Spinning my Wheels and Unsure on the Road Ahead. Stuck & Frozen between Paradigms.

Hello all!

I came to listening to "Healing Back Pain" on a long road trip home from the holidays this year. Following a long year caretaking for my mother, she passed away this past April. And then my step dad passed away suddenly in June. Following this - my brothers each had intense mental breakdowns.

As you can imagine - a lot of the pressures of this fell on my shoulders. Fitting the TMS personality prototype perfectly, I was the one who stood up and shouldered much of the responsibility in all of these situations combined.

And so, this December - while spending the whole month in my home town working on clearing out my late mom & step dads home, I developed my low back pain. I was going to the gym every day to cope with the stress and as the perfectionist I can be, figured I would get in the best shape in my life. Instead, my back pain developed and crept in slowly.

At any rate - I returned home at the beginning of January after listening to the audio book on my drive. I convinced my self (or so I thought I had) that it was definitely TMS. However, after my pain did not get better after 3 weeks or so - I got the MRI.

It came up with an L5S1 Herniated disc, Lomborsis (or straightening of lumbar spine), and suggestion of spondyolysis & pars defect.

I stopped worrying about TMS, because I got so lost and frustrated. I became FROZEN in knowing how to treat it -

If it WAS TMS, then I would continue my emotional healing, and resume normal physical activities that I like like yoga. However, yoga was extremely painful. So the whole TMS thing started to seem toxic to me - because it seems like treatment suggested that I continue physical activities, even when they were painful? I worried - what if treating this like it is solely mind-body symptom, could cause further damage? I started seeing a great specialist who is helping me to restore a normal curve in my spine.

I felt like seeing a specialist to treat the physical/structural side of things was a betrayal to the TMS treatment appraoch. I started to feel like it was all physical, because he kept re iterating to me that I have a congenital spine defect and that I am injured.

It seemed like getting physical therapy for the structural defects was a contradiction to the suggested TMS treatment, so I stopped believing I had TMS. Or, I felt like I "paritally" had TMS, and I also "partially" had a serious physical injury. One foot in each paradigm.

So I just got confused and lost and split between the two paradigms.

Today, I came back around, and listened to the audio book again. I realized he did specifically mention spondyolysis. And I have some hope again, that maybe I do have TMS after all..

So.. my question is -

1) Does anyone else out there have spondyolysis or lombrosis? Is this TMS?

2) Does getting physical therapy treatment contradict my "faith" in the TMS diagnosis that is so essential in healing it?

3) Most importantly.. How long until this bout of pain starts to improve?

I'm so tired of feeling broken. I am ready to feel all my feelings of grief (in therapy regularly). I'm making progress on acknowledging my unfelt emotions. I repressed a lot this year, because I had to take care of my family. I'm just wondering when the physical pain will let go of me too.

 

So does virtually everyone over the age of about 25,,,,but they aren't all in pain.
That was my original diagnosis...with narrowing of the spinal canal, tilted pelvis (one of my legs is quite a bit longer than the other) and ...A lot of other crap I have since deleted.

Yep...acknowledging any structural reason for the pain is dooming oneself to forever trying to fix THAT...and it will become obsessional (if it isn't already)

when you finally begin to 'crack' the Lies your conscious mind is holding onto about you NOT being angry and when you absolutely have immersed yourself in the three R's.

Re-educate
Return to activity
Refute the diagnosis

You're not 'giving up on' anything. You obviously either have not tried enough in the physical world to be convinced or there is something(s) so painful in your unconscious that you need some help to find out what that is...

I laughed in the face of the first person who told me about Sarno...I actually wanted to hit him because my pain was F-ing real and what is sounded like was 'it's all in your head'.....It wasn't until 18 months later after failed surgeries emergency room visits and a lot of other personal crisis when I was finally able to dismiss the entire medical sham out of hand.

'Partial' TMS is like being 'Partially' pregnant. Maybe you just need to do what the medical people are telling you...most people do. I have observed very few of them get better, but I am just one point of view

 

Is that the case for the spondyolysis and Lombrosis as well though? It's actually not the herniated disc that worries me in any way, it's more so these other abnormalities that I wonder about. Which is why I thought it could be a good approach to see this back specialist - he's helping me to have better posture, and to correct the lombrosis/unusual curve in my low back.

I think I'm glad I got the MRI, although it of course adds this element of confusion to things. I want to have 100% faith in the diagnosis - but the evidence of my lower back having an unusual curve to it is hard to logically dismiss.
If it was JUST a herniated disc, and none of these other things - it would be easier for me to write those things off.

