justmike

I suspect TMS has been a part of my life since childhood. I've had skin problems and digestive symptoms most of my life. Those things were mostly an annoyance.

Things got worse about 15 years ago. In 2002, my father died suddenly after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had surgery to remove some of the cancer and he didn't survive the surgery. Two months later I was in a car accident and fractured my ankle. I had surgery to fix my ankle and had what seemed like a normal recovery.

About six months later, I started having discomfort in my chest and around my ribs. And later I started having headaches and TMJ symptoms (sore jaw, bruxism).

I addition to the emotional trauma of my father's death, I was dealing marital problems. In 2005, my then wife told me that she hated having sex and began telling me about how she was molested as a child. I felt like she wanted out of our marriage and I became very anxious and was afraid for our children (I have two sons).

Around 2007 I started having symptoms of what doctors used to call "prostatitis" - I felt like I had to pee all the time and there were other symptoms (tingling, etc.)

In 2008, I tore my knee snow skiing and had surgery. I did the standard rehab and for the most part my knee seemed to heal, but I still had some discomfort. Eventually, the discomfort got worse and it affected my gait.

In 2009, I fell over the handlebars of my bicycle and hurt my arm and shoulder. X-rays came back normal and I've since had a normal MRI of my shoulder.

My marriage ended in 2010. In just a few weeks, it was like someone cranked up the volume on all my sore spots and I had full-blown debilitating pain.

I spent the next 6 years looking for a way to get rid of my pain. I went to all kinds of doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc. and had no success - not even a little.

Then, in January of 2016, I had a medical emergency that put me in the hospital for two weeks as doctors ran test after test and scanned every inch of my body to see if they could figure out what the problem was. They couldn't find anything wrong with me.

A month or so later I read one of Sarno's books and began coming to grips with the idea that there was nothing wrong with my body, but there was likely something going on with my feelings instead.