Fibromyalgia Question

I have suffered from the chronic pain of Fibro for over 20 years. Recently, I read The Divided Mind by Dr. Sarno and then read his other two books. In them, he says Fibromyalgia is a particularly severe form of TMS. In other words, I am thinking he means, if his patient has a lower back problem, or migraines, or pain in the knee etc., a pain in one area of the body is easier to treat that Fibro which consists of pain all over the body. Incidentally, my pain level dropped by 60% after reading the books and I embraced the diagnosis completely.

Here is my question: I've been working on this since the beginning of February and my pain levels are still much better than they were but certainly not gone completely. If Fibro is a severe form of TMS, does that mean I will need extra help to get completely pain free such as psychotherapy?

 

Hi, Donna Jean. Fibro is what doctors call pain when they don't know what it is or what causes it. It's great that you discovered TMS and that emotions caused your pain and now you are only feeling 40 percent of what it was.

No, I don't think you need psychotherapy to feel totally pain-free. Just believe more in TMS causing your pain and work to discover the emotions causing it. If you haven't yet done the Structured Educational Program, free in the subforum of this web site, I think it would help you a lot to discover those bad emotions.

 

Thank you for that advice! Will continue on my program.

 

Hi Donna Jean,

I had fibromyalgia for over 20 years, and I was able to get to pain-free using TMS techniques without psychotherapy. It did take me about 9-12 months, but my recovery was complicated by withdrawing from some of my medications. I did have relapses for a couple of years after that periodically, but once I realized that it was TMS and used the techniques I'd learned, the pain would go away. I haven't had a relapse of pain for about 6 months now.

But recovery is different for everyone, and the timeline and whether or not one could benefit from psychotherapy is not determined by the diagnosis, in my opinion. We are dealing with the human psyche here, so it is very complex and very individualized, and therefore, recovery is going to look different for everyone.

Hang in there. You are on the right path, and have already experienced wonderful progress. You'll become pain free in time.

 

Thank you Ellen!