have a life to lead. Go lead it courageously."

 

@RogueWave Thank you for taking the time to write such thoughtful responses

Thank you. I hope my messages resonate with other people who are struggling and provoke responses that speak to our doubts and point towards a way forward, rather than to encourage more dejection in others.

I think this is just a semantic disagreement. I'm merely saying that there are many maladies which permanently interfere the body's ability to achieve 'homeostasis' as you put it. Saying that the body naturally strives for health or homeostasis leaves unanswered whether chronic pain is a permanent or only a temporary impediment to the body achieving that aim.

I am familiar with the arguments and data casting doubt on the rudimentary structural explanations for chronic pain. I think I'm basically on board with all that. But saying that those straightforward structural theories don't hold water is a far cry from being able to say that Sarno or a Sarno-esque theory of chronic pain is therefore right. For one thing, that diagram leaves out the brain, in which all sorts of "structural" things could be going on in chronic pain which are not psychological per se and are not remediable. I'm not saying that this is necessarily what's going on in chronic pain, just using it as an example of one of a thousand potential theories which are neither mainstream-structural nor Sarno-esque. Maybe chronic pain is initiated by a structural injury, but elicits a neurological response which effects permanent changes in brain structure and/or chemistry which perpetuate the experience of pain indefinitely. I know TMS folks like to say, well, that the brain is malleable and we can build new pathways and rewire ourselves etc etc. But I think the brain is far from infinitely malleable - the excitement in neuroscience these last few years is that it's possible to build some new pathways and that it may be possible to stimulate the growth of a neuron or two. Anyways, I don't want to go on and on with this hypothetical theory because it's not my intention to argue for this theory at all, I'm just making this up to demonstrate that that diagram still leaves scores of thought-of and as-yet-unthought-of theories potentially viable, in my opinion.

I get what you're saying, in describing a homeostatic environment understanding of the body. But again I think this is partly semantic. Okay, so there are always threats in the system ... cancer cells for example ... but that a body in homeostasis readily handles these threats. I don't think this is much different from saying that a healthy body and immune system can repel/heal/attack/expel something which might threaten it but that there are many disorders, syndromes, whatever which can permanently upset this homeostasis. The question is still whether or not chronic pain is something which permanently upsets the possibility for the re-attainment of homeostasis. You brushed past Type 1 diabetes as an example of a disorder which is non-remediable. Why is it not possible that chronic pain - or some types of chronic pain - are similarly non-remediable ... just because they acquired after birth and are not genetic disorders?

Just because a body 'wants' to heal, doesn't mean it isn't prevented - frequently, and often permanently - from being able to do so.

 

I do not understand the leap from saying that health has much more to do with 'environment' than mainstream medicine yet tends to recognize, to saying that the relevant 'environment' here is a kind of psychological environment. In fact you go further than that, to describe the relevant environment here as a kind of psychological precursor ... a sort of fundamental outlook or frame of being which is itself a kind of antecedent even to psychology. I don't get how you get there from what you said about environment and homeostasis. Couldn't the relevant 'environment' be an environment of inflammation or nutritional imbalance or rampant yeast or a dearth of dopamine etc. I suppose you'll say that all of these too would be downstream of some fundamental psychological environment. But I'm not seeing how you get to that conclusion with such certainty.

Forgive if I'm misunderstanding you. I'm sure I am. But to say that to get better from chronic pain or anxiety or depression, "you have to change who you are as person, for a majority of the day" strikes me as implausible. Is this any different from the "push through it," "stiff upper lip" modality which was so prevalent for so many decades and, I think, added to the suffering of so many? Aren't outlooks and thoughts themselves subject to the influence of environment and brain chemistry and disease? Isn't this one of the epiphanies of mindfulness meditation: that we are not the author of our thoughts? I don't view thoughts as some neutral territory where we can just choose to think what we like and then over time reap the benefits of choosing better thoughts. CBT for example is a kind of indirect way of affecting our thought patterns over the long term. But it's nowhere near as simple as saying 'be a different person until I feel like a person who is better.' I do not believe that we have it in our gift to make ourselves anew everyday like you say. I think we are very much subject to the constraints and of our body and environment. Can we affect who we are with intention over time? I guess, to an extent. But if you're telling me that the way for me to get out of chronic pain and depression is to start being today, this minute, every minute, a person who is not in chronic pain and depression ... then I don't really know what you're saying.

 

Hi Kozas. It's remarkable to hear the similarities. Sorry to hear you're in the same boat though. We need a different boat. I hope you find your way