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Healing from Piriformis pain and sciatica. Thanks Pain Psychology Center!!!

Discussion in 'Success Stories Subforum' started by lupercmda, Mar 14, 2017.

  1. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    This is a long story but felt all information was important for someone. NO PAIN NOW!!

    My name is Donnie Luper and I want to share my success story on the forum. I am now 60 years old and a dentist in NC. About 18 years ago I started having severe back pain in the lower back. I tried massage therapy and chiropractor for about 6 months and never had any relief from my pain. I thought a lot of it was from bending over patients and from my postural position of my job. I went out to Yellowstone with my wife for our 20th anniversary and wanted to do a lot of hiking but could only do about a mile at a time because of the pain in my back. This was very discouraging for me as I had always been athletic and played many sports my whole life. I was a runner and had run 2 marathons up to this point and was fairly depressed with my state of pain. We were on the way back from Yellowstone when I ran into a friend from college in the airport. I found out she had become a physical therapist and so I told her about my back. She asked if there was any stress in my life and I told her definitely. I told her how I had been thrust into a role at church with our youth pastor leaving and I had to be the interim youth pastor along with running my dental practice. 3 days into this interim position I got a call from one of the girls in the youth group and she said that she was thinking about suicide. Well I have no training with handling that type of situation and had to get my pastor involved. There were many other stresses with the kids with many of the kids coming from dysfunctional homes. I felt totally out of my element at that point. So my friend asked me if I had ever read a book by Dr. John Sarno about healing your back pain. She told me he described how certain personality types manifest stress by having pain. I went straight to the book store when I got home. As I read about the personality type who gets this type of pain I realized I was a perfectionist, goodist, and most of the other characteristics of someone from TMS. After reading this book my pain went away for a very long time. So long that I totally forgot about having a bad back. 6 months later I had a friend visiting me who was about to move overseas with his family and he was in such back pain he could not sit in a chair. I gave him the book and he read it in one day and woke up the next day with no pain and so he ran for the first time in 6 months.

    Fast forward to 4 years ago. We had just had our house raised due to flooding in the past and had 6 large pine trees taken down. They ground the stumps which left huge piles of wood in the yard. Being a perfectionist I love a nice yard. I tried to find someone to come dig out the wood but could not find anyone. So I decided to do it myself. I dug for about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks and at the end of this I could hardly stand up. I was having major back pain and sciatica. I had to be out of work for a couple of days and went to see my regular MD. He warned me not to pick up anything because I may get cauda equina and be paralyzed from the waist down. He sent me to my orthopedist who is a friend of mine. He ordered an MRI and found that I had spinal stenosis with several bulging discs in L4 L5 area with protrusion of the disk material. He said it was putting pressure on my nerves so this is why I was in so much pain. He suggested physical therapy but I also saw the chiropractor because I figured 2 was better than one to cover my bases. My orthopedist also referred me to a back surgeon to see about having a microdiscectomy. He showed me my MRI and I saw what they were talking about. As a dentist I look at x-ray radiographs every day. I sent my MRI to a friend who is a back surgeon out at UCLA and he looked at my MRI and said he felt like just physical therapy would take care of it and to have no fear about cauda equina. So I started down the physical therapy road and I would spend at least an hour a day doing McKenzie exercises on the floor and planks like crazy trying to strengthen my core. After about 5 months of this my back pain went away. As I look back now I am not sure the physical therapy worked as I made several life decisions involved with my work to slow my life down and to reduce some of the stress in my life. It never occurred to me during this time that it could be TMS as Dr. Sarno’s book sat on the shelf.

