acute injuries

How should someone working through the TSM recovery process view or act upon an acute injury (at least it seems like an injury)? While performing an exercise I went past the point of pain in a stretch (part of the exercise) and felt something shift in my pelvis. I now have piriformis pain in my butt cheek. It feels similar to a sore muscle, but is lasting longer than that would. I really don't want it to get worse, but am experiencing anxiety about it, as I do with all (but especially with new) pain. Do I continue to exercise through it or not because it is acute and not chronic pain? And what can I do about those fear thoughts concerning it becoming another lingering issue? Thanks

Andrew

 

RAndrew,

As the great doctor said if one is preoccupied with the symptoms they will persists. You need to try and kep your attention on the mental and emotional side and not the physical. The pain is keeping you preoccupied with your body, exactly what the tms beasts wants you to do.

Letting go and living life, go out and connect with people. Live in the present moment and enjoy each day you have. We get caught up so much by living in our heads we forget to enjoy the things that are right in front of us.

Also try to change your relationship with fear. If you keep fearing symptoms they will continue to come. Empower your self over them and not let the symptoms control you. It's to almost not care that they come and find a way to calm your body from going down the same old fear path. Meditation helped me a lot with this.

Best of luck, keep at it you will heal. Faith and perseverance go a long way. We are what we believe.

Ryan

 

That sounds good Ryan, but does it address how to deal with acute injuries? This is the approach that I am trying to learn to take with all of the chronic stuff, but what about something new? Can't pushing through a new injury be counterproductive?

Andrew

 

I'm no tms doctor but you should get your concerns checked out to get medically cleared. There is the disclosure.

If you have the tms beast, you can't keep getting doubt in your head that you have hurt something else. You will stay on the symptom imperative wheel, tms feeds off your doubt, fears, and preoccuping of the physical body. If you keep attacking it by trying to workout to beat it, you are preoccupied with the physical. I struggled with this for a while, I finally started working out for my health. I'm not saying you are not doing this you be your judge.

Anything you do physical try to have outcome independence. So what if the symptoms come just don't feed them. Slowly but surely they will fade out. Hopefully I answered your question, goodluck.

Ryan

 

Ryan, excellent advice. Steve Ozanich wrote the same in The Great Pain Deception, on how he went ahead
and played golf despite the pain. The more he did that, he lost the pain. But it also took delving into his
repressed emotions which to a large part was repressed anger over doctors malpractice involving his wife
becoming paralyzed. This is said by means of encouraging Blackdog to resume normal physical activity and renew his 100 percent belief that TMS repressed emotions are causing his pain.

 

Get it checked out by a white-coat, a TMS doc is the best because they will be take the workings of the sub-c into account. Dr. Sarno said if it is too heavy to lift, you couldn't lift it. Can you be more specific about the exercise you were doing? To me an acute injury is more like a trauma where your butt cheek got pinched between the bumpers of two cars, or you fell and there's bleeding, abrasions and black and blue. From what little you said, it sounds like you were doing normal exercising like lifting weights or stretching and you pushed it, that's actually what you do to develop bigger muscles, pushing it harder. All in all this is all speculation because there's very little to go on as to what happened. Something "shifting" does not sound "accute" we shift things all the time. By giving it the name "piriformis pain" you are giving it power, instead of calling it TMS. How long has it lasted?

 

Thanks Tom,

Unfortunately I am about 3 hours away from the nearest TMS doctor, plus I don't have any insurance for a few months. I was doing the Trauma Release Exercises, had been for about 3 weeks. My pelvic area (which has caused me pain for years) was doing much better than expected in the exercises. The right side is the one that has always given me pain, but the left was feeling really loose, like it wanted me to let it down farther in the position where I was on my back with my feet together up toward my groin and my knees out to the sides. So I slowly did and felt a weird pain as I was doing so in the left side, but figured "hey, this is what TMS work is all about, right?" I had heard a shifting, thunking sound around the left sacrum a couple of days earlier and felt some more "shifting" at this time. Didn't think too much of it, but then started getting pain around the left sacrum, which I never do (it's always on the right). Then my leg started feeling a little bit unstable or something around the left hip socket a couple of days later and now I have a pain in my butt where people do get pain with piriformis injury or strain. There is a pinpoint of pain that is typical of the injury. In "The Great Pain Deception" Steve says that, of course, you can injure yourself. So, my question is it OK to get some Active Release Therapy or something to speed up the healing and get this back to where I can exercise? Is it OK to treat an acute situation differently than a chronic one? Even my TMS said that of course acute injury is possible? It has been about a week or so since this all began. The last thing I want is another pain syndrome to deal with, even if it is TMS in the long run. I don't feel like I can get it checked out by an MD, because I don't have insurance. Thanks,

Andrew

 

I'm off to a tennis tournament I'm a sponsor for so maybe some others will chime in, but real quick, are trauma release exercises part of a TMS program??? I doubt it, Dr. Sarno QUIT sending peeps to PT early on because it riveted their focus on the PHYSICAL and off the EMOTIONAL!

