Day 6 Doubts

So as part of my journal exercise, I am posting about my doubts. I am 90% sure that I have TMS. I have experienced back pain and leg and foot numbness since I had several visits with a chiropractor about 6 months ago. After an MRI an ortho surgeon found no structural issues, and recommended exercise or a pain clinic. In the past, I have struggled with carpal tunnel and TMJ, so I am starting to see the TMS connection. I also fit the personality profile to a tee. My remaining doubt, however, is over the numbness I am experiencing in my leg and foot. Would the MRI have shown if there was a structural problem causing that? Would it be worthwhile to see if a neurologist could do an EMG, or would that just be chasing too many doctors and tests, of which I am already tired. How much testing did Dr Sarno do in this regard? Thanks! Bob

 

Hi, Bob. Looks like you are hung up on your pain being structural or TMS.
You've had an MRI and an ortho surgeon found nothing structurally wrong,
so I urge you to stop chasing that as the cause of your pain.

I had severe back pain and about 90 percent of it went away after reading Sarno
and journaling. But I still thought at least 10 percent was structural, since I was 82
and bound to have back ache at that age. Then I realized that even teenagers have
back aches, and that people of most ages have them. I finally got my mind to believe
that my pain was psychological. Journaling led me to uncover longtime repressed
emotions including anger and feelings of insecurity after my parents divorced
when I was 7. I came to realize they had TMS themselves, from past and present anxieties,
and that led me to understanding them better, which led to me forgiving them.
Forgiving healed my pain.

I urge you to dig into your early years and find the psychological cause(s) of your pain.
Doctors and more tests are not going to heal you. "TMS Penicillin" will.
I'm glad you are doing the SEP. You're only six days into it, so give it time.

In journaling, think about your personality, too. If you are a perfectionist and "goodist"
person, maybe work on modifying those traits. You don't have to change your life,
just make yourself easier for you to live with, and others to live with you. I have some
perfectionist friends and they drive everyone nuts, besides creating pain for themselves.

 

Thanks Walt, I really appreciate all of the support this week! Bob

 

Hi Bob,

I am not a physician, but if you get the EMG, that might ease your mind. Otherwise, remember that Dr. Sarno said TMS causes unumbness. It reduces the blood supply to the nerves. They diagnosed me with neuropathy in the foot. My EMG didn't show any problems. Treating it as TMS worked.

Andy B.

 

I had a similar experience 3 years ago. (Yes, my almost-four-year-quest for freedom from excruciating pain is a long and continuing one.) In order to seek relief from back and foot pain in addition to a rare form of neuropathic pain, I tried chiropractic in the early stages of my ordeal. However he did not do the typical straight adjustment but rather “trigger point.” I had relief for 12 hours and then a burning electrical type pain was all over my body. I called him and he said it was nothing he did. I find this a common thread, that many of them cannot discuss it when a treatment hurts instead of heals. To this day, I suffer intensely from that. I vowed to stay away from chiropractors until a year later when a neighbor told me that her chiro said he could cure me. I found a bit of relief but had to keep returning. My back would feel better when I got off the table, however I was bent over by the time I reached the front door, only to return again. One day, my feet and legs went numb immediately after an adjustment. He would not return my calls. It eventually went away, but it took months. Once again, I swore off chiropractors until I was desperate once more. Like the other ones I had gone to, both the new one and his staff were super friendly at first. When the adjustments weren’t helping, he talked me into a series of spinal decompression and on the first 20 minute session, I saw some results but the pain returned quickly. But as it continued in later sessions, I actually began to get worse and worse. Wisdom told me that I had to abstain from treatments for a while.

It didn’t go over well. The next time I went, I was met with dead silence from the formerly friendly staff and the chiropractor. A friend used to work for a chiropractor and said that the staff is so well trained in convincing the patient into feeling that they can’t exist without their services. Marketing is huge within that field. I'm sure there are good and well meaning chiropractors who sincerely seek to help their patients rather than milk them of their $ but they are probably in the minority .

Sorry I don’t have more to offer about your numbness but perhaps my experiences will help you put some pieces together.

Lavender

 

I had two experiences with chiropractors. One was very favorable. I was visiting a friend in
New York but had a bad back from riding the bus from Chicago. My friend took me home and by chance his family chiro
was going to give everyone a treatment that evening. Back in the 1970s, chiro was illegal in New York. I was bent over like an old man when I got on his table. He gave me a neck and spinal adjustment and within five minutes I was up again and not only
without pain and standing tall, felt like I had been reborn.

I didn't need another chiro treatment until about 15 years later when I fell on some stairs and hurt my back. This chiro took X-rays and said my spine had been out of alignment for years. He began giving me adjustments three times a week ($80 each), then twice a week, but I soon could not afford any more. He cut the price in half, and after several months when that was still too hard for me to pay, we began an arrangement that I would only pay him what I could afford. I said $5 a visit, and that was acceptable to him. I thought the treatments were working for me, and was not in pain, but he insisted he give me a treatment every week or two.
Believe it or not, this went on for TWO YEARS. He seemed to sincerely want to keep me pain free, no matter that I wasn't paying him a fraction of what he normally charged. I finally got tired of going for the treatments and did not like the idea that chiro would be a lifelong thing.

I moved away and haven't had a chiro treatment since. When I got severe back pain two years ago I learned about Dr. Sarno and read his book, Healing Back Pain. That and the Structural Education Program healed me. Especially journaling, where I discovered I had been repressing anger and other things from my boyhood when my parents divorced when I was seven.

This is all by saying I would not go to a chiropractor if I hurt again, but will believe 100 percent that the pain is caused by TMS, repressed emotions and my perfectionist and "goodist" personality.

Lavender, I suggest you save your money and continue to work on TMS. Even if it's free, chiro treatments may not heal pain. I consider them now to be a placebo in which the patient is told it will heal them, and the patient believes them. A racket? Could be. But whatever a person in pain believes will heal will often heal them.

Meanwhile, Happy Easter and enjoy the weekend.

 

Yes, I haven't been to one for a year. I have been doing the TMS work for 2 years now.
In former days, people could go to a chiropractor on an "as needed" basis, as happened to you after that bus ride. Soon the schools began including marketing "techniques" to " keep 'em coming." Some schools even offer rewards for bringing in new potential students (as in multi-level sales) One chiropractor I went to many years ago, had me hooked. 70 miles away, 33x weekly, 40 bucks a pop and he said I ( and my 2 family members who also went to him) would need him for the rest of my life. He demonstrated quite an inflated ego. I finally woke up and made my exit.
.
On that note Walt, A very Happy Easter to you too.