    So fast forward to May of 2016. I had to have a minor shoulder surgery to remove a bone spur which was slowly shredding a shoulder muscle. I saw the shoulder orthopedic surgeon one week later and got the green light to go back to work. I did PT for my shoulder and one month later at the end of June saw the orthopedist and he was amazed at how fast I healed. He told me to go ahead and do what I wanted but not at full speed as “you may do something to totally ruin your shoulder.” He was wanting me to be cautious but this brought up a lot of fear just like the time I was told I may get cauda equina. So I drove the 5 hours home from his office and when I got home I could not get out of my car. My back was in major spasm and I had piriformis muscle pain on the left side so bad I felt like my butt was on fire. I also had pain radiating down my left leg and sciatica on the outside of the leg to my ankle. It hurt to walk and I could barely make it up my stairs as with each step my piriformis would just cramp. I called my chiropractor and went to see him that day but with little relief.

    I just figured I did something to my back sitting in the car for 5 hours although I travel a lot and have never had pain in the piriformis muscle ever before. I googled Piriformis syndrome (not a good idea) and read of all the people who had it and how with a lot of them it never went away. I just kind of lived with it for a while figuring it would go away. I could not walk very far without it seizing up. And funny thing was that when I got out of the shower in the morning and put my leg on the closed toilet seat to dry my left leg it would cramp up and I would just have to straighten up with minimal relief. And walking up and down stairs caused it to seize and cramp like crazy. I would have numbness and pain on the outside of my leg from the knee to the ankle and it would burn on the outside of my ankle.

    One of the interesting things that happened during this time in June was when I was sitting in church and my awesome pastor was talking about emotional healing. I got to thinking about things in my life and just had the sense that I was supposed to see a counselor. At 60 years of age I felt like I needed to see a counselor but had no idea why. I got in touch with a friend who does counseling for a living and went to see him. He asked me why I was there and I told him I did not know but then he asked one leading question and I word vomited for 50 minutes. I realized I hate my job, and was wounded by my dad by something that happened when I was 8 years old. I had struggles with abandonment and feeling I had to be perfect so I would be loved by my wife, kids and everyone. I had incredibly low self-esteem and was full of anxiety and was basically burned out. I did not discover all of this the first day but over a 5 month process.

    I started physical therapy for the piriformis in September after seeing my orthopedist. He told me that there is no real explanation for why people develop piriformis pain. I did exercises for an hour every day. The physical therapist did all kind of stretching and I got dry needled 5 separate times. Dry needling is where they stick 5 long acupuncture needles deep into your piriformis muscle and hook you up to a TENS unit and it shocks the muscle. Your whole butt goes into spasm as you sit on the table for 10 minutes. I also had deep tissue massage by the physical therapist and it would feel better for about an hour and then start hurting again. None of this was helping my pain on the outside of my leg. It was affecting my sleep, my work, and every aspect of my life. So I asked the physical therapist why he thought I was not getting better and he said he did not know. He felt like piriformis was one of the least understood things in medicine and no one knew why it occurred. So you can imagine how I felt. So I was on the ground rolling around on the tennis ball and it occurred to me to get out Dr. Sarnos book. I reread it and realized maybe this was all TMS. I was hoping for the book cure again but that did not happen.

    So I found tmswiki.org and started reading all of the information on the website. I got Dr. Sarno’s other books, Steve O’s book and David Hanscom’s book and a book about posture. I looked into the piriformis syndrome success stories and somehow came across Dr. Alicia Batson’s story. Man did that give me hope. I got in touch with her by email and she suggested I do Howard Schubner’s online course. So I paid my $100 and did that course. It had excellent information in it and I did all of it. I journaled, I did affirmations, I wrote like David Hanscom’s book said to do and tried my hardest to do everything everyone said. (Sounds like a TMS perfectionist ) I got Forgive for Good by Luskin and that helped a lot with moving past some things I needed to forgive people for. In fact this is one of the best books I have ever read.

    I knew a lot of my pain was conditioned responses and was about 95% sure it was all TMS. But as a dentist I look at xrays all day where pain almost always correlates to an inflamed or infected pulp and I just could not get past what I saw on my MRI. AND MY PAIN NEVER GOT ANY BETTER. I was starting to get depressed and felt hopeless.

