Day 15: Pain moving around

Today's question to ponder is, "During the past two weeks has your pain been moving around? How has this affected your belief in the diagnosis?"
The answer is yes, undoubtedly, my pain moves around. Some days I have what I call the “point of origin” pain. This is the localized pain around the top right side of my S.I. joint, which doesn’t feel like muscle tightness, per se, but when I stretch, the stretching feels good. This is the first and most persistent pain that I experienced. Other days, there is extreme muscle tightness in the glute medius area. Lately, I haven’t had much problem with the psoas, but today I’ve had a little bit of tightness there. Then some days, I have what feels like joint paint or tenderness right in the center of my back. For whatever reason, that has been the case more often on Mondays. On especially bad weeks, it will have a sudden onset while playing ball with the kids in the afternoon, such as when I bend slightly to catch a ball and that area suddenly erupts in pain, which can last for a couple of days. At other times I have absolutely no pain at all. This moving around of the pain definitely confirms the TMS diagnosis, but my mind wants to know what the exact physiological process is? When I have the point of origin pain, what exactly is happening, to what tendons and/or ligaments, etc.?

 

Howdy, I do this too, with food. Whenever I have some bloating or indigestion, I think "what food is causing this." I usually catch myself and change the question to "What food is my brain's excuse for this, and what's the real reason it's doing it?" I don't think it's harmful to think about the physiological process as long as you are reminding yourself that the brain is turning the symptom on, and you are still exploring the psychological roots.

Overall, great job recognizing the silliness of all the symptom movement. Sounds like you are doing good!

 

You'll hear Dr. Sarno mentioning "muscles, nerves, tendons and ligaments" quite a few times in his reading of his own "Healing Back Pain." Mild oxygen deprivation through a benign process of the brain limiting blood to those areas can cause very real feelings of structural pain and injury. This is a much maligned theory in certain corners of this website and leads me to feel like something of a relic when I relay this "old school" stuff (and I only learned about it less than two years ago!). But I still think this is the best explanation for how "real" the pain feels, why it feels like it's in your body and not your mind (because it is). I believe even the conventional medical literature points to migraines being caused by an unexplained blood vessel constriction as well. You have obviously reached the point where you know that you are structurally fine, so it's just academic anyway, but that's what's said to be happening. The true origin of course being unaddressed conflict and tension in your life.