Already had surgery

Hey everyone,

I am trying to accept the fact that I have TMS. However all the recovery stories I see and read, people say "I was so close to having surgery" or "I can't believe I almost had surgery" etc. However, I actually had surgery, a microdiscectomy on my L4 L5 disc in my lower spine. This was two months ago but the pain is still the same as it has been for the past few years. I am convinced the surgery was pointless and has done nothing for my pain, however, since I did have my spine and back surgically altered and cut into, I am still trying to treat it delicately (which goes against the teachings of Sarno and other TMS specialists).

So, people are always talking about how they accepted the fact that they have TMS and they healed soon after, and were so relieved they didn't get surgery. Well I had the surgery. And the pain has not changed at all. If anything it has worsened. It's ruining my life, but because I had surgery recently, I'm trying to treat it with extra care. How will this affect me trying to accept TMS and healing?

Thanks for any help.

 

If the Surgeon has given you the go ahead, ease back into your life doing a bit more each day. Tms healing will happen if you get back into life without worrying about it.

 

Hi thomass11,

As well as what birdsetfree has suggested, I want to reassure you that many people have "had the surgery" and done fine with a TMS approach. There is no difference between having the surgery and not having it as far as acceptance or your work, other than you now have better evidence that you have TMS: the medical model did not work for you. So this is actually a positive as you go forward. You've removed a possible doubt.

Andy B

 

The thing is, my surgeon won't give me the go ahead to get back into my everyday life and doing more because I'm still in so much pain. I agree with you completely on the second part though. I just don't know when it will be safe for me to not worry about my post surgery back. And since I'm always in pain, my surgeon will always assume it's a structural problem persisting.

 

Ok, thanks for the reassurance. However, like I said in my reply to birdsetfree, I don't know how long after surgery I should wait before I can completely accept the TMS diagnosis. The surgeon can't give me a time frame, because I'm inexplicably still in immense pain. And if I push it too soon after surgery, there is a high risk of re-injury. So, I have to "baby" my back a little bit, but I'm so eager to accept TMS and become pain free. But I can't fully accept TMS and heal if I'm "babying" my back. It's just a weird dilemma that I have.

 

According to Dr Sarno and Surgeons that I have dealt with, six weeks is a generally accepted time frame for complete healing. The pain can linger however for a while longer and this is normal. Easing yourself back into your life little by little each day would be safe at this point in my opinion. Your surgeon should be able to reassure you somewhat about healing times.

 

TMS has a rate of success only 80%. It means that not all people are actually feel relief after the surgery.

 

I don't know the statistics on recovery from TMS, but ANYONE can get better. No one is excluded. If a person accepts the diagnosis, commits to doing the psychological work, and makes the decision to get better and focus on their life....all TMS is reversible. It's neural circuit pain...."dynamic pain" and as such, anyone can get better. It all comes down to decision and mindset. It has nothing to do with the nature or location or duration of symptoms. It has everything to do with eliminating fear and shifting focus. TMS is simply anxiety expressed through the body. As far as surgery is concerned, it's been shown in countless studies that surgery is no more effective than doing nothing. At most it's a placebo in the vast majority of cases.

 

But what if you follow all instructions, and still do not recover? As I said TMS has a rate of success, only 80%. It means that not all people actually feel relief after the surgery. My dad recently had TMS, and it wasn’t successful. He did this surgery without letting his children know about it. When I found out that it is only 80% of success, I was shocked. 20% of failure is too much. My dad’s surgery wasn’t successful, and now we don’t know what to do. He still suffers from pain. Now, my wife signed up for some laser surgery on cosmeticsurgeryforyou.com, and my dad tries to persuade her not to do it.

 

What instructions are you referring to? Getting better is not about following a recipe or list of instructions like building a shelf from IKEA lol. It's a process of understanding how your emotions and thoughts and daily stressors are manifesting as pain in the body. TMS is somatized anxiety so it's more about changing your own psychology and how you are living your own life. Everyone is unique in that regard so there's no guide book or right or wrong way to do the work. There are great tools of course like the SEP, or for some journaling and meditating....any tool that helps to calm down the brain and get clarity. Is there something specific that you are struggling with that stands out to you? It could be that you have doubt in the tms diagnosis or a lot of fear around symptoms, or you may be having trouble shifting focus form the physical to the psychological or there may be things going on in your day to day life that need to change or it could be that maintaining a mindset of indifference is challenging. These are all very common areas that people struggle with. I know I did with all of them at various times. It's not a linear process so it's quite normal as well.