    Finally in mid-November I went back to my orthopedist and asked him to take an X-ray of my back and tell me if I had a tumor, or an infection, or a fracture and nothing else. (this was suggested in a book but I cannot even remember which one since I read so many). So he said OK and walked in after reviewing the x-ray and said I had none of those things but I did have spondolythedosis. I was so pissed at him for telling me that. But I had watched the youtube videos from Nicole Sachs and knew she had this and was pain free. I asked my orthopedist if he thought piriformis pain could be from stress and anxiety and he said yes. I walked out of the room and was now about 98% sure it was TMS. BUT STILL WAS NOT FULLY CONVINCED.

    SO I came home and stopped all exercises, chiropractic, and physical therapy. With my personality type of being a people pleaser this was difficult as I had to explain to everyone why I was stopping and that I was going a different route. I got back in touch with Alicia Batson and we talked again and she told me I had to accept that it was TMS 100% or I would not get better in all likelihood. I told her I just wish someone who understood TMS near me could do a physical exam. She recommended that I go have an exam by Howard Schubiner and start talking with the people at the Pain Psychology Center in LA. She said that she had to go that route before she started getting better. So I made an appointment to see Dr. Schubiner in early December and sent an email to the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles. I got a call from Alan Gordon the next day and he told me to call back when after I had seen Howard.

    I went to Detroit and had an exam from Dr. Schubiner. He is undoubtably one of the nicest people I have ever met. He spent 3.5 hours with me going over my whole history and did an exam and said he saw nothing physically wrong with me. We did have a couple of ah-hah moments when going over my family history. I FINALLY had the 100% belief that it was TMS and not something structural. So I flew back home and got in touch with Alan Gordon the next day. He assigned me to Daniel Lyman to talk to and start therapy.

    I filled out some paperwork for Daniel and started talking to him 2 weeks before Christmas. We have done therapy for every week for 2 months and now I am speaking with him every 2 weeks. I find Daniel to be an awesome therapist. Daniel has TMS. There is just something about talking with someone who has TMS just like you do and understands what you are dealing with. I have learned that all of my pain was caused by my anxiety and my not feeling safe in many ways. I have learned how to self soothe myself and take care of myself and to be kind to myself in my self- talk. I have also learned that is important that I feel my feelings and know what they feel like physically. I worked on saying to my self all day long about every 20 seconds “Everything is Ok Donnie, you are going to be OK.” And “You are safe, this situation is safe.” This has helped me lay down new neural pathways (neuroplasticity). Within 2 weeks of therapy the pain began to lesson and after 3 weeks I had no pain at all. The work I am doing is trying to not be outcome dependent but to do things that are kind to myself and understand all is OK and I am safe. An affirmation that Dr. Alisha Batson uses has helped me a lot also at work especially: “99% of the time it is going to be OK and the other 1% of the time I will deal with it.” I have even taken it farther with “99,999 times out of 100,000 it is going to be OK. The other 1 time I will deal with it.” And when I was walking up the stairs I said to myself that if I started to feel something that it was just a conditioned response. Same thing when I would dry my leg after getting out of the shower. I would say it is just a conditioned response. And also would say there is nothing to be fearful of just walking up stairs or drying your leg.

    I realized many times in my head I would play out every possible bad scenario that could take place when the chances of those happening are very, very slim. But that is what many of us TMSer’s will do. We focus on the one bad thing out of all the good things. That is what perfectionists do. I am learning that I do not have to be perfect just do things complete and that has brought me much comfort in my job. I mean you want your dentist to be perfect when he works on you right? But if I thinking about doing the procedure and am complete that it will be done awesomely. That is a freeing way to think about things.

    I have occasional twinges that last for just a couple of seconds but not pain. I try to slow down and think about what I am anxious about and what emotion I need to feel. And self soothe myself with the above things. I realize how much anxiety tries to speed me up. I also now know that I may not ever get rid of all anxiety which I thought had to happen. But I am learning how to deal with it when it comes in an appropriate manner. I realized that in the fight or flight reaction I have stayed to fight all the time and this has just increased my cortisol levels and my stress.

