ACNES syndrome: must be TMS?!

Hi all,
I've been on my TMS journey for a couple of months, since I've started pain has been acting weirdly - getting worse, getting a bit better, then getting back to "normal", changing locations faster, turning up in old places I've had injuries - to summarise: it's obvious my mind is reacting and trying to distract me.

A weird thing though. For years I've had these tender spots in my abdomen, under the skin, about the height of my navel, on both sides. It's extremely painful when you put pressure on it, and almost excruciatingly painful when you massage it. I've always assumed it's some kind of muscle pain because it gets slightly worse when I work out. Anyway, I've always kind of ignored it. But lately it's been getting worse, particularly at the left side.

So I thought I'd google it, and I was surprised to read that it's an actual thing: ACNES (Anterior Cutaneous Nerve Entrapment Syndrome). I had wondered before if this pain could be TMS, but I was like nah - also because some therapist had once mentioned it could be massaged away and it had to do with the idea of having to do everything by yourself and in consequence clenching the stomach in order to face the world... (as I type this I realise this in fact screams MINDBODY.. Oops).

But reading on the hospital website it says stuff like: underlying cause unknown, occurs mostly spontaneously or because of earlier injury in that area, caused by a pinched nerve, sometimes suggested to be "in the head", sometimes injection works, sometimes this causes the pain to move after which a second injection is needed, operation sometimes helps, if nothing helps patients should learn to live with their pain..

It don't recall that Sarno mentions this syndrome in his books, or does he? Is there anyone who has any experience with this? It has to be TMS trying to trick me further, right?!

 

Of course Sarno doesn’t mention this super “obscure” “syndrome” - most “syndromes” unless present from or before birth are simply current states of being - defined by a certain set of symptoms. This particular “syndrome” sounds exactly what you state: clenched abdominal muscles.
In a recent interview done with Dr. Schecter a TMS doc out of LA - he stated that almost every single patent he sees with pelvic or abdominal chronic symptoms has TMS.

 

Hi JCthart. It looks like your brain is trying to latch on to anything since you've discovered TMS which is common! Yes, it's trying to trick you. I believe I read something here a long while ago about any diagnosis ending in 'syndrome' and to be very skeptical about it. Earlier this year one of my scans "showed" mild chronic pelvic congestion syndrome for my pelvic and abdominal chronic pain. I really couldn't find many success stories so I felt discouraged - however I thought "what do I have to lose?" and just labeled it TMS. Spoiler: It turned out to be TMS and I'm pain free now. Continue doing what you're doing; it sounds like you're doing great work. Also, I recommend not Googling and diagnosing yourself. It only fuels your TMS.

 

Thanks, that's really helpful. And I agree with you on the googling - though funnily in this case it was actually really helpful as it was exactly like reading a Sarno chapter on how the medical world treats this stuff as physical. Instead of concluding oh no I have this, I grinned and thought: must be TMS, only now it's manifesting as this ACNES or whatever it's medically classified as. But it really helps hearing it from someone else. And hearing you're pain free, amazing!

 

What the hospital website describes is a description of TMS. You have TMS. Pick a structured TMS program and move ahead. You can recover.

 

Actually if I recall, Jan, it was one of your old posts I found that encouraged side-eyeing anything labeled with ‘syndrome’ in my stress-induced late night TMS googling. I found a lot of damn comfort in it when I was diagnosed with chronic pelvic pain congestion syndrome. Lol