Am I a TMS candidate

A bit of background:

I’m a 30 year old active man. I mostly lift light weights 4 days a week and walk daily.

I was ego-lifting when I was 21 and felt a pop in my low right back. It was a mild but eerie sensation. A month later I was drinking heavily as I tended to do at this age. I fell off a 5ft high bridge twice in one night. I didn’t feel any pain that night. The next day I was in excruciating pain. Severe pain in the low right back and severe shooting sciatic pain.

Over the next few months it “healed” to an extent. The severeness was gone but somewhat debilitating pain remained. I didn’t take care of myself at this time. I worked at a hardware store and was in university.

I didn’t have childhood trauma and I’m not a naturally angry person, but I’ve always been an anxious/perfectionist type. I also quit drinking 5 years ago because my anger would manifest while drinking. I believe the chronic pain triggered the alcoholic anger.

I got an MRI 3 years after injury, here are the results: Lumbar vertebra are normal in height. No acute compression fractures. No abnormal fluid collections. No acute ligamentous abnormalities. There is desiccation of the T11-12 and L4-5 discs. There is mild anterior cord effacement at T11-12 due to a disc osteophyte complex. There is likely moderate central spinal stenosis at this level. This level was not imaged axially. The conus is normal in signal, size, and contour. No acute conus compression or spinal canal mass. Axial images: L1-2: No significant abnormality L2-3: No significant abnormality L3-4: Mild facet hypertrophy. Otherwise, no significant abnormality L4-5: Concentric disc bulge with superimposed central disc protrusion. Facet hypertrophy. Severe central spinal stenosis. Mild bilateral neural foraminal stenoses. L5-S1: No significant abnormality.

My physician read my results and wrote: At the T11-12 moderate central spinal stenosis and L4-5 severe central spinal stenosis. It is not completely clear if either of these issues are actually the cause of your pain. He also said I probably shouldn’t ever run or play sports again. The surgeon he referred me to said he wouldn’t operate on me due to my age and the fact that he’s not sure the stenosis is causing pain.

The severe stenosis finding made me spiral and still makes me spiral. I remember distinctly my pain becoming much worse in the years that followed.

I have found some PT/stretching modalities that provided immense relief initially. Especially at the beginning of these new modalities when I had hope that I could heal due to a new program. The years of inflammation have almost disappeared but I still feel pain at the site of injury; sometimes severe.

Then I Google stenosis and start to catastrophize and my pain gets worse.

I read Sarno’s “healing back pain” book a few years ago. But I didn’t take it too heart at the time. I was working 10 hours a day and was newly sober so it was hard to remain focused.

My question to the community is am I candidate for TMS? Is this relevant for me?

I know stenosis is a structural abnormality but I’ve had significant relief at times and on rare occasion have felt almost entirely pain free. Other days I’m in 7 out of 10 pain. I suspect if this was true structural damage my pain wouldn’t fluctuate from what I understand. But it’s hard to shake the thought that my pain isn’t from a purely structural issue, and it’s hard not to feel isolated with these MRI results, I don’t personally know anyone my age with stenosis, and it’s rare to find stories of young stenosis patients online. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!

 

Hi:
We aren’t medical professionals, so if you have questions in that regard, it’s best to contact a TMS doctor, for which there are several listed in the PPD Association (another name for TMS) website.
You’ve recognized that no matter what the “diagnoses” your anxiety and stress level is effecting your pain (which is backed by science),
My suggestion is to educate yourself by reading a book by Dr. Sarno and see if you can personally relate to his writings. That will help you decide more about the possibility of TMS.

 

I think that pretty much everyone is candidate for TMS. It's the nature of humanity. Life isn't perfect.
Most people have various aches, pains, and other symptoms. Some more than others, some less. Some of us feel it to a great degree, others not so much. Whether that's because we have more psychological crap or whether it's because our bodies react more or because of our personality traits who knows. Likely a combo of all of those.

Have you ever considered reversing that? The alcoholic anger triggered the chronic pain?

I think a lot of us here are like that. Nice childhood. No major trauma or adversity, not an angry person.
Perhaps this is part of TMS. If we had a lot of childhood trauma it would be obvious.
For us nice, pleasant people who were lucky enough to have a relatively normal childhood, maybe we don't feel we have any right to be angry.

 

Thank you all for the replies and guidance! Means the world to me.

I've been listening to Steve Ozanich podcast appearances and just got his book as well. He says that stenosis does not cause pain, and that if you have spinal narrowing you are fine and normal.

It is the first time I've ever heard those words spoken audibly and it was an extremely emotional experience for me. It's the first time I've ever heard or read someone shine positive light on this "condition".

The fact that these words have radically diminished my pain has proven to me that I am dealing with TMS.

I know the most important aspect of healing is accepting fully that my body is normal and the pain is repressed emotion. And some moments I feel convinced of that. I am fully ready to play baseball again, I jogged for the first time in years, and I did sit-ups and leg lifts and experienced no pain which is a miracle to me. I even sat in my office chair for 3 hours today and was un-bothered.

However, I know in my subconscious that I am dealing with doubt. I am not afraid of resuming normal activity anymore. But my brain keeps tricking me into believing that if I participated in more aggressive sport that I used to do or that I want to attempt that my spine is not structurally sound enough.

For example, I cringe at the thought of falling while skiing, or doing jiu-jitsu, or getting tackled while playing football, or deadlifting weight that was once comfortable for me, etc. Even though I don't plan on playing football my mind is still telling me that I am unfit to do certain things due to the "weakened" structure of my back. This type of thinking is in total conflict with the TMS literature.

Have any of you dealt with lingering doubt over certain activities? Injury can be a factor in any physical activity, however I am not afraid to break a bone, hurt my ankle, shoulder, etc. My mind is still protecting this one specific "abnormality" in my back.

 

This thread will help answer your questions, as will carefully reading a book by Dr. Sarno. That’s a must to really gaining knowledge and understanding. You will understand that when you read the quotes posted in the thread.

https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/as-part-of-getting-back-to-normal-life-should-you-push-through-pain.28129/ (As part of getting back to normal life, should you push through pain?)

 

Of course! Just about everyone with TMS and dealing with a specific injury has those doubts. Sometimes you can do the Sarno and Steve Ozanich method of throwing caution to the wind and going full on into the activity that scares you...or sometimes some "graded exposure" is better. By that I mean a little bit at a time, steadily increasing as you gain confidence.

Read some more on this forum and in the books, you'll soon find all of your thoughts/fears are pretty standard for TMS.