I've educated myself on this topic greatly and I do strongly believe in the reality of TMS. It's a question of whether this is it or not I guess.

The "Return to activity" confused me too, because I feel like this encourages me to ignore the pain. I'm still doing quite a bit of activity - like hiking and walking everyday. But what about bending over to pick something up? That is SO painful, so I have adapted to avoid bending over entirely.. How can you return to activity, when it actively hurts? It seems wrong to ignore pain and or "push through the pain"

 

Also - thank you for weighing in! I appreciate the perspective so much

I wonder sometimes if it takes going through the medical system to realize it isn't going to work to really accept TMS
Or If I can just skip that step entirely, and avoid the stress and pain of chasing the medical cause.

Thankfully my back guy is very "anti" big medicine and PT, and he is in agreement that most doctors and PT's absolutely fail in treating back pain. His approach is unique and different from traditional PT.

I feel sort of like I'd like to keep seeing him and working on making these postural changes, while simultaneously accepting that it's TMS. Therein lies the contradiction.

I just worry that if I don't adjust my posture, that it could get worse and I would look back and regret not having treated it now.

Guess that's where it comes down to faith

 

Myth. Has nothing to do with Back Pain. Nor does being in shape. I was in boxing caliber shape when my pain came...I am 20 pounds overweight now and have an old man boiler but no pain.

I have a broken vertebrae in my spine. I fell two stories in 2013. They found it a year or so later when they were MRI-ing my gallbladder...and I had no back pain during the recovery from the fall (I did sever my thumb and it had to be reattached)

Nope..they come out with stuff constantly and it is all TMS...if that were true , then there would be a 'correct way to lift' which there is not. It is just like my tilted pelvis...it causes me to wear out shoes unevenly, but I often forget which leg it is because I don't pay attention to it. You are NOT perfect, nor am I...if every 'variation' on the human form caused pain we would all be in pain...You wanted a diagnosis and you got it.

Hell, I'd be willing to throw down a $20 that if you went to a new doctor and didn't tell him what your 'issue' was, he'd find a Different diagnosis.... I got about 5 and I was only trapped in the pain world for a couple years.

conditioning. You were in an unconscious RAGE about having to watch your parents, your siblings not helping and being dolts and useless, but you couldn't function with all of that anger so you got TMS instead....it is trying to help you...Remember it is a defense....mild acknowledgement of our perceived emotions is not enough. If it was, every bitter jerk I knwo with back pain would be better, but they are not.

I have done it with my shoulders, my back , my knee ....all three with 'real' diagnoses from a 'regular' doctor and have come to no harm...I have run sprints with a torn meniscus, Throw a baseball with torn ligaments and lifted extraordinarily heavy crap in back pain.......this is about reconditioning your mind...if your motivation isn't there, or you aren't doing reconditioning strategies like talking to your pain/head, turning your mind to a recurrent source of irritation and doing everything you can frantically to send a message to the unconscious that you know what it is up to? Then the pain will hang around...forever I suppose?

That's why this is 'work'...I hear of miracle cures from simply reading the book,but most of them return and have to do the work we speak of...and it is an inside job. No one can do it for you.

I had to do those three things with regularity to get better and I have to get intense about it every now and then when TMS tries to sneak in via a new door....feet, teeth, Hands, hip.

I know you listened to Sarno... apparently listening isn't the same thing as reading...and reading over and over... There is no tooth fairy, Santa Claus or correct way to stand or lift.

I am 58. I swing sledge hammers, stand in place doing repetitive things, lift ungodly heavy crap and have to carry sheets of drywall up switch back staircases alone...all day long, every year since I was 14... I have not worried about any of that since '99 when I read (many times) "Healing Back Pain" by John Sarno... I returned to sleeping face down, Got rid of my support belt and shoe lifts (to 'balance' my hips) and I Slouch. I have piss poor posture. I catch it every now and then because it LOOKS bad, as in cosmetically, but once freed from the tyranny of the Medieval Medical Model that Sarno destroys point by point using their own logic, I got free.

I am only taking the time to answer this long post because I care about you..I think everyone should know this... but alas we are the privileged few.

Obviously your gonna do this because you have a great Placebo style relationship with your PT... you might even get a placebo response and get better!

