Is repetition the cure?

Hey, pilot: I was one of those who read the book and promptly got better. You are right. It was a gift. Trouble is I hadn't done the necessary work and the back pain was replaced by a dozen tms equivalents over the next 20 years. It would take me awhile to think, "this is tms" and get back on track. A few equivalents still hang on to this day, although in a less serious form than might have been, I believe.

So, what I'm saying is, the work has to be done if you are not one of those folks who don't need to do the work!

I've mentioned this before, but Nicole Sachs put me onto a good path just a few months ago when she said (in her book) to "keep digging". I remember her saying to scratch at the surface if you can't dig deep.

How that worked for me is that I'd been journaling for years but finding it very frustrating. I was basically just vomiting rage on the pages and nothing was changing. So, I started digging just a little deeper each time I journaled, just scratching the surface most times, and stuff started coming up!

As they say, when you are ready the teacher appears and that's when I encountered Internal Family Systems (IFS) and have been "digging deep" ever since. Now, when I'm upset I don't just distract myself. I visit the member of my internal family of parts who is fussed up and wants me to pay attention!

I think we have to accept that a quick fix is not always going to happen. This is a journey not a destination. This is our life, at least for now. Not so bad, really. All the fun stuff can be fitted in around the work and the work, itself, is kind of fun once you quit resisting it.

Which sounds like life to me, anyway. I've had several jobs I liked a lot but never one that didn't have bad moments where I would have been happy to just down tools and go home. But what can you do? Payday's on Friday. TMS is the same, the payoff is worth the work (and maybe one day you'll decide it was even worth the pain you are feeling now).

 

Hello Pilot. A question came to mind as I was walking today that I want to share with you. Is there a way to relinquish control and see it as acceptance rather than defeat?

 

Dear Pilot,

I think yb44 is asking the questions that it would be most helpful for you to focus on. Affirmations and positive thinking alone will not cure TMS in my opinion, as they are the realm of the conscious brain and TMS is created by the unconscious brain. Emotions are the language of the unconscious brain, and it is repressed emotions that cause TMS. We have to look at what is going on with us psychologically/emotionally, however painful that is in order to make progress toward decreasing our TMS symptoms. To do this one must stop and look inward and get in touch with what we are feeling in the present moment. Journalling is a good tool for this because it forces us to slow down our thoughts enough to get them on paper where they can be examined to uncover the psychological and emotional content behind them. So my advice to you is to stop doing and looking outside yourself, and slow down and look inward. You will find a goldmine there.

Best wishes on your journey...

 

Wow that did not seem all that encouraging about Dr. Ira. Does not sound like a people person. I reached out to him on email and have corresponded. Does anyone know why he is so adamant about treating folks on disability? Maybe the guy in NJ is the better person to go and visit. For me I live on the other side of the country but I have a friend in NY I can crash with to go see Dr Ira or Dr Paul. I have been told a few times Dr Paul has a much better bed side manner!

 

