Can it be half TMS half structural?

Hello,
My osteopath is so tired of rescuing me all the time she gave me dr Santos book and it made so much sense... i have lower back pain for over twenty years. All the emotional reasons were there for sure. I block anytime I bend forward while standing, sit not super straight or knee on one knee not both. I am only 40 yo and I cannot do simple tasks a 70 yo can often do. My mom and her mom had similar problems. I finally had an IRM last fall and my family doctor got scared saying five hernias and I could paralyze if I lift something. I don’t lift anything for the last twenty years anyways... some chiropractor said it was not that bad but didn’t explain much.
So I read and listen to everything I find here and I am sure I have lots of TMS. BUT, could I also have something structural??
I think what would really help me is if a knowledgeable specialist look at my irm and actually tell me. Of course there are none where I live. i still have hope to get a life with some quality and stop having to stop all the activities I love, I am afraid I will be all the time hurt if I adopt a new puppy, if I continue working...
Thank you all here, the hope is huge

 

The chances of it being structural are slim to none, especially if you already are aware that you have TMS. You can heal, but the structural beliefs and thinking will have to go! Completely! If you are interested in learning more and hearing my healing story please visit my website at howtosayfupolitely.com. I have a blog about Belief and Doubt in the TMS process that may be very helpful. Back pain and hernias were both on my list of TMS symptoms as well.

Tyson Ray

 

Thank you I will read it with pleasure. My problem is that doctors have told me it is structural but they were not specialists...

 

My advice to you is not to give your power over to "experts", especially specialists as they are the worst because they view things though in an even more narrow prism and tend to focus solely on a body part or organ. It sounds like you have been medicalized and also a "victim of medical imaging technology" aka v.o.m.i.t. lol. The more diagnoses and labels are given and ominous images, the more your brain is sent messages of fear and terror. There is ZERO correlation between things found on MRI's and chronic pain. Unless it's a tumor or a broken bone, your chronic pain is not stemming from the body. It's neural circuit pain stemming from the brain. False alarms and tension basically. I'm assuming you are not in America because you used the term osteopath. I suggest you get off the medical merry go round, including all the alternative practitioners because none of them will ever help you. If anything they will make you worse due to elevated fear. Surgery and injections have no success and the ones that are successful are placebo effect. It's a shame that doctors and others in the field cause so much needless suffering in the world through their own ignorance of chronic pain. Don't buy into it. It's all nonsense. There are tons of people running around with 5 herniated discs who are in no pain at all and unaware they are even herniated. This is what Dr. Sarno called "normal abnormalities". Everyone over the age of 20 starts the process of disc degeneration. It has no bearing on pain or symptoms though. It's a spurious correlation.

 

Thank you, I understand this. I meant specialists from the list here, the ones that know aboutvTMS .
Inam in Canada, it’s actually my osteopath who gave me dr Sarnio book ( but she has not read it yet) !

 

Ah ok! Yes that's a good idea then!

 

Great response, you really know your stuff!!

 

I have not found a practitioner in Canada doing distance help so it looks like I will have to fight with my brain my self. With lots of help from the forum here it’s great!
I am doing all the lists of ‘evidence’ possible and have discovered that since childhood I have many manifestations of TMS. I might be getting there as my back is worse for the last days, protesting amd screaming.
I might maybe get there.
I also notice how my mother is full of TMS and all the stress and tension I have learned by example since small, like biting my nails.
Well, if my back can finally give me a break soon i will be the happiest person on earth. I am already very happy just exhausted by the constant pain.

 

They told me that I risked paralysis if I even jogged again and I have been running and falling and playing hard for 22 years since with no problem. If you peruse the forum hear, you'll see that much like Miffybunny 's V.o.m.i.t., many of us are also victims of offhanded remarks made by 'professionals'

The only doctor doing this work in Los Angeles back in '99 when I read Sarno, was on a several month vacation. I made an appointment for a couple months out anyways and plodded on with the work in the book. By the time it was time for me to see him, I canceled the appointment because I was already better

 

That is so encouraging, thank you! I am so happy you did get so much better .

