Day 1 - Pelvic Pain, Sciatica, Anxiety, THE WORKS

Hi everyone,

My name is Alexandria. I was introduced to Dr. John Sarno’s work by Dr. Gabor Mate in the middle of November. I have been burning through Dr. John Sarno’s written works, along with Steve Ozanich’s “The Great Pain Deception.” I have been trying to get to the bottom of my unexplainable pelvic pain that started in July 2019, and after fighting and fighting and fighting to have my pain acknowledged and validated, I received a diagnosis from a pelvic pain specialist saying I have endometriosis on November 26. The specialist indicated that the hormone and surgical treatment approach would not necessarily eradicate my pain. Hearing that, I decided to throw all western medical approaches out the window, as I truly believe in the body's innate ability to heal itself.

My TMS history is as follows:

• Severe growing pains all through my youth which abruptly stopped when my parents divorced at age 7
• unexplainable coccydinia beginning at age 13 after severe bullying, alongside the development of reynaud’s phenomenon and extreme joint pain
• development of many food allergies (new gluten and dairy intolerance), hemipalegic migraines with a chronic headache that lasted for 6+ months when I was 17 after being sexually assaulted;
  • this led to the development of anorexia due to fear around food and a need to control some aspect of my environment
• ongoing GI disturbance and severe anxiety with panic attacks throughout my 20s along with what felt like nerve pinching throughout my chest (yes, I am a shallow breather and my diaphragm hardly moves) following a rape incident and frequent migraine with aura
  
• Development of severe sciatica in May 2018 after a very stressful life situation (lots of moving, trying to complete university, living in a city I didn’t want to be in in a relationship I felt trapped in) period and an “acute” injury while working out at the gym– MRI showed 3 severe herniated discs and scoliosis
  • This is when I started throwing western medicine out the window. The doctors told me I wouldn’t be pain free without surgery, but I didn’t believe them as I was a followed of Dr. Joe Dispenza and had read “You are the Placebo.
  • I rehabbed myself out of pain and become very fit and strong and stopped experiencing any back pain or sciatica until….
    
• September 2019 I was diagnosed with repeated UTIs and given multiple rounds of antibiotics that did not help BY the fifth UTI I said, what is going on here and upon review of my labs, there was never any infection (save one kidney infection where I was passing blood).
  • This episode was followed by a number of VERY stressful years, but I was finally happy doing the job I wanted, living in the city I wanted to be in, in a great new relationship and then my health completely fell apart
  • I then spent the next 16 months trying to rule out every possible structural abnormality and my issues were also presenting with hemorrhoids and fissures causing a great deal of fear about all bathroom activities and increased pelvic pain and clenching/tension pattern
  • I was given every pelvic pain diagnosis from levator ani syndrome, hypertonic pelvic floor, vulvodynia, piriformis syndrome, interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome, PCOS, endometriosis – the WORKS.
  • I have lost so much weight from stress and fear around my condition - not understanding what is at the root cause - that I’ve now developed GERD, am completely malnourished, and zero energy as of today.

This past year I have tried every single diet to manage my pain, I have been actively going to pelvic floor physio, frequently going for Mayan abdominal massage, myo fascial release massage (this is the only thing that HAS helped), acupuncture, naturopaths, etc – the works – but nothing helped. I have refused to take pain medication since I injured my back in 2018, but I did try CBD for my anxiety which helped only minimally after 4 months of 3x a day daily use. I have developed what I consider severe central nervous sensitization as a result of all this so most days I can’t tell what is real or what is my body just being hyper aware.

I VERY luckily was able to be apart of a lecture with Dr. Gabor Mate (I am a graduate student in the area of trauma and suicide) and he said he had lots of resources on chronic pain for me, which is what led me to the TMS discovery. I have been spending the last three weeks learning everything possible that I can and I am fully accepting that, given my history, that TMS is exactly what I (and my ENTIRE family) has been dealing with.

I just recently started somatic experiencing therapy to try to deal with the anxiety and fear around my physical condition and to expel some energy, but I am ready to dive deeper and am looking for support in this journey as my family, friends, and colleagues I know think that TMS is wayyyyy too “out there” to be real. With this, people in my life keep pressuring me to continue to seek additional testing and diagnostic workups from specialists and go for the surgical route but I know that will not help, and it is just further increasing my anxiety.

Since learning about Dr. Sarno’s work, my pain has been frantically moving all over my body. While my pelvic pain is nearly gone, my back and sciatic pain is back with a vengeance along with new hip and ankle pain, and I am now having tension and breathing problem.

I guess this post is just a big old, hello, I am here and ready to do the work and would love to connect with anyone – specifically any women who have been successful on their TMS journeys which is largely rooted in history of sexual assault.

Does anyone have a suggestion of where I should start? There is so much TMS information and I am a bit overwhelmed with where to go from here.

 

Hello and welcome to the Forum!

I think a good place to start is with a structured learning program. There is one free on this site, as well as the Pain Recovery Program (link at top of page). I also highly recommend Dr. Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain, which is the one I used.

Also, read the Success Stories on this site. You can read mine by clicking on my name.

It's a good idea to limit the time you spend on working on your TMS to about an hour a day. Then go along with your life.

Best wishes to you...