Yikes, I missed an entire page of comments. I dont know where to start. From this comment up so I don't miss anything. First of all thanks for responding folks, it is really great to have so much support. Ellen, I would love for someone to help me pull out these emotions. I have been writing and some stuff has come up here and there that I may have forgotten about but I am 2 weeks almost 3 into the program and I am filling out a nice large exercise book full of journaling but nothing is happening yet. My back is still a disaster. I was working outside today and the pain was enough to kill me but I kept pushing through. I paid the price for it as when I came in from working I just crashed and was in bed around 7 pm for hours exhausted unable to get up if the room was on fire so I have a feeling there is something there that may not all be TMS related as you can not get that dead tired just like that but who knows. As it pertains to my back, I have a bent up spine a bit but the chiropractors have managed to straighten it out very well in the last few months but it has not made the pain go away. All this back stuff came on smack dab in the middle of one of the most stresful times of my life so it is not a surprise that it would be TMS, everything lines up. It is for me anyway, not that easy just to say everything has to be mental and not physical. All day today I kept saying over and over as my back was on fire, it is all in my head, bending does not cause back pain, the world has been bending for thousands of years and no one else is complaining. I kept saying over and over it is not the bending that causes the pain it is the belief that the bending is causing the pain that is causing the pain and I kept saying it over and over but as you all say, that is conscious not subconscious. How you tap into the subconscious is completely beyond me. That is why I figured I would see Paul or Ira to see what they could pull out. I went to a psycho analyst or therapist here in Utah but he was completely useless, he just kept saying over and over, you just need to relax and everything will be fine. Easier said than done so I just stopped seeing him as he just kept saying the same thing over and over and over. I guess I just dont know what anyone means when they say look inward. I just dont know how to do it I guess. I try and meditate with some of the TMS meditation tapes out there and it does cause me to relax but I guess I just need to give it more time or get more info on how someone looks inwards in a step by step way that i can do. Anne, again, saying relinquishing control is just a bunch of words. How does anyone do that in reality? I dont care if I feel like I am winning or losing or being defeated at all. I would gladly spend the rest of my life feeling defeated whatever that means with a perfect back then dancing around a winner not able to sit down for more than 10 minutes! hehe When you say relinquishing control, does that mean stopping all the treatments and things I am doing and just sort of throwing it to the wind and let fate decide my fate so to speak? The problem I am having with the whole TMS thing, all the videos and talk in a lot of the chat rooms is that it is all in vague-ities if that is a word. Folks say you need to think more psychological not physical and most of the advice is very cloudy at best. This was the problem I had with the Sarno books, it was not really laid out in a step by step. I like that about the structured program on here though. I would relinquish control in 10 seconds if it was going to help me but what does that really mean to reliquish control? Same for the Dig Deeper concept. I can open up my note book and write on one of the stressful events in my life but I can only remember most of it to a point. I can remember what I remember so how do you dig deeper on something you can not remember. All the advice I have seen is really all the same, mostly full of metaphors I dont really understand. You need to "sharpen your tools", you are "over egging the pudding", "step back and look at yourself", be more "open" and you need to Think Clean, and all this sort of thing. I watched the video of Forrest chatting with the guy who used to be in the movies and now is a therapist and after I listened to it all I kind of thought, that was a lot of talking but I don't think I took anything helpful from the conversation other than a bunch more of the vague-ities and catch phrases. Sorry, maybe if I hang around long enough I will get what it all means but right now I am still struggling a bit and being lost in the metaphors so I figure talking to a TMS doc might be the way to get more advice. I have read the books over and over and I will eat my hat if this is anything but TMS, I am as sure as there is poop in a cat as my back is not THAT bad. I am pretty sure I know it, the book is as if Dr Sarno wrote it about me personally just took my name out so he did not have to pay me any thing for using my story in it! hehe. I just seem to not be getting anywhere with it from what i can see so I want to make sure I am doing things right. I look forward to keeping it up and learning more.

 

Sorry that was such a long blab. Maybe that was my journal for tonight! hehe

 

Oh dear, Pilot. I am sorry for playing my part with the metaphors which must seem like riddles or in-jokes that everyone else but you gets. I didn't get stuff at first either. It was, as you say, cloudy. You have read the books by Sarno but I am wondering if you read The Great Pain Deception. Steve Ozanich gives definite examples of how to heal. He isn't a doctor or qualified therapist, just a guy who went through Hell, came back, told his story and benefitted so many of us. Steve pops in and posts on this forum occasionally. You can also write to him via his website, www.paindeception.com. He has helped countless sufferers like me and you. This will be my last suggestion to you.

