Day 1-4

I've had chronic back pain for 10+ yrs starting at age 13. we discovered I had a birth defect in my facet joint L4/L5, with some apparent hypoplasia on one side and hyperplasia on one side. Apparently THAT was causing my issues somehow to where I couldn't sit or stand for 20 minutes and had to quit sports. Got an ablation surgery in my L4/L5 when I was 16, which actually helped a lot acutely until 12 weeks ago when I had an explosive pain episode doing a body weight squad, figured I herniated a disc or two, which imaging then confirmed. The past 12 weeks has been literal hell until I discovered TMS on a podcast (shout out to christopher ryan).

Having discovered TMS and learning about this community I’m feeling my heart open up so much more to the possibility that I’m not broken, that this back pain is something much deeper and profound, that it's ultimately something I will be able to leave behind as I work through my emotional traumas from my youth and now. I've been pulled toward emotional healing since the start of this injury, having a hunch that it's related to emotions somehow, but to learn that my STRUCTURAL defects aren't the cause of my pain has flipped my world upside down. I'm in medical school so this is obviously challenging to accept given the mainstream narratives of injury pathology, but I'm trusting in my experience now - this past weekend upon learning and working through a day or two of articles I felt my pain (and my spirit) lift by 75% for the first time in months. This is absolutely shocking to me, but I'm sure glad to have stumbled upon this.

I'd say that the main thing I'm struggling with is to fully, fully fully accept this diagnosis. I've been deeply convinced that I'm inherently fucked and will have to cope with pain effects for the rest of my life because of my birth defects (disc degeneration, facet joint hypoplasia, hypermobility, winged scapula, etc.). I've learned a lot about mind/body medicine through my research but engaging with it on a personal level is a whole different game.

My primary anxiety right now is that despite going through the program and accepting this diagnosis that I'll still have some restrictions and chronic pain to deal with, that it might help me 60% or so (which is, of course, amazing) but that it's not possible for me to overcome this entirely. I'm hopeful, though, and look forward to convincing myself otherwise.


Peace,

 

Welcome to the Forum! Thanks for sharing your story with us. You're off to a great start. Hope is very powerful.

Let us know if you have any questions or need some support along the way. We are all here to help one another.