Day 8 Emotional connection to pain

I'm on day 8 now and have begun to notice some shift in the consistency of pain pretty much everywhere except for the place that matters most (bilateral elbow "tendonitis" that makes posts like these fairly painful). I've noticed a trend (as I slowly begin to re-incorporate different activities back into my life) that I have trouble distinguishing between legitimate soreness from doing an exercise / activity that I haven't done in a while, and the chronic pain that has no structural basis. I presume this is something that everyone encounters at first but it has unfortunately kept me focused on my body.

I'm noticing difficulty tying emotions to the pain. I think partially this is because I've spent years having doctors validate my pain as "inflammatory." Is it typical to struggle with this at first? A lot of the pain (aside from the elbows) comes and goes when I focus on it and remind myself that it's being sent from the top down and not the other way around. But still struggling to understand the emotional triggers involved with this.

 

Yes...it is normal to struggle. remember there are two distinct things going on.. The pain is being generated in the unconscious, but once it's there CONDITIONING can keep it in place long after the emotion is forgotten or no longer relevant. If you notice the work of Pavlov it didn't take many times for the dogs to get conditioned....something happening once or twice is usually sufficient, particularly if it's scary .Like a Dr. telling you there is something wrong with you.

Example: Painful situation in my family...my sister and brother loathe each other and I get stuck in the middle.Unconscious RAGE!.. Without my permission, my body decides to make my foot hurt. If I know it's TMS and tell my body "I know I am probably more pissed than I feel...I do NOT need your help" It will go away...oftentimes immediately.

But, if I had gone to a DR. and he told me that it was due to some sort of horrible structural problem that s actually a normal part of aging , FEAR and anxiety are like mortar and that symptom gets bricked into place...it will remain long after my brother and sister are no longer on my mind at all.

None the less, if you turn your attention to emotional stuff ... recurring irritants like financial problems, a bad relationship that you ARE conscious of, a responsibility you dread..... it still sends a message to the unconscious that you know what's going on and will disable the system. It's also VERY fast. I was conditioned into pain for years, but was meticulous about turning my attention to the recurrent sources of irritation and 10 years of Fear and misdiagnosis went away in a few weeks.

and the soreness? Soreness is rarely painful...it's stiffness and maybe a little slowness. I am 56...I haven't run in MONTHS. I played two games last weekend. My legs were sort of stiff for a day.. It's just another thing for TMS to try and crawl into. Don't bite.

 

I've come back to this a few times and it's been helping me work through the pain as it continues to move around. Just wanted to say thanks. I've been trying "I do not need your help" whenever pain shows up in new places it wasn't previously.

Though I'm still confident in the diagnosis, my my pain has overall gotten worse since starting the program (really just in more places than ever before, like any place I've ever had pain in my past is producing pain at the same time). I'm lucky I live in Chicago and get to meet with a TMS doc tomorrow morning; really think it's going to take a lot of time and work to overcome years of conditioning of fearing that the pain could cause real structural damage.

 

Some of my symptoms worsened doing the program, others disappeared immediately. It was a bit weird. The fact that they symptoms and pain are changing while doing the program is good evidence that TMS is the problem. Hopefully your TMS doctor visit helped!

 

Thanks! Have been working with Dr. Stracks in Chicago, who focuses heavily on the neuroscience education component and plasticity. He has been great so far, and also introduced me to the Curable app. Continuing to stay hopeful and confident that this is the right path.