TMS or not TMS

HI, i am new to this forum. I,ve had chronic lower back pain and upper back pain for 4 years until i came across Dr john sorno about 6 months ago. My lower back pain is almost gone, although i feel stiffness and weakness in lower back. The question i really need to ask is, that about an year ago i had swelling, and a partial tear in right knee ligament, and have jumpers knee condition in left knee, it happened during intense running. Now its about an year, and my knees are better that before but i still can hardly stand, i have been treating them as i treated my lower back regarding them as TMS, but i am realizing that it is not the case of tms, also my neck and upper back are not recovering, only my lower back did. It really frustrates, at times i think my neck and upper back and knees are part of my TMS and at other times as they are not showing any improvements, i feel i should start again with exercises, but exercises change the whole thinking and perspective of the pain. Also in my country there are no clinics or doctors to diagnose TMS. So have to rely on your help, Thanks

 

In my experience, you can have multiple TMS symptoms and some can go away more quickly than others. That doesn't mean they're not all TMS. It could be that the doubt about whether your knees, neck and upper back are really TMS are hindering the recovery. I wrote a post on this last night - it could be that the symptoms you fear the most are sticking around, while the one you saw improvement in is not as worrisome to you. Fear alone can keep the symptoms going. Just my thoughts.

 

I agree with wings, some symptoms go away swiftly, others are more difficult to get rid off. My unstable knee (twisted it almost 20 years ago ) and groin seem to give me the most fear and therefore the mind likes to play its tricks through those areas of my body. I haven't seen a TMS practitioner, luckily my 'normal doctor' agreed with the possibility of mindbody symptoms as he couldn't see any logic in the symptoms. You should ask your doctor simply to rule out other, serious conditions and if you're lucky he will even agree with mindbody symptoms, if you're not he will simply say he has no explanation for it.
The neck and upper back are strong signs of stress in my view, I have seen it with so many people now and they all sooner or later confessed there was stress involved. Btw, what is the logic that you have problems with both your knees?? I learnt that my knee(s) start to act up when I am tensed up about something, so this also is quite familiar.
take care

 

Thanks for the response, @Gigalos logic is that about an year ago, i had injured my knees, MRI showed sign of partial ACL tear, but it was supposed to get better, if not completely heal, after an year; my other knee has the "jumpers knee" condition from last one year. So, should i completely rule out TMS for my knees?

 

It all sounds like TMS to me. But to heal you have to stop thinking your symptoms are structural
and believe 100 percent they are from TMS. That can come from repressed emotions, usually going back
to childhood, and/or from personality traits such as perfectionism or wanting to please everyone all of the time.

I had both but didn't heal until I believed 100 percent that my back pain was from TMS.

Just today I realized how much stress I was causing myself by trying to do more for a neighbor than
anyone possibly could, and instead of getting thanks they found fault with my efforts. I decided then and there
to stop trying to please them and would just stop doing the kind things I was doing for them. I thought I
might feel guilty but instead felt a sense of relief. I had stopped at least one of the many ways I constantly
try to be helpful or generous to others. Some people will eat you alive if you let them. Let's not let them!

Be helpful to others, but don't over-do it.

Maybe you need to look into repressed emotions or personality traits that are causing your pain.
And also, pain moves around because our unconscious mind doesn't want us to heal right away.
It wants to keep sending pain so we work on our TMS causes. One day, hopefully soon for you,
you will have no more causes and will heal. That will happen if you stick with TMS techniques for healing.
You'll find lots of them in the forums.

 

I cannot tell you to rule out anything sadly, I can only tell you what I strongly think and that is that it is TMS.
I injured my knee playing basketball. My muscles can replace the stretched or (partly) torn ligament (I never had photo's taken). The problem however with contact sports is that you have less control over what is happening, so your muscles aren't always ready when you suddenly have to correct for someone pushing you in the back. Therefore I switched to table tennis, I didn't twist it since I started it and even felt confident enough to leave my brace at home. Of course there are different scales of instability, but it in my case strengthening the muscles around it is sufficient. I sometimes hear it crack or pop but I don't let it bother me. When I am tense I feel the muscles around my knee contract for no reason, as if they want to stabilize it. The weird thing though is that it happens in situations in which it is completely unnecessary, with other words, there is probably a psychological factor at play.
Jumpersknee... hmmmm... I bet if you research your upper leg muscles near the knee, you will find some very tender points... some people call them trigger points and for me they are a clear sign that jumpers knee is psychologically driven.



I warn you to not focus on any trigger points, neither keep looking for them nor keep treating them. The trigger point theory does not give a proper explanation why trigger points exist, TMS does, so the real solution is to work on your TMS. Ignore the psychological cause and trigger points will keep reappearing. Only use trigger points once and while to take the sharp edge off of the pain and to help you become even more convinced that it is TMS. Even the book by Claire Davies that is mentioned in the video contains a whole chapter about the fact that the author recovered mostly from techniques that release inner tension.