Back to Sciatic Pain to Numbness

Greetings Everyone! I'm new here and am hoping to find others who've suffered similar symptoms, and hopefully some with success stories as I think I just need that little bit of "recovery is possible" encouragement.

Background (skip if too long)
4 years ago I suffered from severe back pain that progressed to sciatic pain that resulted in a 'left bent trunk'. It lasted months and I went the traditional route including an epidural steroid injection (MRI showed a disc extrusion). It seemed to start getting worse again a bit after that, but after my primary care physician showed real care and empathy during a normal visit (with a 9 day dose of oral steroid), I slowly recovered over the next couple months.

I had a re-occurrence 2 years ago but this time had the insight to believe it was TMS (I'd read The Mindbody Prescription years before). It never got as bad as the first time, and with the daily journal from David Schechter and reading Healing Back Pain I got better after a couple months.

This year in January however it slowly came on again over weeks, and despite me thinking it was TMS and redoing some of David's journal it got bad enough at one point I was on the floor writhing all Saturday. That Sunday afternoon after watching videos about Dr. Sarno, I thought about Helen's story and had a "mini breakthrough" for a few minutes on the verge of tears and rage thinking of the bullying I experienced as a boy and how alone & angry I'd felt. Miraculously, within hours my back & leg pain were gone, my trunk was straight as a board, and I walked up & down a mile hill and played on a playground with my daughter like I was back to normal.

Over the next two days however that same leg started to instead go numb, to where I had foot drop especially on the right side of my right foot. Though worrying, this was far less invasive than the pain so I ignored it thinking I'd basically beat the TMS and I would continue recovering from there. Unfortunately, that was in February and it's now November. Though it feels like it's improved a bit, I still have numbness/weakness and a noticeable limp.

I went to see a TMS doctor and his lecture in August and have tried his frequent rage checklist strategy, but though encouraging I haven't seen a large improvement yet. I started Nicole Sachs' Journal Speak two weeks ago and feel this has helped a bit more, but it's still slow going.

The Ask
I'm ok "doing the work" as Nicole Sachs puts it if that's what it takes, but has anyone else experienced substantial numbness/weakness for 9+ months and experienced a full recovery?

The neurologist I went to, who is aware of Sarno and TMS, seemed quite disheartened at our first visit in September, saying the mental-suggestion-deadly phrase "what's lost is lost". He was less doom & gloom during my recent nerve test with him, but he still seemed to think my nerve and muscle loss could be permanent (my recent MRI shows two normal herniations, nothing he seemed to think was severe). I'm not inclined to believe him about my inability to recover fully, but I've found it somewhat difficult to find many success stories related to long-term nerve numbness or muscle weakness vs pain (I have almost zero control of a few of my foot muscles). He suggested I go see a conservative surgeon just in case, but I'm hoping that journaling and reading The Great Pain Deception will be enough to avoid that.

Just hoping to find some more examples of success to bolster my confidence. I really appreciate any thoughts or similar experience anyone would be willing to share or point me to!

 

Thank you for your reply Jan. I'd looked for "nerve" in the general TMSwiki but was getting mixed results including many that didn't match what I was looking for. Thanks for the suggestion to specifically search Success Stories in "our forum only". This has been helpful and I'll keep reading through these for further support.

Thanks again.