My Heroin Dealer is totally against big Pharma too.... she got really short with me when I stopped buying smack and coke... Nowhere near as friendly now I'm not patronizing her anymore.

sorry..low hanging fruit. Read the book. Keep your eyes open. Ask questions. a good one might be.."So...when am I officially cured and don't have to keep paying you or doing this stuff?"

 

“spondyolysis or lombrosis”

yes, these are two of my symptoms.
I do use a pt to help fear of movement (not to “cure” TMS!). He suggests these are part of the Morro reflex when seen in adults: a fear response to a lack of feeling safe.
It makes a lot of sense.
These are “normal abnormalities” .
I have come a long way using TMS practices, learning to get in touch with inner rage and learning to chill out my nervous system.

 

Mmm. A lot to reflect on in this.

Thank you so much for your detailed and well articulated response. I just finished an hour long Joe Dispensa meditation. Do you know of Joe Dispensa? His work aligns so well with all of this.

You are so right. I mean, I am 29 years old, sober, eat super healthy, and my back pain came on when I was actively doing the MOST to keep myself in shape. The more I try and "get healthy" the worse I actually feel, very ironic. And that this all came on, after dealing with my sociopathic brother and dead parents house literally can't be a coincidence. I had no back pain the entire year I was taking care of my mom. Or really for most of my adult life. This all slammed me in the aftermath of their death.

I want to feel the repressed anger. I'm just trying to get that message through to my subconscious mind, not just the logical parts.

What has helped you the most to access the full breadth of the emotion (versus the logical, fragmented parts)? Simply telling myself that I am angry doesn't cut it. Because on the surface, I don't feel angry!

I'm really enjoying the concepts in Internal Family Systems therapy lately - and working on telling my "protector" parts that it's okay, they don't have to hide these emotions from me anymore. Learning to build trust with myself that it is safe to feel angry. I'm also doing EMDR with my therapist so I hope that helps me break through the "conscious mind" and into the real unfelt stuff that is at the core of things.

Anyways, I did a Dispensa meditation on reconditioning the belief that "there is something wrong with me". I put my mindset into a different frame, and now begins the process of conditioning my body to catch up with my mind.
I had been on this track and then for whatever reason, fell off of my faith in it all. But I'm definitely recommitting and reading this post helped give me a boost of faith.

I even just bent over to pick up my dogs water bowl to refill it (Instead of my usual awkward squat).

It hurt a lot to bend over like that. So it seems like practicing, gradually, doing those things and showing myself that it's not gonna kill me to bend over. It's counter intutive.
And it's tough because it is the opposite of any advice anyone in my life has given me. No one seems to endorse "ignoring pain" so it is tough. But I get the logic.

I wonder how long it will take for things to get better. I keep looking for someone outside of me to sit me down and tell me exactly what to do, and exactly how long it will be until things get better.

Working on my patience. It's been about a month and a half since this back pain started, and I tend to want it to be behind me already.

 

Oh wow! So you have that too. How is your back doing these days? Do you bend over and pick things up even when it hurts?

When I first got that diagnosis I was really disheartened. I wanted it to be JUST a herniated disc - so that I could have full faith that it was in fact TMS. I was sad when there was such a long list of issues.

I'm finally coming back around to accepting that it probably is TMS but there is still a denial somewhere in me that just keeps replaying those words/visual of something being wrong with me.

So thank you for commenting and helping me to understand that these "abnormalities" aren't as scary as they sound

 

One other follow up question/comment - I'm just confused about why lifting hurts so bad then. It seems like to get past it, you gotta push yourself to do the things that you are afraid will hurt you. What happens when it does actually hurt though?

For example, I picked my dog up this weekend and immediately my pain doubled and was way worse all day long. The moment I picked him up I felt a pull in my back and it has hurt so much worse ever sense then.

I don't understand how to find the line of pushing myself to be active because it really does hurt when I do certain things. Do you just ignore that pain?

 

Yeah...if it was that easy, we'd all get better a lot faster.
We all use various techniques. I use the 4th step from the 12 step world which is a detailed list of everybody and everything with which I am angry...the CLOSER is the most important. Traffic pisses me off, but my lifelong resentment against my brother is far more important in TMS. My anger at my exwifes materialism...my fear of being a bad parent and my repressed anger at my sons with whom I get along GREAT!

Then, after i make the lists, I look at how they affect me in 7 different categories and when I do that part I Imagine i am a raging 5 year old selfish brat...and let it fly...

I have been quite shocked to find after reflection and contemplation how a lot of stuff I blow off as 'no big deal... I can handle it' triggered something that goes back all the way to early childhood...then I have to IMAGINE how that 5 year old would respond to THIS situation.