 

Hello Pilot. I actually wrote a much longer post that wasn't as vague and then at the last minute deleted everything but the question. I am not a complete success story yet and so I think I felt "who am I to give advice?" But I will try to be much more concrete and specific. I think you are doing too much, and too much with too great intensity hoping for results to relieve the pain. You have said several times that it all adds up that you do have TMS and yet you still have doubts. I completely sympathize. Its not all or nothing in terms of giving up everything you are trying and just letting fate decide. I was a film producer for over 20 years. Every waking moment was about producing results and getting the job done. That was my job! I even had to predict and try to control the weather because if a large film crew unexpectedly got caught in the rain with no where to go, we could loose hundreds of thousands of dollars in one afternoon. Combined with many other things, this kind of stress over the years trained my nervous system to always be on the alert, my mind constantly predicting what might happen in the future. When I first started working on the TMS six months ago I was in an agonizing level of chronic pain that I had never experienced before. And I was no stranger to chronic pain conditions. It started with back surgery in my early 30's. I remember my neurosurgeon telling me at the time that I should ask myself why I was having back problems at such a young age. I thought it was a strange question since clearly my back was a structural abnormality and how could I be responsible for that? When I first started the TMS work, aside from working with a TMS therapist via skype(which is also a good option for you since you may need more than a few sessions) was to start figuring out ways in which I could learn to relax. And I have had to slowly train myself in various ways. When someone says you just need to relax it is terribly frustrating and offensive. Of course we want to be relaxed! Truly relaxing when you are in physical discomfort is extremely challenging. I have meditated, done yoga, journaled, seen therapists most of my adult life. Most of my friends think of me as relaxed and laid back. And yet internally, I am not relaxed at all. There is an alarm going off in the form of pain and anxiety and it is calling me to respond. Okay, I am talking a lot about me and I was trying to give you more concrete answers. I don't know if you have read Monte Hueftle's The Master Practice. In it he gives a much more definable program with specific examples. I read Sarno's book over 20 years ago before I had back surgery and felt much the same way as you describe yourself now. I did not really understand how to translate the ideas into my life practically. The whole "think psychologically" can seem very vague. The evidence sheet is a very good tool but it doesn't mean much if you do not see any evidence. One day I was in a lot of pain, so much so I could not work. I had a skype therapy session that I almost canceled because I felt so bad. But after the session I felt dramatically better for a few hours. That was one of the first things I wrote on my evidence sheet. It was only for a few hours but it was so clearly connected to talking to the therapist for an hour that it made me think. Then I would start noticing little things more and more that were inconsistent with a purely structural diagnosis(ruptured discs on my cervical MRI) and each time I would put them on my evidence sheet. I did not want to get neck surgery based on my experience with the back surgery. And now all the numbness in my hands is gone, the intense pain in my neck, head and shoulder is gone most of the time. I don't even think of the MRI anymore and it haunted me for months. Learning not to measure the success and effectiveness of whatever TMS program you follow based on the pain level is the most challenging I think. As I started to have more pain free moments and days, when the high pain days came I would do my best to be kind to myself and get through it, reminding myself that I couldn't solve it all today and that more pain free times will come. And they have been coming more and more often! So in the interest of not being vague, I would: 1) Find a TMS therapist that you can work with via skype and give yourself some time before expecting results 2)Don't try to do so many therapies all at once 3)Slow down and try to really enjoy reading to your son. 4) Explore ways to unwind your nervous system(that's a big topic and there are lots of ways to do it. Let me know if you want suggestions). And I want to emphasize the importance of not monitoring your pain levels. This is extremely hard to do. I am still working on it, but getting better at it. I told myself that if I really felt I wasn't getting any results in 6 months, I would reexamine at that time. Now it has been six months for me and I am very confident I am on the right path. If you were to give this TMS 3-6 months, I promise you your back will not fall apart and you may be saving yourself more pain in the future. My initial back pain eventually resolved. I had children, I can lift a 40 pound bag of dog food, my lower back never has pain anymore. But the TMS has found many other ways to distract me, and I wish .... uh, oh, about to start beating myself up again! Good luck Pilot. You'll be in the air again soon.

