Day 1 Hello

Hello,

I am halfway through reading The Mindbody Prescription and have just completed the Day 1 activities. The 20/20 video featured here is very well done and has positively convinced me of my TMS diagnosis.

Funnily enough I am a researcher in the field of biomechanics and blood circulation. Being an engineer by education I have a very "structural" and "mechanical" view of the body. While you might think this to be a disadvantage in the case of TMS, I feel that it may have helped: When I started having forearm muscle pain and spasms, finger numbness and tingling, and (what I can only describe as) "slow", cold, fingers - a little research and I had immediately concluded it was carpal tunnel syndrome. I got some stretches and management techniques from the internet, but it was clear after several weeks of worsening symptoms that these had failed. I consulted my doctor, an began conventional therapy of wearing a wrist splint and taking ibuprofen. I even manually rubbed ibuprofen gel into the wrist at regular intervals during the day. Again this did not work and I eventually consulted an osteopath and a massage therapist. The physical therapies helped a bit, most notably the massage - after my first massage appointment I thought I had been cured! However this only lasted a day or two... I am certain this was because of temporary increased bloodflow to the region as Dr Sarno describes.

Continuing with osteopathy and massage for many months, my symptoms were mildly reduced, but remained strong and seemed to have "got stuck" - things were not progressing any more, but were staying constant. At this point, I had done so much research I thought I understood the biomechanics of the forearm area enough to conclude that something else must be going on! By chance I came across an article, a success story, on someone's blog and decided to buy Dr Sarno's book. I am at the beginning of my journey, but hope to recover fully from my RSI. I realise also that I may have been harbouring rage and other strong hidden emotions for a long time. Ideally, I will be able to get more in touch with my health in this emotional sense, and perhaps relieve not only the RSI, but also my constant jaw tension, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

I should like to say also that the symptoms started while looking for jobs - surely one of life's most stressful and prolonged chores!

Best wishes to you all,
Chris

 

Your doing great chrisami. Keep going to day 2 and up. We will come in and give you advice as you go. Your doing great. No need to say anymore about your physical symptoms. You did great, now focus completely on the emotional mind ok. We often call it the psychological thoughts. In the SEP program your in now you will learn all about that.

The RSI is tms so all you have to do for now is to write about your current pressures and the negative emotions you have toward these events. You want to get to feeling your emotions again regularly ok. The more you can feel your emotions the better but you cant focus on the RSI or any other pain in your body ok. When ever you get a pain you have to think what is bothering me emotionally ok.

Thanks. Welcome aboard

 

Thank you very much Eric, that's really useful advice, I appreciate it