    I am so thankful to Daniel Lyman and the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles. And to Howard Schubiner, and Alisha Batton, for their kindness and work with me. And to Dr. Sarno, David Hanscom, Nicole Sachs and Steve O. for the books they have written and their pioneering work in this important area. I want to encourage anyone who thinks you have TMS that your healing will be different from someone else and if you are looking for a formula it may not happen. It puts too much pressure on you. For some of you it will be just reading a book. Some of you it will be doing journaling and some of you affirmations and some of you counseling. For me it took an exam from Dr. Schubiner and counseling with Daniel Lyman. I needed someone who understood and had TMS to help me.
     
  2. Alex1991

    Alex1991 New Member

    I havr the same diagnose u have, the buldging discs and soinal stenosis.

    Right now doing Howard Schubiner workbook, if it wont help i will also try the therapy sessions. Tell me please did u made those tms therapy online (skype etc) or u actaully met with the therapist evrry session?

    Because i am not living in USA
     
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  3. alexmedkex

    alexmedkex Newcomer

    Dear Donnie,

    Thank you for sharing your story. My girlfriend (24 years old) has had lower back pain for about 5 months now after a painful Lumbar Puncture procedure. She has gone to physiotherapists and chiropractors, received exercises that has helped momentarily but the pain is always there. She has had an MRI scan of her back and her chiropractor says she has an irritated disk. They are saying that she should be fine within a month but it sounds unlikely as it is not getting better, and she is scared that she will live like this forever.

    The reason I'm writing is because I stumbled upon the whole theory of TMS on the internet and got very curious. To me, it sounds like she could very well have it since she has had a lot of stress all of her life. Trauma since childhood, neglect from family, perfectionist type, very anxious, lack of self esteem and self love, sees the negative side of things very easily, etc. She has had health issues all of her life, mainly stomach issues (IBS and ulcers) which I read is common among TMS'ers. However, I'm worried about the back pain since it did not just appear "randomly" but after an actual procedure. From what I've gathered, it is very uncommon to get this kind of damage from a Lumbar Puncture but I have read some horror stories online. The doctors don't believe the puncture could have caused any permanent damage.

    I would really like your input on this since you have so much experience with pain issues and TMS. Do you think her pain is mainly stress related? Is it possible even though the pain started after the procedure?

    Thank you so much for taking your time.

    All the best,
    Alex
     
  4. MindBodyPT

    MindBodyPT Beloved Grand Eagle

    Hi Alex,

    Regarding your girlfriend- TMS pain can DEFINITELY begin after a real incident! This is extremely common...a lumbar puncture is highly unlikely to cause any type of true structural damage. However it can be a painful procedure and this pain may have piggybacked on and become TMS. This happens to many people...they have an injury or sprain or herniate a disc, all of which heal in a matter of weeks, but the pain persists and becomes TMS driven by stress, emotions, anxiety . It happened to me! If her MRI was clear you can be sure it's TMS.
     
  5. alexmedkex

    alexmedkex Newcomer

    Thank you for answering my post! That is good to hear, as it gives me some hope that her pain is in fact stress related.

    The difficult part however is talking to my girlfriend about it. She thinks that I'm saying she is "imagining" her pain and she doesn't buy the concept at all. She prefers to hunt for explanations online, like all different kinds of things that can be wrong with the discs or muscles and then gets convinced she has them. She thinks she was fine mentally before the procedure and that the pain is causing her anxiety but I don't think that is true at all.

    I do believe that pain can be triggered by bad mental health. The pain that we experience is only signals in our brain and it completely makes sense to me that these signals can be triggered without physical trauma. I mean we can reduce pain just by using drugs that affect the brain, so that means it doesn't have to be linked to physical damage. However, it seems a bit too good to be true when I hear about people being cured of chronic pain just by reading a book. I'm not religious so you can understand I get my doubts here. I do get some reassurance when reading these success stories though, and I really do hope that it's real, because that means my girlfriend can be healthy.
     
