Nerve blocks evidence that one does not have TMS?

Hi, my husband has severe chronic pain in various parts of his body, but nerve blocks have been effective in the past, especially in the pelvic and stomach regions. Is this evidence that he does not have TMS? That is, can nerve blocks work even if the source of pain is not structural?

Thanks.

 

Yes they can- placebo effect.
If the pain comes back youll know for sure

 

That is my experience too-- short relief from a placebo effect, then the pain returns. Or, it could pop up somewhere else. Has your husband been able to see a TMS doctor?

 

Julesmck, has this gone on for a long time for your husband or recent?
Maybe the pain is TMS from long-repressed emotions and something recent triggered it.

 

Thanks to all for your replies. This has been going on for 20 years. Started with tension headaches, then burning stomach pain, then groin pain, tinnitus and a host of other chronic pain symptoms in different areas. He still has them all, constantly (he's had a headache for 20 years) and as time passes more things keep cropping up and the original symptoms keep getting worse. He's been to numerous specialists but tests have revealed nothing wrong. He had a violent, terrible childhood and whenever he gets stressed about something a new problem seems to crop up. I'm not sure how significant this is but he filled out Dr. Schubiner's questionnaire and he has 15 of the 34 items on the list of ailments.

 

He has TMS, and all those things he's doing are keeping him in pain. If he has had all those physical problems and headaches for years he should seek out counseling.

The nerve blocks obviously didn't work, right? If they had worked you wouldn't have posted. Temporary fixes point to placebo effects. He's TMSing badly and it always come back to childhood separation-anxiety-rage. He's still reacting to stress poorly and he needs a good shoulder to cry on, and to ease his emotional anguish. If he continues down the path of modern healing modalities he will seal his fate of suffering. Try to sit down and talk to him, heart-to-heart about TMS. It saved my life, it could save him too.

Good luck
Steve

 

Great advice, Steve. If anyone knows about pain and how TMS repressed emotions cause it, it's you.

My back, shoulder, and chest pain a year ago was so sharp I couldn't lie down or sleep in my bed.
I slept in a recliner for about two weeks while I tried convincing my unconscious that the pain was
from emotional stresses doing back to my childhood. Then I began to heal and when I believed that
100 percent, I healed.

Julesmck, a "terrible, violent childhood" can cause a lot of pain, and new thoughts or situations can
trigger it all to come back and cause lots of physical pain.

I hope your husband becomes a total TMS believer. That's really all it takes to heal,
since doctors said there's nothing structurally wrong to cause any pain.

Ask your husband to read all the success stories on the forum.

And if you both can, tune in tomorrow night for the call-in about Steve Ozanich's chapter 6 of The Great
Pain Deception. It's on opposition to TMS, those who may believe it 90 percent but need to believe it 100 percent.
I posted information about how to make the call-in earlier today.

Good luck!

 

Walt you summarize me better than I can. It's very difficult to do. It's probably because you're a good writer. I can't wait to check in to see what you say that I said!

 

Thanks to all. This is day 2 of my husband trying to implement some of the techniques he's read about in relation to TMS (i.e., going over past pain triggers, trying to guess which traumas the triggers are connected to) but it's making him extremely agitated. He's trying to process the fear and anxiety but is finding it difficult to tolerate it the resulting emotions. He would like to take a dose of anti-anxiety medication but is worried that goes against the tenets of the program and that doing so will just lead to more repression of emotions. Any thoughts on this?

 

My first thought is that your husband should get involved in his healing, if he wants to heal. Part of the TMS process in healing is about the sufferer having people doing things for them. Sometimes they do too much and it slows healing. As was in my case, no one helped, which pushed me to heal.

Contact me if you want to. It's ok to take an anti-anxiety med, sometimes. It does not go against the tenets of TMS healing, sometimes. Each case is unique.

People often become agitated when the introspective process begins. That's good, rattle those cages.

 

Julesmck, Steve recently posted this about trying to discover what repressed emotions cause our TMS pain.
I think it sounds like your husband's anxiety about learning what his repressions are.
Steve says we really don't have to put our minds through a wringer to discover them,
just believe something or other in our lives is causing the pain.

 

I forgot to include what Steve posted. Here it is:

I think you do know what the conflict is (the repressed emotion such as anger, guilt, rejection, desertion, a perfectionist personality, physical or emotional abuse from a parent or sibling or others, etc.).

But if it's too emotionally painful, or taboo, or unthinkable, then you can't allow it to surface, thus the physical symptoms. It wants to be let go, but the TMSstops it in its tracks.

You don't have to know what "the" thing is that is causing your pain, or unpleasant symptoms. Over the past 12 years I've seen people get worse by trying to find the magic healing bullet. But it doesn't usually work. And--if you read the new Foreword that Dr. Sarno wrote, he said it was "fruitless" to try to make the unconscious become conscious.