Other people on this forum have had success with a variety of techniques but the ultimate goal is to try and get an Idea of what RAGE SHAME GUILT FEAR might be going on down there without our permission...this is actually a CREATIVE act because, truth be told, we never know for sure....BUT You start to get an Idea when you have certain 'aha' moments and will begin reflecting on your whole life, situations you were in and the symptom imperative that followed. You will also know you're on the right track when the symptoms Move or leave...in fact when you read me writing "...and then I figured out that BLANK painful situation was necessitating a symptom..." I didn't really figure out anything. I assumed it was that because when I got to that Thought, the symptoms ceased.

2 main kinds I have found. First ones are totally blind..haven't a clue..the other types of anger are things which we acknowledge consciously, but have minimized or ignored the HUGE amount of rage we have with them....like Family.

Of course not, because that's what they treat! Sarno on the other hand made it clear it was imperative....The idiots at SCOI in Los Angeles told me I risked permanent paralysis if I even Jogged again!

"I had to be very careful because I was a delicate gossamer...."

N'T

So I did wind sprints....Not only were they wrong, but that day marked the day when the pain began to diminish rapidly. Up to then I agreed with Sarno intellectually but nothing was moving..I wasn't getting better...YET. Than I ran. I got out my mountain bike and skateboard, I went to the batting cages and hit 80mph fastballs.

It was very satisfying jumping the curb and skidding to a stop sideways on my mountainbike in front of my old PT therapist...who I Liked very much. He just wasn't treating the right problem

Sarno wrote on anxiety and how people with TMS are anxious about how it will turn out. When I broke my arm, I had no such anxiety.. they said 6 weeks and I was better in 5...when I got the same guarantee from the Team Surgeon for the Knicks who operated on my he said 6 weeks and in 6 weeks, I was worse...all of his placebo's notwithstanding, he operated on all of my structural 'anomalies' but they weren't what was causing the pain

That is why I said "Ask him how long"...they will never give you a straight answer. I build stuff for a living. If I told people who want their kitchen remodeled.."Well..it might be a few weeks but sometimes it takes months or years" I would never get a job again

Most of us had to be mauled a lot worse than that to do this work...hopefully you won't have to be

oh yeah...29-33 is about the age most men have their 'life change' (Buddah/Jesus) and it is Prime Time TMS appearance age.

the magic about this is none of us is very different...Oh, they are constantly making new NAMES for the stuff they can't solve...people come on here all the time with whatever is New, but it is usually the same batch of symptoms with a new name elevated to disease status because they can't treat it.

"Therapeutic eclecticism equals diagnostic incompetence " -John Sarno

 

Nope... I tell it to fuck off. I tell it I don't believe it.. I tell it that it needs to leave but MOST IMPORTANTLY and Sarno stressed this...when I catch myself paying attention to a symptom I consciously and forcefully turn my mind to a source of recurrent irritation like a financial or personal problem...that RECONDITIONS the brain and tells it you know what it is doing...that particular part is probably the KEY reason I got better relatively fast (3-5 weeks)

You've conditioned and reconditioned yourself...every time you believe that posture stuff? You ensuring your gonna keep having the symptom over and over.

Every time your Buddy the PT says something like "Well Sarno was right about a lot of things but in THIS situation you have a real (insert blank) to take care of"
You are guaranteeing your ongoing suffering....why not? You're deficient...you're disintegrating..that's what happens to guys who are old and creaky and 29 and they....oh wait...men don't physically peak til their 32-35.. Never mind.

THAT is keeping your pain going

 

WOW that is a lot to chew on.

Thank you for sharing.

In the few weeks where I was on board with it all, right after I got back from Texas, I started doing some of these things. The journaling and deep emotional work. I started to feel like I was "forcing" the emotions - kind of like, I was doing performative rage for myself because I knew that's what I was supposed to be feeling to make the pain stop. I'm working on taking any element of "force", and instead praying for surrender and ALLOWING it all to surface. I love what you say about it being a creative act.

The rage is obviously there. I don't even know where to begin with the string of traumatic events the past two years held. From going through a traumatic break up, to watching my mom get sick, spend a year taking care of her, and all my brothers being absolutely useless, destructive or abusive... Don't have to look far for sources of anger, shame and fear... And all of that is pretty fresh so I'm trying to be more gentle about things.

