bigcanoe

My TMS Leg Pain Story

For the past 28 years I have had progressively worsening leg aches at night - that are so painful, I can’t sleep.

In 1984, after my divorce from a wonderful woman (and mother of my 3 year old daughter), I started suffering from night-time deep aching leg pains.

The deep aching pains in my legs would wake me at about 2:00 AM in the morning; at which time, the worsen pain would force me to get out of bed. I would then read magazines for about 2 hours before returning to bed and sleeping the remainder of the night.

My leg pain would only happen at night, and on average, 2 or 3 nights each month. I found that I could live with the pain.

In 1995, I discovered that my employer had fired a large number of older employees to cut costs (I was one of them).

I spent 100s of hours putting together a document proving this age-discrimination and gave the large file to the attorney hired by these older employees. After reading over the document, the attorney called me and convinced me to join their lawsuit.

The 3 year period of the lawsuit was a very busy time for me and I worked 100s of hours to see that our attorneys had everything they needed to win the lawsuit. We won the age-discrimination lawsuit in 1998 in Federal Court and the corporation then settled out-of-court. During this period of time, I don’t remember having any night-time leg pain.

In 2008, my dad passed away and my brothers and I went through a very nasty probate of his small estate. During this time my night-time leg aches started up again; 1 or 2 times each week. I could still handle the leg pain.

In 2010, I discovered that $1,000,000s had been stolen from my community’s P.O.A. Over the next 2 years, I spent 100s of hours documenting it and trying to get the P.O.A. Board to own up to what they had let happen.

Finally, I decided to just let-it-go, and to live out my life in this beautiful mountain community.

In 2012, I found my quality of life worsening due to increasing leg pain. I had to stop playing tennis because my night-time leg aches had also become day-time leg aches. The leg aches had become 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The pain was too much for me, therefore, over the next two years I had every possible test done including MRI, ultrasound screening and x-rays. The MRI showed that I had a L4-L5 disc bulge and spinal stenosis.

I was lucky because - after having additional x-rays done by a highly successful spine surgeon, he determined that he did not want to operate.

My doctor finally told me that we most likely would never know the reason for my pain.


MY TMS JOURNEY:

January 8, 2015 - I discovered Dr. Sarno’s books and began reading all of them.

I see myself on every page of every book.

I know that I have nothing physically wrong with me and I am 100% sure that I have TMS.

I am a:

Perfectionist
People pleaser
Peace maker
Worrier
Emotionless person
Lifetime depression suffer
Speaker of my mind
Legalist
Worst-case scenarios planner
Insecure person
Low self-esteem person
Severe critic of myself
Self-motivated person
Big time repressor of anger, and only show it hours later, if at all.

January 28, 2015 – I had sudden severe right hand muscle spasms. Told my mind to stop the pain and it did almost instantly.

February 2015 – During February, I experienced many new pains as follows:

I had pain in the left side of my neck and other neck pains.
I had blurred vision once.
I had severe heart burn. I told my mind to: “MIND, STOP THE PAIN.” And it did !
My left arm would hurt if I raise it above shoulder high.
I had pain in right upper arm muscle.
I had upper back trigger points.
I had upper chest skin burning sensation.

During this month, I realized that it is as Dr. Sarno said in, “The Divided Mind,” as you become a believer, you may experience new pain symptoms (a symptom substitution) - a clear sign that you are making progress.

A “MAJOR SYMPTOM” CHANGE: My leg pain has flip-flopped! Instead of the pain being in the upper thighs and radiating down into the calves, I now have pain in the calves and it radiating into the thighs.

March 2, 2015 – I had sudden very sharp pain in left hand. I told the brain forcibly to stop the pain and in about 15 seconds the pain stopped.

10 minutes later I got the hiccups which went on for 10 minutes (I realized that it was the brain trying something new) and I told the brain that I knew what it was trying to do and to stop (forcibly), but it didn’t.

After 40 minutes of hiccups, I tried again forcible - 3 times; the hiccups stop completely after 20 seconds.

March 12, 2015 – A list of my lifetime of TMS equivalents:

Pain attacks (2 or 3)
Hay fever
Tension headaches
Migraine headaches
Acne
Hives
IBS or spastic colon
Dizziness
Ringing in the ears
Tennis elbow
Very loud grinding noise in left knee (nothing was found during surgery)