In what context did SteveO say you can injure yourself? He's probably referring to trauma caused by accident not due to stretching. I don't think SteveO would say you could injure yourself acutely lying on your back. In yoga class once, my teacher had his 250+ assistant stand on my inner thighs in a similar position as you describe, pressing with all his weight trying to get my right hip to release--I suffered NO "acute" injury--no lasting effects either in curing my tight ass.

From your post, if you're trying to go down the TMS path, you are off the track. Your vocabulary is all straight out of the PT jargon. Take a look at the Rahe-Holmes list for the emotional topics to be exploring--that's the TMS work!

G'luck!

 

TRE is a modality for releasing chronic tensions from the body in order to be more in-tune emotionally and energetically with yourself. It is not a PT modality, though apparently some people may find some relief of pain through the process. I have been doing it as a means of emotional therapy, as I have difficulty being in touch with myself or feeling emotions. It would be similar to the way that other people on this forum use The Presence Process or Somatic Experiencing or any of the other modalities.

On page 202 Steve writes, "You need to know that it is indeed possible to hurt yourself. But that the injury should heal in a few days or months at most. If your back or any pained area is chronic (beyond several months), or has suddenly appeared out of nowhere, then it is more than likely an emotional eruption." I would not characterize this new pain as erupting out of nowhere, as it happened in conjunction with pushing past something that my brain was telling me not to. I think that it could be misleading to compare your situation to other's Tom, just because it worked out for you. I do admit that I have fears as to whether this area of my body has structural issues and this situation is not helping with that. I do have such an immense amount of fear and it attaches to things like this very readily. In any case, do you continue to push through worsened or new pain or give it time to heal? That question has still not been answered. Thanks,

Andrew

 

Briefly: YES, constantly, every day, at this moment,--it all depends what-- since I've discovered TMS, I've overcome, ignored, worked through a myriad of symptoms, things, twinges, pains cramps, etc., etc., etc.

My body is different then yours obviously--and it's also the same. It's near impossible to dx you with any accuracy over a message board. Go to that TMS doc, three hours is not that far, call him and tell him your financial situation and maybe he'll delay your payments. TMS is such a small percentage of a doc's business because so few people buy into it, the doc may be happy to just have a patient to discuss it with and practice it on.

There are TMS professionals here that you can direct your questions to who'll answer you for free, try them I'm only a tennis player.

 

Tom,

This is meant with no disrespect and I hope that you do not take it that way. In TDM Dr Sarno states that cure is defined as an individual having no pain and being able to resume all normal activities. I know that you have been working at this for some time, so would you define success for yourself as having overcome the fear of having pain and how that fear runs one's life? I want to have no pain, but I know the fear of the pain is the hardest part, and probably makes my pain much worse than it would have to be. Also, Dr. Sarno states that one should increase physical activity when they are fairly confident in their TMS diagnosis. This is the big stickler for me, as I know that I'm not there yet (fear of structural). How did you know when this was for you or did you not really go by that perspective? Thank you,

Andrew

 

I knew it was for me the first time I opened his book, in the health section of a book store, and read a few paragraphs. It was his first little paperback, MIND OVER BACK PAIN , purchased at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, the store's not there anymore, replaced by Amazon.

 

Andrew:

You have inspired me to write a piece, but it got so long I decided to put it in "my story". I had all those feelings, anxious about many things and was sore and aching. I did have a sore hip as well and was inspired to get my life back by the fine people of this forum. I hope this small contributions helps on the road to your recovery.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/members/peggy.2006/

Peggy

 

Thank you Peggy, your story is inspiring. It is hard for me to do things with moderation, that has always been part of my TMS picture I think, because it keeps me backed off from trying once the pain sets in. This is something that I need to learn and I feel that I will.

I agree Tom, it is the fear of doing damage. At this point I ma not quite sure how to get over that. Above when I asked how you knew when it was for you I didn't mean that the TMS theory was for you, but rather when the time was right that you had enough faith in the diagnosis to begin exercising more. By your answer, though, perhaps this was immediately. I feel this back and forth with my belief. Structural fears being the thing that is really hindering me.

 

I NEVER stopped exercising, BUT once for six months out of frustration. I did nothing in the hope that TOTAL REST would fix things--it resulted in the the worst depression of my life.

 

Thank you TT. I feel a depression coming on and your advice is welcome as far as making sure I keep doing things. Peace,

Andrew

 

Don't stop moving! Thirty minutes a day of aerobic exercise to maintain sanity.

 

Hi, all. Try being 84 and a half and not fearing doing something structural if I walk or bend.
But I keep walking as much as I can and always bend to pick things up.
I keep a positive attitude and when I feel the blues or worry, I LAUGH it away.

 

Functional Yoga applied.