My back got way worse yesterday night, perhaps after the vaccine ( I am hoping so it will go away in two days). A week ago it was mostly my right side that hurted which I found a bit different because usually it’s more left. So now it’s the same pain but in the usual left. i could not take it anymore in the middle if the night so I took an ibuprofen. So at least I could sleep but I still feel it pretty strongly when I move slighlty.
Of course I am wondering whywhywhy???
On a psychological level, I was a bit stressed by the vaccine and some sadness about the pandemic situation in our world. But that was there three weeks ago also and I was pretty confident for the vaccine among my usual little stress of anything medical. I did not get any news ( I noticed that very often I get accute back pain when I react to some news or new event while doing something physical). I have really trouble finding anything with anger/fear new that was not there a few weeks ago.
So of course my brain thinks about the fact that I pushed my back that was already really stiff and unconfortable into moving, driving and walking way more and now it ended up inflammated. So I am trying to at least change that thought that it’s a vaccine reaction and not because I moved too much or forced myself into sitting in the car while not confortable.
Not sure I convinced myself yet.
Is it because I pushed myself beyond what I could convince my mind was safe? So I ended up scaring my body that of course it will get worse even if on the outside I was like „it’s only muscle tension, walking more will feel good” ??
.............. ........
I know many times I read here that the key is to start moving as fast as possible but I think I am generating more fear doing this that I can control and talk myself trough?
Could my brain reacting to some emotions cause my body inflammation, pain and then moving too much on it does hurt for real? Or it’s obly the fear of pushing it?
Would waiting for the pain to get much better trough all the psychological part ( thinking what I was afraid of or angry at, how I scared my body into pain etc) and then moving more is a better idea in my case? I have at least tweny years of thinking it is physical and it might get worse so maybe I tried too fast?
Nine days ago I completly blocked and rested for two full days with antiinflammatory and an osteopathy treatment. That’s when I started reading all the TMS in detail. I got better in two days and started to move around gently, was able to teach for two full days on comptuer. In one week I was doing great. So I did half an hour of gardening on my knees ( in the last years being on two knees was fine but really not ok of I go down on one knee, I end up all crooked) and bang! the pain. I started to be completly crooked again and the pain - more muscle tension than inflammation- came back with a vengeance. So yesterday was my third day of constant tension pain when I went for the vaccine and now my lower back hurts way more and is inflammated.
I am a bit discouraged having trouble working and enjoying spring outside. I have no choice today to just rest and think, the pain won again.
I can do somatic tracking and visualization and reassuring to my body before I move and it helps making movements a bit less painful but of course I am unable to force myself into regular chores and try to not care if it hurts more or less like I tried for the last three days. It’s really too accute.
So I am back to square one. How can I hope to get out of this pain episode?
In my past , resting and going to the osteopath two times after an accute episode got me better in two weeks. Now i am not sure anymore what to do and not do.
—————————
In a week, we were supposed to go to a beautiful nature cottage with my husband, we were looking forward to it all winter. So i don’t have pressure about this we agreeded we will just cancel it if needed. I just feel sad not being able to go.
I can postpone work a bit again but I am self employed and eventually my buisness will suffer if I can’t go back to work (i love my work). Usually, I hd to take breaka of my work when my back went worse but I never hurt my back while working and in general work was always an activoty that makes me feel good. It’s new that I start to wonder if I will be able to go back workig normally. Because my back got worse again.
We are supposed to adopt a puppy in mid june. It’s a big dream for us, we will never have children and we love our animals. We lost our previous dog a year and half ago and it has really en empty without a dog friend during this pndemic era. I know very well I have fears of „will my back be ok to take care of a puppy or it’s going to be too hard?” so I am reassuring myself as much as I can on that. When I think about the possibility that I tell the breeder we won’t be able to adopt the puppy because I am still not able to function like this week, there are mountains of sadness. Linked to the sadness about all the things I could not do since I am twenty years old because of this stupid back pain.
Basically, I feel like it’s been thightening around me all these restrictions imposed by the pain: every year, I can do less and less. Even before learning about TMS I held the hope that when I will be older I will become more fit then in my twenties, thirties and now fourties.
This week I realised how I am scaring myself everyday so I hope this huge change will begin to help. I just don’t know how to not let despair ( fear) and sadness and anger take over with huge setbacks like this. I am really trying to catch any positive sign to fuel hope and the gut belief that a) it is not structural b) i will have a life one day before life ends.
It’s special. My father is completly depressed since 40 years and has zero physical problems at 78 years old even if he does not exercice and did smoke most of his life. Meanwhile, I have a body all the time in pain, auto immune diabeties since six years but I really love life, lots of joy as soon as I have a break in pain, I consider myself very happy today ( not twenty years ago when I know exactly why my back pain started). I love my husband, my work, my home and my present ( not past) life.
I know I had more then enough reasons to start TMS in my life but it is as if I did solve actually these reasons. Perhaps i solved practically the problems but my body wants me to go back to all the repressed emotions of my unhappy life before?
I love my present life and the only thing I would change is the pain. Perhaps I would discover I had anxiety to work on even without the pain? ( which I never saw much because I have tons of anxiety about the pain and it takes way too much space)

I am kind of journaling as I wrote so thank you to antbody who reads, sorry it’s super long.
Perhaps my boy decided I am not going on in my life with anything until I get to the bottom of this...

 

I have structural issues. My neck has central stenosis and bilateral foraminal stenosis. I also have scoliosis in my lower back, degenerative disc and bone spurs. Thing is I rode my horse for years like this and then suddenly out of no where had a fall, hit my head and had a seizure. Since the seizure I've developed all kinds of weird symptoms with my nack, sides,face,neck,shoulders,hips,night sweats,abdominal pain, you name it, I've had it.
I want to ride again because that is my life but the pain is keeping me from it. I am wondering if the seizure episode brought out so.e fear and thus the pain. I. Having a time for sure and the medical field , they just say nothing is wrong.

 

Oh so sorry you have to go through this! the fact you have variable symptoms is very hopeful there is no much structural . The structural might heal, also ++

 

I've been like that for years and never had much pain. About 8 years ago my arm started hurting, then back then neck and face. It finally went away, took 18 months though.
The andomail and rib pain are something different. I'm not a medicine taker so it's hard to deal with at time.