Sudden knee pain

Hello, first time posting, long time unregistered reader. Was hoping for some reassurance. I’ve had TMS since I was a child. I’m 36 now. As a kid it was allergic reactions, GI issues, anxiety, and depression. As a young man, it developed into back and neck pain. Still have anxiety and depression. I moved away from my family a few months ago for a new job, and that has been quite stressful. I’ve concluded that I feel guilt and I feel like I abandoned my aging parents, but I had to do it to escape a dead end career in an area with little job opportunity. On top of that, I feel imposter syndrome at my job and I have to give a big presentation in a couple of weeks that I am very nervous about.

After 3 spinal surgeries over 8 years and still being in pain so bad I was suicidal, I learned about TMS. That was about 2 years ago. I still have minor back and neck flare ups, but it’s mostly gone. I now have random flare ups all over my body but I recognize them as symptom switching, fight through it, and they go away. Mostly my wrists and ankles. I haven’t dealt with those in a while, but now it is my left knee as of about a week ago.

Despite pain, I’ve always tried to remain active. I’ve been running for over a year and recently got into sprints and trail running. A week ago, my left knee was bothering me quite a bit. I chalked it up to needing to take a week off since I hadn’t done that in a few months, and the pain decreased quite a bit. This morning, the deload week was over and I went for an hour long trail run with sprints.

Before I left, I did some burpees to warm up with no pain, so I was feeling confident and listening to Dr. Schechter’s book on the drive there. When I got to the trail, I walked up the hill with a little difficulty, but was fine. I started to lightly jog, but couldn’t make it more than a few strides before the sharp pain in my left knee was so intense I physically had to stop. I shook it off and walked a little more, and tried again. Like the first time, I had to stop after a few strides. The pain literally stopped me. I was pissed. I couldn’t believe it. My knee wasn’t swollen or bruised or anything. This didn’t make sense.

I walked a little more, and very slowly jogged with some pain, and slowly increased my speed. I eventually got to my normal pace. I was going up and down hills, through roots and rocks, and the pain would switch on and off. Then I felt it IN MY RIGHT KNEE. Symptom switching! Right? As Dr. Sarno says, the cover was blown. I kept running, and eventually reached the area I do my sprints in. Whenever I would stop and walk between sprints, the left knee pain returned but not as bad. When I began sprinting, it went away. I also did some sets of jumping in place for 20 reps between my last few sprints, with no issue. I was feeling very confident it was TMS at this point.

After a few sprints, I ran my way back to the trailhead and walked around. I was in pain again while walking. Now that I’m home, the pain is intense. I recognize this as TMS. I increased blood flow while running, so it makes sense that the pain has returned while I’m not running.

I think my subconscious mind will pick up on this soon, and I’ll be back to normal. Can someone please give their opinion? I’m reading this accurately, right?

 

It will sell you whatever you will buy. if you're not buying one product, it will offer you another.
TMS is a condition, not a location.... If I am having TMS and doing anything about it, I am not buying, so it will offer me lots of other products, hoping I might buy one.

One of the products I am offered again every time I am shooing it away is my knee...I spent all day working on my knees yesterday and running up and down staircases to get to where I was crawling. As I was leaving work, when normally i might feel a little stiff, I was offered some Knee.,.I laughed out loud....and by the time I got home I had mad itching all over myself...and I sat down and reviewed my day and all of the stresses and strains...and I didn't buy a thing and it all went away.

Most of us are fairly similar.

 

Well said, thank you. I was actually reading a post of yours from 2008 yesterday and was thinking about it while I was running this morning. You were talking about narcissism (me, me, me) and goodism (you, you, you.) I had never heard it described that way. That was what made me think about the guilt I feel about moving away from my family. In a way I see myself as a savior and servant to my parents. They are getting older and I would do stuff for them. And when I talk to them now, I learn of things they are up to that I would normally help them with. My goodism (you, you, you) is making me feel bad, like I am a bad son because I moved away to achieve a better quality of life with a new job. I think that might be the driving factor behind this recent knee pain, as well as the new job stressors.

Thank you for replying.