Day 1 The Wake Up Call

Hi,

I’m a 49 year old single Mum of my 9 year old son and I have been suffering from pain in my left leg for a year…to the day.

A couple of days ago I had a conversation with my son that was my wake up call. He asked “Mum, when is your leg going to get better?” I replied “I honestly don’t know, it might never get better…I could be like this for the rest of my life”. He continued “Does that make you feel sad?” I replied “Yes it does a bit because it means we won’t be able to do the things we used to do like walking in the woods and going for bike rides”. This, of course, is just the tip of iceberg as to how this affects my life, but the conversation was enough to make me have one of those ‘What are you doing?’ moments. I couldn’t have this, I wasn’t going to let conventional medicine write me off to a life on pain killers or have my son live with the consequences of my pain while not being diagnosed with any physical reason for it.

This all started 1 year ago when I decide to lose some weight and improve my fitness, something I had neglected (and paid for) since my son was born. So I started walking at lunch time at work. Very quickly I found that may left leg kept on running out of steam, I developed a painful lactic acid burn feeling - the muscles really are being deprived of oxygen, while my right leg was fine but I put it down to being unfit and carried on with the idea that it would improve. After 6 six weeks it was the same and so I visited my GP and was referred to a vascular consultant with a suspected artery blockage. This was ruled out after Ultrasound revealed nothing and I was referred to an Orthopaedic consultant to investigate spinal nerve compression. This was also ruled out following a CT Mylegram and I was referred for Physio.

In the meantime I started reading about TMS and read Healing Back Pain. Although I wasn’t totally committed, partly because I was still undergoing diagnosis, I felt sure that TMS was my problem, it made so such sense and I saw myself on every page. Then I had a set back with a bizarre shin pain incident that left my foot cold and first 2 toes numb and it reduced my walking distance without pain to less than 100m and I could no longer walk any great distance without stopping to let my leg recover. The loss of circulation in my foot prompted my GP to refer me back to the vascular consultant but following a CT angiogram, the 2nd opinion confirmed the 1st, there was no vascular issue and I have now been referred to Neurology. The numbness and cold did go away but my walking distance didn’t recover. Looking back on this, I can see that it could have been my newly acquired TMS knowledge that triggered it, the possibly of uncovering what my unconscious mind was hiding made my brain created yet another diversion from it.

Following the referral to Neurology (where I know that they will be looking into the possibility of Multiple Sclerosis – enough to freak anyone out!) I had another shin pain incident that has resulted in my foot going cold again, and I now get neurological pain in my foot but I’m hoping that this says more about the nocebo affect than anything else.

So here I am at the beginning of my TMS journey of discovery and hopefully back to a pain free life. I am totally committed this time and I have plenty of emotional issues to go on that I have ignored for too long. I know it could be an emotionally painful process but I’m feeling hopeful. I know that I still have to run the gauntlet of a neurology diagnosis but regardless of the outcome, I’m pretty sure that TMS explains some if not all of my pain symptoms.

 

God bless you, there is healing here, I promise. I read Dr. Sarno's books several times each. They have been a miracle for me.

 

Bex thanks for sharing your story. I know how draining this sort of thing can be. Have you visited the neurologist yet to have that possible cause eliminated? Best of luck and I am sure you will be fine.