Day 1

Hello all! I’ve been struggling with nerve pain in my hands for almost a year now, and I’ve been off work for six months now (I’m a graduate student who does computer coding which I’ve been unable to do). I’m using voice to text to write this, I can’t even write a couple of sentences using my hands without a lot of pain that often goes throughout my arm which I find very difficult to deal with. I really do believe my pain could be TMS, the thing that makes it a bit hard for me is my physiotherapist diagnosed me with the thoracic outlet syndrome (nerve/vein compression in the shoulder), which is very visible because one of my hands is bright red (the one with the worst symptoms) while the other is normal coloured. Because it’s all visible I sometimes struggle to except that it isn’t structural. The thing is, I had the hand pain before the colour changes happened so it’s possibly independent which is what I’m telling myself.

I also have sciatica and knee problems (I haven’t sat down for more than 30 minutes in months! Another TMS manifestation…), I have all sorts of neck pains, and a few months ago I strained of both of my pec muscles, which still hurts five months later even though the muscle should hypothetically be healed by now. I worry about all of these things constantly, I feel like all of my time is devoted to thinking about my injuries and hoping I’ll be able to start work again when I’m supposed to, which is two months from now. Reading about TMS has made me realize how much I do this and how on paper I seem to be a perfect candidate to have TMS! I tend to be very anxious person and everything I’ve read applies to me.

I’m coming to terms more with how my problems aren’t structural, my PhD is in a medical related field though so it goes against a lot of things I have been taught, which sometimes makes it harder to accept. But I one hundred percent believe we can train our brains to feel pain and I think I have done that. I’m hoping that this program works for me!