Hello - this is me (now with back pain)

Hi

My exposure to TMS actually first started back in 2018. After a seemingly insignificant "squeeze" of my right testicle I developed epididymitis. I lived in pure hell for about a year, but now consider myself fully healed from that condition. Was it TMS? Perhaps. The doctors were never able to find any logical / structural reason for the pain. I really have to commend the urologist at the hospital who said "We do not know what this is. The only thing we know is that it will pass".

Now chronic pain has returned in my life. It really feels completely surreal to be back here after already having been through a long recovery process. I have to say that the suffering is intense and taking a toll on my psyche. It started right before Christmas as I was lifting the Christmas-tree a bit too far from my body. I didn't feel anything at the time, but the next day I woke up with a lot of pain on the left side of my lower back. Really felt like a strong inflammation. Over the next days sciatic-type pain developed as well in my left leg as well. Went to a chiropractor after a few weeks. He did several tests and basically concluded that I did not have a disc prolapse since I did not have any loss of strength in my feet. Later also went to a physical therapist who basically made the same conclusion, however he was still open to a nerve being pinched in the spine. I am finally getting an MRI next week.

The pain seems to be coming and going. These are some observations:

• Sitting on hard surfaces seems to really make it worse.
• Standing may or may not make it worse.
• Walking sometimes makes it worse. But not during the activity itself. It comes afterwards. Only logical reason for something like this would be that the activity increases the level of inflammation I guess (?)
• Yesterday I had two cancelled flights at the airport. As I got really angry / furious inside it seemed like the physical pain subsided. Then I went into more of a victim state and the pain increased again.
• The muscular / inflammatory pain in lower back and the nerve pain in leg seems to be correlated (come at the same time). I am no doctor but this seems slightly strange to me if the basic idea is that this is a pinched nerve / bulging disc.
• Sometimes I have tingling in both feet.

I have Nicole Sach's course from when I was struggling with my epididymits. Will start working on that again. Also ordered Sarno's book (Healing back pain).

And I really have the TMS personality. Perfectionism, self criticism, anxiety, mild OCD tendencies, hypochondria.

That's it for now I guess. Would appreciate any comments on my condition. Thanks.

 

Thank you for your reply @JanAtheCPA. Funny that you linked to Nicole's episode regarding the symptom imperative. I did in fact listen to that episode two days ago and I liked it a lot. It had a soothing effect on me.

I guess my main question at the moment is the same as most people new to persistent pain have: "Is this TMS?". It can be challenging when doctors, chiropractors, physio therapist etc. all approach it from the structural angle. And since I haven't had my MRI yet there is still something unresolved there. Although I do realize that no matter what the MRI will show it may not be a proof of anything either way regarding the pain. I can see that this could very well be TMS based on my personality, history of other unexplained long term pain, and the somewhat moving nature of the pain (sometimes in the lower back, sometimes in the buttocks, sometimes in the legs etc.). But there is still that doubt that likes to creep into the mind.

Another thing which I guess is quite common is my fear of the pain. When the pain isn't too bad it's easier to think that this is just TMS, but when it gets intense and the rubber meets the road so to speak I find that the fear of the pain can be somewhat paralyzing and it can be difficult to maintain a greater level of awareness. I'm curious as to how people approach this? When I feel the intensity of the panic-despair-"I am permanently broken" feeling I find it very difficult to snap out of.

I do intend to post updates here, and ask questions as I go along.

Thanks.

 

Thanks again @JanAtheCPA. You are probably right that I am flailing all over the place.

As for the epididymitis I had a few years back: I cannot say that doing Nicole's course at that time was alleviating the pain. But then again I was struggling with accepting it as TMS initially. I was helped by pain medication for a while, but what I think ultimately was the thing that started the real recovery was when I was able to resume physical activity. After about half a year I was able to jog 50 meters and that was a turning point. Also the pain started moving a bit and at that time I think I fully accepted that there wasn't anything physically wrong.

As for my current condition I have to admit that I am still a bit back and forth on my conviction being TMS. Yes, I:

• Do see that the pain is moving.
• Do see that when I had strong emotions of anger that the pain subsided.
• Do have days where there is very little pain at all, and then when I wake up the next day it is there.

Here are some of my "counter arguments" that makes me think it could be structural after all (I am not saying they are all necessarily good counter arguments, but they do pass through my mind):

• My doctor thinks that it may be structural (bulging disc, pinched nerve etc.)
• Sitting / applying pressure on the lower back increases the pain
• Applying heat to the painful area alleviates the pain
• Using painkillers such as paracetamol or NSAIDs such as ibuprofen alleviates the pain

Thanks for the TMS recovery program link. A lot of things to ponder there. I will read it many times. I realize that I am definitely a person who is abusing myself with fear. This struck me in particular:

"To emphasize, your TMS symptoms themselves aren’t serving as a distraction from painful unconscious emotions, it’s the fear and preoccupation around the pain that is serving as this distraction. That’s the purpose of the pain in most cases, to generate fear."

 

Hello all,

Just wanted to give a bit of an update.

After my previous post I did read Healing Back Pain by John Sarno. Wow - what a great book and what convincing arguments he presented in that book. I have to say that it did become a turning point for my back pain. I did loose my belief that I was structurally damaged. Even though my MRI came back and said that I had an S5 disc generation which could very well just be "normal wear and tear" from what I understood. My doctor said the disc generation is probably the reason for the pain, but I was like "No .. I don't think so man".