I was not 100% convinced it was TMS the first time around. I feel like I'm getting closer now. The MRI set me back at first into the "physical cause" realm of things. But now I can at least not have the "what if" thought in the back of my head. I got the MRI, I know I don't have some crazy tumor growing on my spine or anything. And now I can start to move forward.

My back guy, when I asked him that - basically was like "You're going to heal really quickly! This isn't life altering and you are going to get better in a matter of weeks". His perspective is so optimistic and he won't even allow tips so I at least don't feel scammed by him or like he really wants me to keep coming back, he authentically wants to see me pain free.

But still - I totally see your point about it reinforcing that there is something wrong in the first place.

When you did dive into all those sports right away, was it painful while you were doing it or extra sore afterwards?
It is a major "fuck you" to the pain to go right into vigorous activities. I can see how that would make it diminish more quickly, showing the pain that it is not in control of you.

 

I try.
I don’t comment on “how my back is doing” because my discomfort is simply a distraction from the real issue of TMS. I focus on the psychological.
Some of my stress or anxiety triggers are “bad” weather (which we have right now), dealing with a person who is very difficult.. that’s just a few that are going on right now. So my focus is dealing with those things.. things that are frustrating, enraging, and frightening for me. Things I used to avoid, or deal with by being WAY too nice.

 

Preach!

@bluealchemy - you're getting a master's class here from the heavy-hitters and absolute legends of this forum. Everything they speak is TRUTH about this "condition" (I put it in quotes because EVERYone has this "condition") and it will be hard for you to absorb it all here in one bite/sitting. But try to come back and read and re-read until it sinks in.

I'll add as my own advice to also:

- Make your own "evidence lists"
- Read the Success Stories here, especially those with the same ailments you're experiencing
- Read and re-read the Sarno books (and the Ozanich etc if you want something different)
- Listen to some podcasts, I recommend "Mind and Fitness" with Eddy Lindenstein, and also "Cure for Chronic Pain" by Nicole Sachs (as mentioned by the wonderful JanAttheCPA above)

You CAN get better! I am living proof.

 

Thank you so much!! I am authentically beaming reading all of this, and feeling really thankful that I decided to post.
I have been reading the success stories My entire mindset is shifting, and I even just got home from a pilates class! It did hurt to do some of the movements, but I did them anyways. After the class - my pain is not increased in any way. Just hurts when I do those specific movements. I'm going to keep it up, and go to another fitness class tomorrow

I love these suggestions. I will check out those resources. I'm adding this work in addition to my Joe Dispenza meditations, which align with all of this amazingly.

Have you heard of the book "You are the placebo"? It's so relevant in all of this and really transformative.

I'm going to look for a support group of sorts as well to keep me accountable.

Thank you thank you thank you!

 

No more or less painful than it would have been sitting around, but you knew that. I compared what I felt like to what I was TOLD I would feel like and they were wrong.
And since I still believe in Sarno's model of ischemia, I started noticing that Most of my pain corresponded yo NOT doing things..e.g. At the pain center I could push the stack. After workouts my pain was very low..but after group therapy listening to a whiny millionaires kid ramble for 15 mintues MY pain was through the roof..in the same day.

You will become a student of your own existence...where you were when certain things happened...when did this first start bugging me.. Oh I know I was told it was my back, but what was going on in my marriage, work, personal life,etc...as you reflect on that, in context of what you learn from studying about TMS you will have Many 'aha' moments and each one of those will be a step on a stairway to walk down , and lose tension...and then you'll just notice.. "Hey...it's GONE" and you will rejoice.

PS .and I just read your newest post, so like we were saying....

 

I'm a little confused on that one - because I don't feel any pain when I'm sitting or standing or walking. The pain hits me hard when I bend over. So in the class, we are bending and doing squats - and yeah, that definitely hurt more than if I hadn't been doing it. I just sort of did it anyways.

And I don't have a pain spike afterwards, mostly because my mindset is strong that physical activity WON'T hurt me

Whereas this weekend, I picked up my dog, and I was also in a really EMOTIONAL place about my pain - and I was in a lot more pain all day, laid up on the couch all weekend moping.

So I'm really really excited to get back into regular fitness classes. The hardest part is untraining the reflex to "avoid" pain. I still did the squats and bending and everything even though it hurt while it was doing it. But I do feel fine afterwards (or rather, no different).

From what I'm reading, it is ok that it hurts more while I am doing the activity, and maybe a little bit more radiating pain afterwards? But I need to remind myself, that this physical activity isn't the cause or prolonging it?