Sunburn like pain in the face that’s near constant

Hi all,
Long time creeper first time poster. I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression for quite some time through my adult life and it has really ramped up more in regards to health anxiety in the last couple years. For the point of brevity, I had some screwy labs back in January in which I was CONVINCED I was going into renal failure due to some elevated creatinine. Well that all turned out to be nothing, but around that time I noticed that my ankles and feet were quite red especially after getting out of the shower.

this gave me something new and scary to fixate on and against my best judgement went down a Google rabbit hole and found “Erythromelalgia” and began to read how debilitating this condition was. Unsurprisingly after reading this my feet begin to have nerve pain and intermittent burning. Saw a derm who said he agreed that it was Erythromelalgia and he literally left the room to google treatment options lol. Not exactly confidence inspiring.

It’s been a struggle since then which was around Feb and about a month ago notified that that face has started to feel like it’s very hot; a sunburn like quality that is persistent. It’s bothered me enough that I went to a neurologist and he didn’t seem to think it was neuropathic in nature and didn’t bring up Erythromelalgia. Labs were done at this time to rule out auto immune and were perfect. Saw another derm today out of honestly desperation to have some other answer and she didn’t even bring up Erythromelalgia and gave me some moisturizers and sent me on my way.

I’m just having such a hard time coping with this; the burning is nearly constant and the only time I have relief is when I’m laying in bed doing basically nothing and when I’m asleep. My camera roll in my phone is full of pics I’ve taken of my face and feet and it’s honestly just real crazy. It’s taken over my life. I keep having these thoughts of it getting worse, and really just fueling the entire thing. Im sad and scared and I feel like this weird diagnosis has thrown me so much bc really no one knows how to treat it.

I absolutely believe in mind/body but I don’t know why I am having such a hard time putting this whole idea down that it’s neuroplastic pain and not something else.

 

I have dealt with TMS for quite a while, and have read much regarding TMS. That being said, I am far from an expert, as you can see from my posts. I have quite a bit to learn myself, and a lot of resistance. I know somebody Who has TMS symptoms but is absolutely convinced the third due to something else. The advantage you have over them is that you seem to place stock in TMS as the cause of this problem. I recommend a few things. There is an exercise called somatic tracking. It’s better explain elsewhere, but you essentially analyze the emotions behind the discomfort. Also, what happens when you stop focusing on it? I’ve gone through periods where I’ve watched quite a few videos on MCS recovery, etc. These videos is comforting away, because it makes me feel like I’m doing something to solve the problem. In the short term, Watching these videos does help. In the long term, I am locked and a state of distraction. When I go for too long without watching MCS recovery videos, I feel a sense of ease. I ask myself what is behind this sense. How am I distracting myself from watching the videos. You might want to ask yourself how you are distracting yourself by focusing on your face paid stop trying to fix the burning pain with TMS techniques. Instead, use the burning face pain as a signal to guide you to what might lie underneath. What is this burning face pain trying to tell you? What do you think all of this anxiety is trying to tell you? Why do you have anxiety? There are techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy and internal family systems that might help. You might want to ask yourself, when can you remember first having the emotions that you associate with these various health problems You might want to focus on yourself from that time., And try to heal that part of yourself. As an aside, you might want to ask yourself what would it mean to you if all of these health concerns were valid? Would it mean that your end of suffering? Would it mean that you’re in danger of dying? What sort of fear does all of this hold for you? Best of luck