Lingering symptoms

Hi all, this is my first post here but I thought I’d start with describing my situation. I feel like I’m very close to becoming a success story, but I’m just not quite there yet and wanted to seek some advice.


In hindsight, I think my migraines that I’ve had for 10 years are TMS symptoms. I don’t have them very often these days, but I used to have them far more often when they first came on. Then I had a knee injury three years ago that didn’t really make a lot of sense and had a surgery which wasn’t helpful. I learned to manage it and make the rest of me stronger.


However, this year has been a complete whirlwind. in April I started to have a major pain in my glute muscle. I continued to work out, thinking nothing of it until I was bed ridden. The doctor said piriformis syndrome. I started having sciatica in my right leg and neuropathy in my right foot and a bit of neuropathy on the left foot as well. The pain radiated into my back. MRI done on lower lumbar, just a small disc bulge that wasn’t touching the nerve. My life had become a lot more difficult, because I was unable to work my job, which was done mostly out in the field. About two months later, my neck started to hurt, and I began to have benign proximal vertigo that made the room spin like hell every time I laid down and looked to the left. I also had tinnitus. I didn’t understand why all of these symptoms were happening to me, and I started to think that my lower lumbar was out of whack that the rest of my spine was becoming out of whack. I had a CT done on my brain and neck with him without contrast and there was nothing wrong. I then had an MRI and an x-ray on my neck and there was nothing wrong. At this point I’ve literally been MRI’d from brain down to my pelvis and there’s not really evidence of anything.


Now, here is why I’m posting. About a month and a half later, I was already on thin ice with my job and one of the requirements for my job was to take class with a lab component. I was to take it at the local community college, but I forgot school was starting, and I rushed down on the second day of class to the college in an absolute panic and frenzy once I realized. The teacher had dropped me from the class, but she was willing to hook me up with another teacher who would maybe let me in their section. I thought it was the end of the world because I was already struggling with keeping my job and now they were definitely going to fire me if I didn’t get this class. The other teacher took pity on me so I spent the entire weekend typing up notes and catching up. Well, that weekend I started to notice my elbow going numb and tingling. I’ve had this sensation twice before; just a bit while doing a pulldown machine at the gym back in like April but it went away almost immediately at that time, and over the summer I was playing the Nintendo Wii, and I noticed my elbow felt a little funky after waving around the nunchuck for several hours at a time but once again it went away after a few hours. This time it wasn’t going away and it was getting worse and feeling spikier. The spiky feeling spread into my wrist and thumb that week at work while typing, and my fingers started to go numb, as well as my wrist and was very painful and tight. I stopped being able to play video games at that point because it would cause burning in my hand and pain in my thumb and wrist and pins and needles. The doctor said carpal tunnel and I went out of work for a bit on leave.


At this point, I’ve been diagnosed with golfers elbow (pronator teres), carpal tunnel, and cubital tunnel, despite having a flawless EMG. I also started having symptoms on the left side, but only a little bit in the wrist and thumb. Because of the timing of the onset, and because of all of my other suspicious symptoms, I believe it is actually TMS. I think it came on because I did not want to take that class. I was afraid of the state of my job and stressed out about what would happen to me.


Now I have since switched jobs , I’m much happier and my life is generally less stressful. I also didn’t need that class anymore so I dropped it. The sciatica and back pain has improved immensely since I started educating myself on TMS. I’m just finding myself a bit frustrated about my arm. Those symptoms are not really improving much. They’ve improved enough for me to be able to type at work, but for some reason I can’t play video games and I still can’t type on my phone very much. I can’t play on a controller which is frustrating because I’m really big into Nintendo. I use the mouse for work and can get by maybe because I don’t click as much but I tried to play the Sims, which is a relatively easy game a few weeks ago and even that caused me to start having what felt like circulation issues in my first three fingers and tension in my thumb and pins and needles in my wrist. I’m out of the situation that caused me to have the symptoms in the first place, so I really can’t understand why they are still lingering so much… has anyone experienced this with their TMS symptoms? Were you able to get them to go away?

 

You've talked a LOT about physical symptoms, but what have you done for your anxiety and emotions...and what TMS work have you done, or are you just beginning your journey.
TMS symptoms just don't magically disappear, they are present for a reason. Educating yourself will help calm your mind and answer your questions. These videos are super helpful as a beginning or as a reminder! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsJVYZbo6uWrKc57MDUL1vGciEGnPYrV9

 

Ah, very true! I have read mind-body prescription, The way out, and I’m in the middle of unlearn your pain. I regularly talk to a therapist and actually just added a TMS Therapist to the mix which I’m really hoping will help. I’m also working on a PTSD workbook that has journal prompts, I have the Curable app, and I’ve been working on codependency issues and began attending meetings. I also regularly meditate. I really just started accepting TMS as my issue in the past few months, but I have seen a lot of progress since beginning this journey. I hope that clear things up a bit.

 

Also, thank you so much for the video recommendations!