  6. nick

    nick New Member

    Hi alexmedkex,

    Im also not religious so I can understand your doubts ... I think it has nothing to do with religion or only imagine. The pain is very, very real. Im sure she feels it and is very stressed about it. I have back, button, leg pain for two years with a lot of doctors, pt, chiropractic, drugs and all the western medicine...but nothing, really nothing helped my ... my pain was constant, only at sleep I was pain free. I do this program since 5 weeks and for now a psychotherapist helps me . . . I swear, it is the first thing that helped me. In my first week I was 3 days painfree and than it returns very hard for two weeks ... I thought, fuck and was in the same paincircle again ( I had a lot of stress in my daily life) but than, after a lot of journaling, speaking about my emotions and feel the feelings ... I felt better, for the first time something helps me ... thats is such a great feeling! The last two weeks I do not have constant pain, it becomes less and hours or a day totally painfree ... I better understand the mind body connection, I think. It is hard work or better to say like a mosaic ... I do sport again, I feel my feelings, I change my things I m worry about ( like my work or bad friendships), i talk about my childhood trauma, I stopp focusing on the pain ( thats not easy ;)), I look on my personality traits and many things more ... without pressure, more in a lovley way for myself. I have learned that there is no fix heal ... patencie is a keyword ... that is not easy, but ok ;)
    Very, very nice that you look for your girlfriend...Im from vienna and it took a long time to find Dr Sarnos book ... but I know it need some time to believe that there is no structural illness. I hope you can bring your girlfriend on this side ... its worth a try!
    nick
     
    Jackhammer likes this.
  7. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    Sorry I have been away for a bit. I did do the skype sessions and it helped immensely. Go to this website http://www.painpsychologycenter.com/ (Pain Psychology Center) and you can send them a message. My sessions were $180 an hour but after what I spent on the other stuff this seemed very minimal.

    Donnie
     
  8. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    Hey. Everyone told me there was something wrong with me physically. Your description of your girlfriend is so much of who I was. I can relate to every single thing that you describe your girlfriend to be like. I am all of them. I realize that I had TMS since my early thirties now that I have been through it. Sometimes it can be after a procedure and the worry and anxiety from that can cause your pain. Why did a 24 year old have a lumbar puncture? If you believe internet horror stories read the hopeleswness that occurs from people who have piriformis syndrome. The hardest thing for your girlfriend to believe is that it can be all anxiety induced. I really did not realize how anxious I was. Anxiety will cause you to want to flee and most of it is fear induced. With my history I just never really felt safe and felt like I always had to be running from something. Your body is not meant to always be on high alert. IF you want you can have your girlfriend message me and I will be glad to answer any questions.
    Cheers,
    Donnie
     
  9. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    She is not imagining her pain at all. THE PAIN IS REAL. It is just being triggered by the anxiety of the whole situation and her fear that she will not get better. I know that from experience. All of the brain research shows that these pain pathways are very real and there will have to be retraining of the brain to lay down new neural pathways. I bet your girlfriend is never kind to herself in any of her self talk. I know I was not. My therapist Daniel Lyman who is awesome told me that laying down new neural pathways is about teaching your brain that your are safe. It is like driving a car over a field. In the beginning there are no tracks and the longer you drive the more wear in the field you see. Then you start seeing worn out grround then small ruts start to form then deep ruts form. Then the car will just drive down that path on its own once you get it going. That is what happens with the neruoplasticity training. Now when I get a twinge my brain says OK and my thoughts go down this new neural pathway like a car in the ruts and I realize I am safe without fearing the small twinge. Hope that makes sense. But if your girlfriend is the least bit resistant and feels like it is physical then this will not work. That is why I had to go see Howard Schubiner to get an exam. We all have different healing stories and there is not one formula which many of us TMS people want.
    Cheers
    Donnie
     
