I need help to know if I have tms or structural pain

I am struggling with whether my pain is structural or mind/body. Had a terrible back spasm over a year ago where I couldn’t move for 12 or so hours. I have had these before but usually the pain would go away after two weeks. Had an MRI 6 months ago that showed a 8-9mm disc protrusion at l5s1. I have some intermittent foot tingling and numbness on the left side. My low back pain is usually concentrated on the left side but can vary in intensity. What I can’t work out is that most people say that disc herniation don’t cause pain and I’ve gotten very hopeful and have been doing more physically as well as the somatic tracking outlined in “the way out”. But the pain hasn’t gone away I’ve just cared less about it. I’ve recently been freaked out because DR schubiners content says “large herniations” can cause structuralpain, which mine would qualify as. I live in Nashville TN

 

Hello @Cwoolworth56
Somatic tracking is a simple tool described in the "Way Out" to assist you with your chronic pain, as is doing more physically.

How long have you been working on Alan Gordon's ideas?

Have you read any book by Dr. Sarno? That is of utmost importance because Alan Gordon's work teaches you ways to overcome the physicality of the chronic pain, but doesn't really address the underlying assumption of Dr. Sarno - that the pain is psychological, and most often due to subconscious rage and other emotions we often perceive as "negative" and our judgement of self surrounding these issues which create internal stress and anxiety. External stressors, or how we respond/react to external stressors also contributes.

So to that end, it's hard to say if you have TMS or not and frankly, if you don't believe Alan Gordon or Dr. Schubiner then you probably wouldn't believe some random person on a forum either...right? Why not begin to see if you think that TMS could be at play in your situation by a) reading a book by Dr. Sarno (and if you have, try reading it again. Sometimes he doesn't resonate in our mind the first time around).
b) try this quiz from the PPD Association (another name for TMS) https://ppdassociation.org/resources/#quiz (Resources — Psychophysiologic Disorders Association)
and c) take a look at the Aces test, and do it through the eyes of you as a young child, and see if you have a score:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...e-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

Why do I suggest these things.
Because Dr. Sarno says to think psychologically, and I notice that your post is 100% focused on the physical.

These are great places to start, and to add more knowledge and components to help resolve your chronic pain.

 

"Thanks for the reply! I think mainly, I was looking for reassurance that the size of the disc herniation doesn’t matter because what shook my belief that my problem is purely psychological was dr schubiners video that said small herniations wouldn’t cause structural pain but large ones could. So I figured I would come on here and share what I was going through and someone would respond “I had 2 10mm herniations and am pain free” or something. I haven’t read Dr Sarnos book yet because his philosophy permeates apps like curable and all the YouTube content out there utilizes his approach. I will definitely read it though. I’m basically I’m here looking for reassurance that my problem is mental and not physical, and similar success stories."

You need to build the reassurance yourself, in your own mind or else every time someone mentions something, it will grab your attention and focus you in the same manner this is. Your TMS is not about anyone else, it's about you. I have had symptoms nobody else had heard of in a patient - there was nobody to assure me that my exact and precise symptoms were TMS. I am not totally pain free but I am functioning very well and continuing in my healing.
If you continue to see re-assurance from outside sources, then you are going to struggle with your ability to rely and depend on yourself, to understand and deal with your anxiety and fears both with TMS and in life.
Why not look around on this website and get some assurance and see for yourself all the ways that people have totally healed. The Thank-you Dr. Sarno and Success Stories forums here are great places to dig around. Most of the people who post on the forum are people who are still in pain, there are very few folks who post regularly and answer questions that no longer have their symptoms that post here. Those two forums have some stories.