So, I tell people to look at your current life, and to forget the past for now. Your past is what got you here, it formed your personality, and how you respond to stress in your adult life. But it's gone, temporally. So you have a certain Type T persona, and your current life has you under the gun. As I wrote, I believe it is all about relationship. Check your current relationships, and let go of the past ones. Your TMS is there due to some fragmenting of a relationships, or relationships.
TMS occurs because of a reaction. Your physical body is reacting to something. If your body didn't react, then you wouldn't have any symptoms. But the presence of TMS shows that your body is responding. The response is to over stimulation. Most people can recognize a physical reaction to stress, and tension from stress. But they usually aren't aware of "how much" they are responding due to repression and ego. The ego covertly hides how much things are bothering us. The ego is also the thing that causes the reaction, or response. If we placed no attachment to the criticisms or rejections, in relationship, there would be no TMS. The ego is the thing that causes the over reaction.

So you have TMS because you are reacting to life. How you are reacting is how you learned to react as a child. You can change all that through letting go. Letting go is a book in itself, with many ways, and many takes.


Healing is a personal thing, in that, no one can show you how to forgive, or to have faith or belief. No one person can tell someone how to have courage and strength. Those things come through personal revelations within the self.

 

Is your physical body always reacting to something current (relationship, current stressors) or can the physical body's reaction have little to do with what's going on currently?

 

The body is always reacting to what going on currently. We are emotional beings, chemical beings. But the type of reaction, or the strength of the reaction, to the current event, is based on the past. How you reacted as a child has the greatest impact on how you will react to similar events now. How you reacted a child depends on how much shame you felt, and how much love and support you sensed that you had. Were you loved just for yourself? Or did you feel you had to prove yourself?

For TMS healing I would focus on what's happening right now in life, leave the past alone for now.

 

Thank you both so much for the time you've taken to reply to my post. I really appreciate it.
Whenever my husband is asked to deal with any troublesome issue he completely shuts down and says my wanting to discuss something is like I've taken an icepick to his head. That is, he completely wants to shut the conversation down because anything stressful makes his pain that much worse. I try to shield him from 'troublesome issues' as much as possible, but sometimes things need to be addressed. Although he is reacting to current events, I wonder how much of his reaction is based on how he learned to respond as a child.

 

I found it unavoidable to have to think about traumatic events from the past - I knew what they were, they have always been there, I just thought I had dealt with them in therapy - BUT 22 years of painful fibromyalgia has proved otherwise. The TMS work need not mean reliving or dwelling on the events - but more with identifying the triggers that happen in everyday life now - that are caused by those long ago events. Once they are identified they can be dealt with. You may need to change how you live your life, the people you see regularly or how you interact with them, you may need to change how YOU interact with and treat yourself. Everyone is different - but we are all hurting and the only way to stop that constant pain - is to find and eliminate those triggers and learn to be kind to yourself. It works and yes it is hard - but there is a tremendous sense of relief - it feels like you have been holding your breath with fear for your whole life - then suddenly you stop! Good luck to your husband and yourself...

 

Thanks so much, Jo. The problem is that we've already tried to remove all the triggers (toxic family members, friends, etc.) but as a result, our world keeps contracting and getting smaller and smaller. It seems we can never remove all the stressors and triggers. Because there's our son to consider, I worry that he suffers because our world keeps getting smaller. My husband can't tolerate any sort of stress - even of the most mundane variety because it makes his pain go through the roof. We're all well and truly stuck.

 

It is when things can't get any worse - that they often get better... If you have dealt with external stresses then you are left with the inner ones. Has your husband done the Structured Educational Programme on this website? If not get him to do it - you can do it too. All you need is a notebook and pen each and set some time each day to do the exercises. Much of it is listening/reading as well as journaling etc. It is excellent for bringing to the fore what needs to be done. As you both progress why not schedule in some 'happy/family/goodtime moments too? Like going to a movie or play you would all enjoy (humour is a great healer) or a long walk in the countryside with a picnic. It can be soothing and stressfree, but does need to be enjoyable and carefree. As time goes on perhaps you will meet new people to replace the toxic ones, starting a craft or activity course might help, whatever you are interested in. You do need to ensure that your son gets a happy and healthy life - so encourage him to take up activities where he will meet his own circle of friends as well as 'family' ones. It is always hard to make the effort, part of TMS is the fear and anxiety that is at the root of it all, but every positive step forward is beating TMS - so go for it!!

 

I just gave up on a toxic neighbor who can't be pleased. It's helping me.

Julesmck, your husband must have some really bad repressed emotions.
You've led him to the healing water but he refuses to drink,
so it might be counter-productive to push him more at this time.

As Scarlett O'Hara said, "Tomorrow's another day."

Meanwhile, maybe spread some sunshine and laughter around.

 

Great point Hecate, removing those external triggers is only a small portion of the healing process. It's the internal stuff that matters. How he's reacting to life is the cause of the TMS, not the outside world. We can see an event and react or not react. The pressures we place on ourselves are the only ones that matter.

How we respond to stress is learned in childhood. This lady's husband needs to begin anew and see life differently, he needs an awakening. The good news is that people do it everyday with great success. But the man has to be willing to change. Change is the most difficult thing we can do, and to become ourselves beyond ego and image. Healing only comes through letting go, which takes great strength. He's lucky to have a wife that cares.

Steve