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  10. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    Nick,
    Man it does not matter if you are religious or not. In fact my beliefs may have hindered my healing because I thought that with faith I would get better. But that is not always true. You hit on a very important thing that Daniel Lyman taught me. You have to learn that it will be very painful talking about all these hard feelings because us TMS people do not do that and we just push stuff down. Once you realize it is OK to talk about your feelings it is very freeing. AND the most important thing you said is you have to learn to FEEL your feelings. As I was talking with Daniel he would ask me after talking about something how that felt physically. I had trouble with that but now know that anxiety really gets my breathing fast and heart rate up and makes me feel like I want to run out of the room. That is the flight part of the fight or flight reaction. It causes your body to release chemicals which do this. And I had never really learned what sadness felt like physically or that it was even OK to feel sadness. I was taught growing up to man up and to push those things down and now I realize this is not healthy and most of all not being kind to myself. That is a another thing that is key to me. I have to do things that are kind to myself and not be a people pleaser because many times it caused me to do things I did not really want to do. My inner child would get really pissed and I would just push it down and boom more chemical mediators and more stress. It is kind to yourself to take care of yourself and do things you want to do.
    Glad to see therapy is helping you.
    Cheers,
    Donnie
     
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  11. intense50

    intense50 Well known member

    SO HAPPY FOR U!!!!!!!!
     
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  12. Adrianna

    Adrianna Newcomer

    Donnie, my 5 month flare up of sciatica pain is through the roof right now and your story really touched me as we have incredibly similar perfectionist and anxiety-driven personalities. I've spoken to Daniel Lyman several times by phone and he is wonderful - if I had the money, I'd make him my regular personal therapist in a heartbeat. I'm so happy to hear of your recovery and looking forward to mine, as well, if I could only figure out how to get there this time (migraine recovery came quick and easy, but not this sciatica business). No amount of journaling, inner reflection, self kindness, soothing, getting mad at the inner bully, etc. seems to be helping.

    If you could summarize the things that helped you the very most on a day to day basis, once you'd accepted 100% that it was TMS, what would those daily actions or reminders be? Your comments on addressing issues of feeling safe really struck a chord with me, btw, I think I really struggle with that inside, too.
     
  13. lupercmda

    lupercmda Peer Supporter

    Adrianna,
    Adrianna,
    As a perfectionist I want to answer your questions perfectly so you can get out of pain. LOL. That is just the way we are but I cannot do that but will be as kind to you as I know how to and to myself in answering this also.

    A couple of questions? How long has this been going on? Can you id what you do not feel safe about? How long have you been doing the soothing stuff? What did you and Daniel work on?

    I am going to quote you on something you said: 'If I could only figure out how to get there this time.' One of the hardest things is you do not have to figure out how to get there. Your perfectionism like mine makes you feel that if I do step A and then step B and then step C that I will get better. It does not work this way. There is a thing called outcome dependence where you learn to reduce your anxiety not to get better but to do it to be kind to yourself. You have to realize you are a wonderful human being and that you do this work to be kind to yourself. It is all done so that you can learn to love yourself like others love you. I bet your self talk is not very kind?

    Do you know what your emotions feel like physically? This was something I had to learn that when it was OK to feel my feelings and to get in touch with what they felt like physically. I mean sadness felt physically like a weight was on me and my shoulders were tight and I felt like there was a lump in my throat and I wanted to cry. I would sigh alot and learned that it was OK to cry when I am sad. Do you feel your feelings or suppress them?

    And I am going to just take a couple of parts of my previous post as to how I self soothed and still to this day soothe myself. I think these things are important.

    1. I worked on saying to my self all day long about every 20 seconds “Everything is Ok Donnie, you are going to be OK.” And “You are safe, this situation is safe.” This has helped me lay down new neural pathways (neuroplasticity).

    2. The work I am doing is trying to not be outcome dependent but to do things that are kind to myself and understand all is OK and I am safe. An affirmation that Dr. Alisha Batson uses has helped me a lot also at work especially: “99% of the time it is going to be OK and the other 1% of the time I will deal with it.”

    3. And when I was walking up the stairs I said to myself that if I started to feel something that it was just a conditioned response. Same thing when I would dry my leg after getting out of the shower. I would say it is just a conditioned response. And also would say there is nothing to be fearful of just walking up stairs or drying your leg.

