Parent of teen with TMS

Hi:
I am the parent of a teen that I believe may have TMS. Does any one here have any advice or experience with this ? We have both read Sarno's book and are pretty sure it is TMS .
Thx,
Carmen

 

Hi. It would help to have more details. Of course, many of us on this board have had TMS since childhood. It would not be at all improbable that your teen has TMS. The question is how best to work with her/him on it.

 

Hi Anne
Thanks for responding so quickly. My son is 16 and had always been very active in sports. Last july he started having pain in 1 foot. We went to podiatrist then to a slew of specialists. Pain spread to both feet. He cannot stand or walk without pain. No dr has been able to find anything wrong. No treatments helped.

 

There was a mother with a son with severe TMS who posted on the Forum for awhile--maybe about a year ago. Her posts contained excellent advice and her son made significant improvement. I tried a few search terms, but couldn't find her. Does anyone remember her and can find her posts? I think they would be very helpful to goodyD.

 

try to get an authority figure or consultant on board with your thinking so they can break it down medically for your son. I had zero awareness that pain could be generated by the body and spent ages thinking of how I damaged my body. Good luck

 

Hi Carment,

Finding out whether your son is interested in doing a structured program or seeing a specialist would be a good next step. Would he be interested in checking out and trying the SEP (Structured Education Program) here on the wiki? Would he be open to speaking with a therapist on his own about his emotional life? Gaging your son's interest in exploring some of his internal dynamics will help direct you to how intensive an intervention you guys can try next.

Here's a link to the program: http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Structured_Educational_Program

Best of luck!

Andrew

 

Ellen
Thanks for responding. I will do another search

Thanks Andrew.... I will check out that link.
He is open to a therapist... but we are going to see dr Rashbaum first to get his take on it...

 

@goodyD, @stephb has a son who had severe debilitating pelvic pain that had affected his whole life. She was convinced that this pain was TMS & together they embarked on a journey to recovery.

Luckily he was receptive to the idea & she was amazing in her efforts & determination to help him recover. Last I heard he was doing very well. She had some excellent posts & insights on TMS & I urge you to read them.

Even though the symptoms may be different, the underlying principles are the same. I am including the link to the very first post she wrote and if u find it is useful then u can do more searches on the subject by typing in her name in the search box or even messaging her privately.


http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-14-year-old-son.6153/

Mala

 

Amazing !!
Thank you so much Mala.

 

Alright, @Mala , you found her! Brilliant! Hope you find stephb's posts helpful, @goodyD

 

@Ellen , @goodyD

Mala

 

goodyD I really think you are on the right track!! It is wonderful your son is open to exploring possibilities. I have a 16 year old son and an extremely emotional 14 year old daughter. Oh, there is so much going on at this age! Have any of the doctors said he has plantar fasciitis? That's what the doctors said I had and I suffered many months of excruciating pain in both feet and they really hurt when I walked. I now know it was TMS. I know that clearly because as I was healing from TMS I had short bouts of most of the pain conditions I had in the past. I remember well when the foot pain came back with a vengeance for a few days. It is amazing what the mind can create that is really so convincing and painful when there is nothing structurally wrong. If this is what is going on with your son, what a gift it will be for him to become aware and learn how to deal with it now. Many of us have spent decades experiencing various conditions until we finally figured it out. Hope things turn around for him soon. The only thing worse than pain is when our kids have it!

 

Thanks for the excellent posts and advice, Mala and Anne, to GoodyD. Maybe she and her son should work together in doing the SEP.
They may find similar emotional stresses that could help them both.

 

Anne:
That is good advice- We all know how skeptical teens are of parents !!
I am taking him to see Dr Rashbaum for an evaluation. He trained with Dr. Sarno and has worked with some teens.
Carmen

carmen

 

Anne: Yes- the latest diagnosis was plantar fasciitis- which was treated with the typical treatments- with no pain relief. It has been an incredibly stressful year for our family. I am so glad I found you all and this site. I am hoping to share my experience as a parent and perhaps help other parents so we can treat this sooner and reduce the time people have to deal with pain !

 

Look at the RAHE-HOLMES list for "non-adults":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
http://www.2relievestress.com/teen-stress-test.html

 

Thanks Tom !