 

Pilot,
I hear you. This process can be very difficult at first, and it is like everyone else is speaking a different language. My emotions had been repressed for so long that when people asked me how I felt, I really didn't know what they meant. I would always answer with what I thought, not what I felt. My journal was filled for a long time before it finally started to click, and I began to feel my emotions. Give it time. But finding a TMS trained therapist sounds like a very good idea as Anne has recommended above. I would start there.

 

Pilot, I'd like to talk to you. I'm not a doctor or a TMS practitioner, but a former Chicago Tribune reporter (mostly crime and disaster)
and was that stressful! I quit after seven years and became a fulltime freelance writer. My published books are at amazon.com and
walteroleksybooks.com

I may not be able to give you the magic bullet that heals you and helps you sleep at night, but I've been there and at the very least
can offer you some friendly chat about TMS and healing. Email me at waltmax69@gmail and I'll give you my phone number,
unless you'd prefer just chatting by email.

Enjoy those times reading, talking to your baby son. They are going to be some of the best moments of your life.

Walt

 

Hi, Anne. Are you the lady who, with her husband, are shopping for senior citizens and/or doing things to help
seniors who want to keep living at home? I read a posting about that and think it's wonderful. I'm 83 and
in good health, still living with my darling dog in my one-story ranch house in a Chicago suburb,
do my own housekeeping, lawn mowing, snow blowing, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning.
I wish you folks lived near me because I'm not expecting to go on forever on my own, like the Duracell battery.

Walt at waltmax69@gmail.com

 

Pilot, want to email me and we can chat a bit? -- Walt
waltmax69@gmail.com

 

Pilot, open up and read the forum near the top of today's posts:
Can You Work Too Hard on Overcoming TMS.

Some good thoughts there for you.

Walt

 

Hey Everyone, thanks for all the support it is really touching to know there are so many legitimately good and kind folks out there in teh health universe that are not all about co pays and billing doctors and sending you from one doctor to another that are just in it to send you a bill. Yb44, I hope you give me advice every day for the rest of my life to be honest! I want folks like yourself showing me how they did it so dont take my confusion for unwillingness to learn, I will do and learn everything I possibly can in order to master this, I have a feeling it is just going to take me some time. Anne, I actually cut and pasted your response to a word doc and put it in my file for TMS. There is a lot of ammo there. Walt, I will make time around your schedule any day of the week my good man. Although I have put in a few months of this TMS work, watched what seemed to be 50 videos and read everything under the sun, I have never spoken with anyone live about the subject yet so I would love to hear from you. I will send you an email if you are ok with it and we can arrange a time to chat. I am an hour behind you. I will have to get Steve's book and read that one as well. So I will throw it out to you all, if I was going to see someone and they can Skype with me now and again, location does not really make any difference I guess. Is there someone out there more effective than Ira and the chap in Somerset? If you can do it via Skype, who is the grand poohbah of all TMS doctors or people with the best track record that can help the incurable as after seeing now 27 doctors I am sure I have bucked the system with each of them so I am going to be a problem child as no one can tell me what it is that is wrong with me. I will need someone that can deal with the unknown and can think outside the box. I go for Bicom testing in Toronto at the end of the month and I am hoping that will tell me what is wrong with me. I have been told Mycotoxin infection, Lyme, Candida, just about all of those out there issues that drain your energy and can be a cause of back pain so I am hopeful that this will yield some results. if that does not work then I am back to square one with no where to really go other than the TMS road. I am doing Advanced Cell Training but not seeing any results of that either. All day today at every sign of pain which for me is sitting too long or bending over, I kept saying it was all in my head and I control the brain so I control the pain but it never does seem to make the pain to away. Thanks for the advice everyone. I am going to have to sign up for Amazon Prime with all these books I am going to have to order! hehe

 