    4. I realized many times in my head I would play out every possible bad scenario that could take place when the chances of those happening are very, very slim. But that is what many of us TMSer’s will do. We focus on the one bad thing out of all the good things. That is what perfectionists do. I am learning that I do not have to be perfect just do things complete

    5. I have occasional twinges that last for just a couple of seconds but not pain. I try to slow down and think about what I am anxious about and what emotion I need to feel. And self soothe myself with the above things. I realize how much anxiety tries to speed me up. I also now know that I may not ever get rid of all anxiety which I thought had to happen. But I am learning how to deal with it when it comes in an appropriate manner.

    6. I want to encourage anyone who thinks you have TMS that your healing will be different from someone else and if you are looking for a formula it may not happen. It puts too much pressure on you.

    And in regards to Daniel. Consider how much you will spend trying to get rid of this medically and I just know for me it would have been alot so I just said I was goin to see him instead.
    I QUIT ALL PHYSICAL THERAPY AND CHIROPRACTOR and stretches and everything to make sure my brain knew that there was nothing physically wrong with me.

    And have you been looking at Alan Gordons new program. Some great info in there.

    http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/pages/overcomingpain/ (Psychogenic Pain Recovery Program)



    I hope this helps. Laying down new neural pathways can take a while. You did not get this condition in just one day so be kind to yourself.

    Donnie
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2017
  14. Adrianna

    Adrianna Newcomer

    @lupercmda Thank you, Donnie, for this helpful summary. Here are the answers to your questions:
    • How long has this been going on? About 6 months.
    • Can you id what you do not feel safe about? My lack of safety likely stems from growing up in an emotionally violent household where literally nothing I could do could convince my mother that I was not a bad child - no amount of straight As or pleasing could squeeze an "I'm proud of you" from her, and my non-confrontational, permissive father allowed her screaming, terrifying abuse rather than protecting me, my brother or himself. I now smile and fake my way through hidden acute social anxiety, forcing myself to be extroverted and a pleaser when I'm actually nearly always panicking inside that I won't be perfect enough for others.
    • How long have you been doing the soothing stuff? Off and on, maybe 3 mo of the last 6, with a renewed effort about a week ago.
    • What did you and Daniel work on? My self-pressure to succeed and be perfect, my pressure to not let myself or others down.
    You are absolutely right, I am trying to find the formula that will lead me to pain relief. I keep thinking if I say the right combo of things to myself, that's going to be the magic formula (and sometimes it is, for a day). I'm going through Dr. Alan's new 21 Day program, on day 5 now, and every day I seem to have some sort of crying breakthrough that brings me temp. relief, but the next morning, the fire in my leg begins the second I stand up from bed again. Today I proved to myself by going for a 4Km run that my body is not broken and I won't be held back from this, and while the pain was reduced during the run and I was elated, the fire came raging back 10X worse after I sat, rested and attempted to get up again (standing up from sitting is the very worst pain). I'm working on feeling my feelings, giving permission to what is buried in my subconscious to rise so I can acknowledge, process it and let it go. A lot of tears while journaling about childhood and recent traumatic events.

    It helps to remember I've had this for 6 mo, so it could take just as long for me to be rid of it. Thank you for that reminder. I actually find that, now that I've completely relaxed into the idea that this is nothing more than TMS, reading more about TMS (forums, Divided Mind, etc.) makes my symptoms worse. When I say 'fuck it, my brain hurts from everything I'm supposed to remember all day long' and give up, I actually feel more (temporary) relief.

    I'm trying to only hold the idea that 'There are literally zero things I have to do about this other than relax the tension and pressure I feel in my heart (because this is where it feels like my greatest pain actually comes from, not my body), and be patient and kind to myself. My subconscious is getting the help we need now.'

    Thank you so much for your words, Donnie, very much appreciated.

    Adrianna
     
  15. Click#7

    Click#7 Well known member

     

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