Anyways, things got better once I lost my fear of the pain. I still have it to a certain degree some time, but it is not limiting me and I am running as normally and lifting my son without restrictions or worsening of the pain.

I have been cycling through other symptoms though:

• Frequent migraines / stiff muscles in the upper neck and shoulders
• Prostatitis
• Dry / sore eyes

Usually only these symptoms cycle somewhat and one will be clearly in the "forefront".

The dry / sore eyes have been bothering me much more lately. I never thought about this as a possible TMS symptom until a few days ago. The reason is that there is a plausible structural reason for it (I got it after lasik eye surgery 10 years ago). But now that I think about it is really comes and goes, and it will usually change between the left eye and the right eye. So I got it on my radar as possible TMS now, and I wonder if someone else here has experienced the same.

 

I read your story from the top... I had a Very similar set of issues. Primarily back pain, Epididymitis , headaches, OCD...etc. Never had the Dry eyes or Prostatitis , but i have learned with TMS it is not the particular symptom as much as how much DISTRACTION the symptom causes. A few of those fooled me and I treated them physically until I realized they were doing the same thing back pain did...really mad I had surgery for epididymitis.. The only positive is that when My son came down with it, I coached him through it. All TMS.

I did have LASIK about 25 years ago. It never bugged until I started playing baseball again... then I had dry eyes, halo's etc... screwed around with glasses and now contacts. (The lasik wore off after about 15-20 years)

It was interesting reading WHAT you were doing ...Xmas tree? The time of year is way more relevant than the activity! Holidays, Moving , Having kids, being a good parent are all way more likely to provoke TMS then Moving a refrigerator or lifting weights

Far and away the most effective transformative instructions Sarno gave (to me) was on Page 66 of "Healing Back Pain" ?

paraphrased: "I tell patients when they find their attention focused on the symptoms to forcefully turn their attention to a recurrent source of irritation like a financial problem or a bad relationship... this sends a message to the unconscious that you know what is going on..."

That meant for me, turning off a radio, stopping what i might be doing and immediately doing THAT with focus and intent....I found it handy to decide WHAT I was gonna think of ahead of time (a guy who burned me for money) and every time I caught the obsession kicking in, doing Just what Sarno said. That with the 'daily reminders', a morning review of any resentments and general positive vibe about recovery got me better in weeks and I also used it to chase out the last little cobwebs of symptoms.

It is against our nature to intentionally think about something that is a bummer...but it is a temporary measure for a longer term gain (recovery)

I have been 99.5% pain free over the last 25 years doing this technique. It has even worked on LOTS of other stuff...most recently a mystery foot pain after hard running. The Hardest part is usually recognizing it as TMS... it gets really weird and creative sometimes, so this forum and reviewing the texts are great tools.

 

Hi guys

Been a while since I posted, so I want to give an update.

First I want to thank @Baseball65 for you reply. I read it many times over several months. I even printed it out. But I never got around to replying. But better late than never ...

Where I left off in my last post was in September 2023. At that time I was struggling with my eyes. Funnily enough that only lasted for 1-2 weeks after I made that post. In November 2024 I started a new job, and during the October leading up to starting the new position I basically was completely stressed out. I was going into a new technical discipline that I always wanted to do but never had a shot at until then, and I felt like I needed to "read up" on it before starting the new job. By the time I actually started I was completely stressed out I was asking myself whether I had a full burn out. Headaches, chest pressure, not being able to relax, poor sleep etc.

Basically, since then, I have struggled with severe tension headaches 2-4 times a week. Initially the migraine medicine sumatriptan was a life saver. However, with time the headaches got more and more frequent. Recently my doctor simply took me off it ask frequent use can cause even more headaches, and put me on a preventive drug instead (candesartan, commonly used for high blood pressure - but in this case a lower dose). This has been highly effective for the headaches, but I still have all my muscle tensions in the shoulder / neck / head and a constant feeling of having an overactive sympathetic nervous system. I have always been an anxious person (and was at one point diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder), but the last year has been a completely different level. Almost got me wondering if it was some kind of complex PTSD or something.

Anyways, although I suspected all along that my recent issue is TMS I was in too deep to be able to really address it as such. Or at least I didn't. I was just trying to survive the daily grind. I will say that is is was very clear to me what triggered it back in October - November 2023:

• Starting a new job where I didn't feel fully competent (a lot of worry before starting).
• Very steep learning curve once I actually started the job. Lots of stress. Didn't feel competent.
• In my previous job I had a pretty sweet deal where I would work from home for a few weeks, and then travel to a different city and stay there for about a week and a half in the office. As the introvert that I am I just loved the time alone that gave me. It was a big transition to go back to living at home all the time with my wife and a young child, and having to go to the office 5 days a week. I also had a lot of "forbidden" thoughts that I felt guilty about such as grieving my lost "freedom" and ability to be alone, feeling trapped, having to stay with my family all the time, resentment towards all the "demands" of everyday life etc.

I was aware of the points above pretty much all the time, and I did try to allow myself to feel them fully. But I cannot say that it really helped much. But I could have been more accepting of this as TMS and been more committed to treating it as such.

So this is pretty much where I am now. Chronic fatigue, intense muscle tension and a "fight or flight" response in the nervous system that has gone completely haywire during the last year. I am now looking into ways to soothe myself and down regulate the nervous system. Back to basics I guess...