Hello. I was talking about skyping with a TMS therapist, not a medical doctor. I would highly recommend Alan Gordon or Derek Sapico. I personally don't think you really need to see a TMS doctor unless you find something medically or structurally wrong and you are not quite sure if it is TMS or not. For instance, Dr Schubiner reviewed my MRI results for me. I am very supportive of you getting the medical tests you need and eliminating all possibilities. If you don't come up with anything clear or tangible, try not to be too discouraged. All good TMS therapists and doctors deal with the unknown and most of us here have complicated histories and situations. I myself over the last 20 years have spent probably well over $200,000 on medical tests, therapies and treatments. I have seen every kind of specialist, Western Doctors, Eastern Doctors, healers, homeopaths, psychologists and everything in between. I have been treated for Candida, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and considered many,many other possible diagnosis. Fibromyalgia is a fancy word for not quite knowing what is wrong with you. They diagnose it through process of elimination basically and there are thousands and thousands of people managing this "disease" without any real known cause or treatment. Fatigue is a every common symptom that often goes along with back pain. It can be a symptom of depression, anxiety, stress and all kinds of things. I am not a TMS salesperson, just offering my opinion if it can be helpful. The TMS road isn't the end of the road. It is really one of the most exciting, comprehensive and successful treatments for a broad range of conditions that we are currently trying to treat medically often with little success and sometimes with detrimental results. I think at some point in the not too distant future we will look back and see this as an important time when we discovered that it is not effective to simply treat the body without considering the powerful relationship between the body and the mind. I do wish you the best, Pilot.

 

Hi, Ellen. Gads, you spent a lot on doctors, etc.
You put it well for Pilot, that TMS is not the end of the road. SteveO calls it a journey that take our whole life.
I believe it, because any new symptom can be TMS if it isn't medically diagnosed as being structural (even then we wonder).
Since I began studying TMS it's help me in many, many ways. SteveO says it helps us to learn who we are and why have
our symptoms, most often from something going way back in our lives.

I think Pilot is trying too hard and spending too much time on trying to heal and not nearly as much time on enjoying each day.

I took a break last night and made a big pot of split pea soup with a big ham bone I had gotten almost all the meat off.
Had a bowl last and night another for lunch today. Annie loved licking the bowl and pot after I'd finished. I look forward to
making more homemade soups as the weather gets colder. I'm a big fan of chicken soup with vegetables and I sometimes make
my own Austdrian "knadles." A friend from Boulder says he know them and his Mom called them "Colorado bacon dumplings."
They're made from bread, bacon, onions and garlic, flour, eggs, and a little milk. You mold the dough by hand into a size of a golf ball,
drop them into boiling water and soon they expand into about the size of a tennis ball. They're great in soups and stews.

Don't know why I wrote about that except that, to me, cooking is a form of relaxing.

 

P.S. But I can understand why housewives and mothers can get tired of cooking,
except it can be thought of being another expression of love.

 

WOW Anne, we sound like we are walking a parallel path. I have gone through all of that basically myself. I have been to 27 Doctors, have spent a small fortune of my own money and no one can even tell me whats wrong. I do the spit test every morning in a glass of water to see if it floats or sinks which they say is a test for Candida and I fail it miserably every time. I have been doing ozone in every orifice trying to clear it out but it still does not work. Did you finally find a way to rid yourself of yours? My neurologist wanted to put me on anti seizure and anti depressants but I was not having seizures nor was I depressed anymore. Although I was for a long time when I was really sick. I have been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Fibro but no one can tell me what that means exactly, just take lots of medicine that I refuse to take. Where are Alan and Derek located? have you actually gone to meet with them? I think I would like to sit down with someone even for the first session so they can have a touch and a feel and actually interact one on one with them just so they know me and make the personal connection.

 

Also, I do believe repetition is one of the best techniques toward TMS cure.
Do Sarno's 12 steps each day, practice meditation, deep breathing, saying a matra for peace of mind and spirit.

 

It all sure sounds like TMS repressed emotions, Anne and Pilot. Spit and ozone aren't the solution.
After all that time and money spent and no one could find any structural problem, then it's TMS.
That can sound like a daunting thing, but it's not. Discovering your repressed emotions sets you free.
Sounds too simple, and it is, but it woiks.