Recovery so far + advice on dealing with mouth and eye problems?

I would first like to give a quick summary of my recovery so far. 6 months ago, I was feeling constant debilitating exhaustion and pain and was unable to work, exercise, or deal with daily stresses. After working through the Structured Education Program and Alan Gordon's new program, getting support on this forum, and putting the tools I gained into practice, my life looks completely different now. I'm back to work, doing regular strength training, and have been making positive changes in many aspects of my life. My musculoskeletal pain, my CFS symptoms, and my anxiety are 90% gone, and I feel that I'm in tune with myself and my emotions. THANK YOU to everyone of you who helped me get here, and everyone who contributes to this site and to the fight against TMS in general.

I do still have symptoms that I believe to be TMS, namely occasional insomnia, frequent recurrent mouth sores (I have five of them in my mouth as I type this, two of which are very painful), and eyes that are dry, sensitive, and get infected easily. My insomnia is manageable, in great part thanks to Ellen's excellent post about on her recovery from insomnia, but I wonder if anyone has advice about how to deal with the mouth and eye problems.

• Is it okay to rub a numbing salve on the mouth sores to alleviate the pain? I know painkillers are discouraged for musculoskeletal pain, but I feel like this is different, because the TMS caused the mouth sore but the pain comes from the actual physical mouth sore? How can I deal with the sores in general? It's hard for me to eat without causing them to flare up in pain, and it's really hard for me not to get angry and frustrated then. Should I be aiming to feel equanimity about that pain?
  
• I use eye drops to help with the dryness in my eyes, but I'm wondering whether that's actually feeding the symptom by giving it attention. Should I just ignore the dryness? And what about infections? I know I shouldn't ignore them, but isn't tending to them feeding the cycle?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Congratulations on your progress! You achieved a lot! I think using OTC painkillers to get the pain to the tolerable levels when you can deal with it as TMS is totally OK, as long as you know that it is not an ultimate solution, but rather a temporary prop. Good luck!