Back/Leg Pain that appears to be a new Manifestation of TMS?

Hello,

I previously had severe RSI symptoms that I eventually concluded were TMS. After discovering TMS, the symptoms resolved within about 1 week–1 month and have not meaningfully returned. My original post and recovery story are here:

• https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threa...ic-and-mysterious-rsi-problems-are-tms.18257/
  
  
• https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/recovered-from-4-years-of-computer-hand-rsi.20153/

Since then, I have also recovered from a few other pains that I now believe were TMS:

• Upper back pain that I initially attributed to scoliosis (resolved in ~1 week).
• Knee pain that appeared when running ~3 miles. This one was harder because the pain was intense, but after continuing to run through it for a couple weeks it disappeared and has never returned despite much higher running mileage.

Recently, during a primary care visit, my doctor detected premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). A cardiologist found that they occur about 20% of the time, which is considered high and can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. I am scheduled for a catheter ablation procedure, which apparently has a high success rate and low risk.

Further testing also showed that my right ventricle is dilated, which raised the possibility of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a genetic heart condition. However, it’s also possible the dilation is simply from endurance training, or that I just have PVCs without ARVC. More tests are ongoing, but currently it sounds like I probably don't have this, but they want to make sure. While they are evaluating this, my cardiologists have asked me to avoid intense exercise (keep HR below 120) as a precaution. This restriction has been difficult for me because I REALLY enjoy intense exercise.

Around the same time the cardiologist warned my about the severity of 20% PVCs and the potential that I had an underlying genetic heart condition, I developed back pain that started minor but progressed into fairly severe sciatica. The pain started in my right leg, later moved to my left, and includes numbness and tingling when standing or walking. I initially thought it might have come from lifting my garage door, although the pain did not appear immediately after any specific activity.

Resting for a couple weeks did not help, and the symptoms worsened. One day, I woke up and realized this could be another manifestation of TMS. I reread The Mindbody Prescription and Healing Back Pain, and made a list of arguments for and against it beingTMS, and was pretty much immediately convinced:

• The pain moved from one leg to the other.
• It started soon after significant stress about the possible heart condition.
• It appeared days after the suspected physical trigger.
• Rest did not help.
• I have a strong prior history of TMS.

Fortunately, since concluding the pain is caused by TMS, my the symptoms have improved significantly. I went from barely being able to stand or walk for 3 minutes (with around 5/10 pain and/or leg tingling) to being able to walk for hours with variable pain between ~1/10 and 5/10. Typically the pain is worst when I first start walking. I often have to pause and squat down briefly, which temporarily relieves it. Interestingly, if I walk for a long time (1+ hours), the pain often disappears by the end. Although standing invariably produces leg numbness after about 10 seconds.

I'm further convinced by this improvement in symptoms that my leg pain is caused by TMS. Also the fact that I have gone back to lifting ocassional heavy items and paying no attention to my technique, and this has not affected my pain at all, whereas just walking and standing set off my leg pain almost immediately, makes me strongly suspect this is a conditioned response.

My previous TMS recoveries were generally faster, although those symptoms were less severely painful. I do wonder whether running would resolve it faster because it would be more distracting, but for now I’m avoiding intense exercise due to the cardiac evaluation.

My question is: should I simply stay the course, or is there anything else that might help accelerate recovery?