Alex B. TMS and thowing your back out

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Question

I threw my back out about 25 years ago (age 21).

The pain was almost unbearable in the beginning but I slowly learned to live with it and it subsided over the years with a few flare-ups.

I've seen a pain management doctor and an orthopedic surgeon (each only one visit) and they told me my back muscles were too tense and weak. Both visits were 15 years ago or more.

They said do stretching exercises in the bed every morning before getting up.

About a year ago I thew it out again and it gave me fits for 2 or 3 months but is better again this time.

Any suggestions?

 

Answer

Hi there, thanks for the question.

A few things come to mind as I read about what's been going on for you. First of all, the idea of a "weak back" is a bit fishy. If you can walk around, sit, and stand, you are using an strengthening your back muscles simply by existing. A few stretches before getting out of bed wouldn't be enough to really make a crucial difference as that is small potatoes next to the inherent workout that comes from being a bipedal human. Secondly, if this issue was due to a muscle strain, something that is often the source of "throwing out" one's back, then the pain should have subsided over a few weeks. Muscle strains can indeed cause pain, but they are fairly quick to heal as well. The timeline for this is weeks, definitely not years. It is thus very possible that what you are experiencing is TMS pain.

Back strain can most assuredly be exacerbated and even perpetuated by high-stress conditions. Paying attention to the pressures and stresses that are coming up in your life and how they correlate to the increasing or diminishing of your symptoms can be very helpful in starting to understand just how this dynamic works for you individually.

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That's a great answer from Alex!

Here's a link to the Rahe-Holmes list of stressful life situations that cause TMS-dis-ease:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/The_Holmes_and_Rahe_Social_Readjustment_Rating_Scale_(SRRS)

 

Life stresses cause pain. It's TMS. If we can't bring our stresses under control, we get pain.
It can take time to heal with TMS techniques but I found the best and fastest ways were these:
deep breathing, living in the present, discovering my repressed emotions through journaling,
and LAUGHING. I get almost instant relief from just laughing, at the world and at myself.

 

Interesting in this context how emotional pain and physical pain are both experienced in the same region of the brain. Sounds like your back pain became conditioned a long time ago and continues to flare up and subside as various stressful events (cf. Holmes-Rahe above) impact your central nervous system. It certainly doesn't sound like you could have an inherently 'weak back'.

 

Hello Guest,
Except for the fact that I am 20 yrs older than you my story is similar. After surgeries, mris, etc. I am convinced that there is no mechanical reason for my pain. I can play competitive sports and dig ditches/break rocks doing projects around the house. I get extreme tension down into my pelvic floor thru piriformis/ hamstrings when I am not physically active and the sciatic pain hits. I'm working on things as Walt has suggested but I'm not at a solution yet. My underlying emotional issue must be subtle. Besides the chronic sciatic pain today I am worried that as I age if I am not able to be physically active due to aging its going to be the pits when I'm supposed to sit around playing cards or bingo.

 

There's always croquet. For your subtle and not subtle life event issues look at the Rahe-Holmes list. TMS'ing is not about any one thing, it's a combination of the T-personality as SteveO puts it, past and current events and stressors.