Gave up on TMS / Sarno....

Hello everyone,

There is a sense of shame in writing this post because I feel that I have given up on TMS and Sarno. I will explain how I arrived at this conclusion and would love your input.

BACKSTORY: I would say a 1.5 - 2.0 months ago I started to experience pain in my left glute muscle, then it traveled to my hip area, and eventually lower back. The pain started around the time when I was going through a stressful time (a dear family member contracted COVID-19 and put us at risk), a new variant was discovered (am I protected? will I die?) and stress at work ( I am a mental health counselor). I re-read healing back pain, followed Dan Buglio, and did everything I could to tackle the pain as a mind/body syndrome cause. There were days where I thought I was getting better, and there were days where the pain would lay me out on the bed for hours. I would have to call out of work, etc. I did everything I could: I read "The Way Out" by Alan Gordon and followed the protocol as much as I could. In some sense, I felt that I was getting better, and in another sense, I felt that I was wasting my time and nothing was working. The weekend of January 22/23 I started to develop bladder issues, numbness in my lower extremities and groin area. I went to see my PCP on Monday who scheduled an emergency ultrasound on Tuesday to rule out prostate/bladder issues. The Urologist that saw me immediately told me that this was a disc issue and that I needed to go the ER immediately.
MRI REPORTS:
An MRI from 2020 showed that I had a disc extrusion on the L4-L5. I was in pain for a little while but did nothing to address it and it just went away on it's own.

My January 7 2022 MRI showed that the L4-L5 extrusion decreased in size but also noted L3-L4 left lateral extrusion effecting the L3 nerve root. I have no clue how this extrusion happened. I had no trauma or accident other than severe stress around the time the pain came in.

I went to the emergency room and they took me in right away. I got an emergency MRI ( I never received the report of it) and basically because of the neurological symptoms (numbness in my lower extremities) emergency surgery was suggested. From what I understand, my neurological evaluation came out good. I did not lose motor functioning or anything. Just numbness. I ended up getting a microdiscectomy and I am in my second week post recovery. I am doing much better post-surgery but I also understand that this could also be placebo.

I brought this up on a TMS forum on FB and some suggested that not everything is TMS. I know that there is no corrreleation between back pain and a disc herniation but what IF my pain had a physical cause? What if the disc herniation was actually causing the pain? Did I waste my time doing the TMS work?

I feel that I gave up on TMS/Sarno. I am now afraid to try TMS/Sarno again and feel more comfortable taking the physical therapy/ structural approach. I am just afraid that I may experience the same symptoms again if I return to TMS/Sarno. A part of me wants to return but another part of me is scared that maybe the TMS methodology was a waste of time and I did indeed have a structural cause to my pain?

I thank you for reading this and I look forward to hearing from you. I scheduled a coaching session with a TMS coach next month to discuss this further. But I am curious to hear from you all and thank you very much for all of your help.

 

You didn’t waste your time with the TMS methodology You learned a lot!

A few observations on your post:

It sounds like you did a lot - and I mean an awful lot - of TMS work in a very short period of time.

Reading your post, I got the feeling of a frantic and perfectionistic search for healing. Most of us are very familiar with that! I certainly have been there, although my TMS journey has been much longer. It’s completely normal to devour everything you can find to try to get better. You just want the pain and anxiety to go away.

What is also normal is for new symptoms to arise when you start doing TMS work.

You did what you felt was best when you sought medical care for your symptoms. Maybe you did have a structural problem that was fixed by the surgery; maybe the surgery was a placebo effect. I guess it doesn’t really matter.

If you are going to continue doing TMS work, you are in a position now where you have tried physical treatments and found relief. That doesn’t mean that your TMS study was a waste of time. There are indeed some things that are physical. And if it turns out that the procedure was a placebo, well, that is something you can work with if you start having a recurrence or develop new symptoms.

I am glad you have scheduled an appointment with a TMS counselor! It should help you clarify your thoughts and feelings about your re ent experiences.

Know that it really is a journey and not a few quick steps to healing, not for most of us. It’s not a matter of reading c number of books or checking activities off a list. It’s a matter of being aware of your inner self as much as your outer self, a changing what you need to and can change, and accepting everything.

i suggest slowing down a bit and working one book or method at a time. Let it sink in and see if it works for you before going to the next thing.

When I was starting out here, I was like a human pinball, bouncing among authors/teachers/exercises hoping to find the magic switch I could flick that would solve all my problems. It took a while for me to settle down and find out what works, and doesn’t work, for me.

Best, Celayne

 

Thank you so much for that wonderful response , Celayne. I really appreciate your response and insight. I do tend to bounce around from teachers and books in hopes of finding that magic switch. This was likely causing more stress than helping.
I’ll bring that you with my TMS coach when I see them next month.

 

There are so many different approaches to this work, although they all have the same goal in mind. I know you’ll be fine.