I need support, advice and guidance

Good evening,

I have been suffering with chronic pain for about 8 years, since I was 16. I was very close to giving up hope whe I came across Georgie Oldfield's book 'Chronic Pin - A Key To Recovery. This was a few months ago and I have since bought Dr Sarno's Mindbody Perscription. I am putting my all into following the tips and programmes but I am really struggeling to completely belive that I have tms. I am a very skeptical person so this isn't surprising but mostly I struggle to relate completely. Yes I have had a bad childhood and a lot of life trauma, yes I have had lot of tests and seem to be completely healthy and yes I my pain is very illogical and random. However, what I struggle with is that most people seem to have proper crippling pain in certain parts of the body. My pain is all over and it is more of a strange deep dull aching. I don't know how to describe it - sometimes I think it may be my nerves and not my muscle at all as it can be tingly and hard to pin point. It moves and changes and is usually in my back, however, it is absolutely always in my head, which is where It first started, before it spread. Underneath my ears are always tight and aching and I have strange visual disturbances even though my eye tests always come back fine.

The reason I am writing this as I still feel alone. This seems to be very different to what other people exerience. I have been told a few times that I have Fibromyalgia even though I don't feel I even fit this description. I can't afford to see a specialist due to my lack of working but I would really like some advise and guidance. I can't do this alone!

Yours Rebecca

 

Acceptance is so difficult for many of us, thus making it the most important component in healing from this. You have been deemed healthy, or having 'fibromyalgia,' so the evidence is strong that what you have is in fact TMS.

The pattern, persistence, and intensity of symptoms is not important. Stress/tension/anxiety/depression/TMS, can manifest in a million ways in all sorts of combinations and durations. This much is clear when we take a look at some of the success stories on this forum. If you haven't, peruse that section of the site--I also recommend watching the "TMS healing wall of victory" videos on YouTube. Very inspiring.

You mention that you feel alone. I understand. This is an incredibly taxing condition that saps our essence from us, often times leaving us isolated and desperate for unity. I highly recommend Steve Ozanich's book "The Great Pain Deception." In it, he outlines the need to connect as one of the primary drivers of TMS symptoms. Please know that you are not alone--we are here for you. This is a strange and exciting and terrifying time in your life--but the struggle is worth it.

Wishing you peace today, Rebecca.

Best,
Steve

 

Hi Steve,

Thank you for replying. I will look into these sources and keep on fighting.

 

Rebecca, welcome to the forum, it seems like you have come to the right place.

Steve said what I would have said - and to which I will add that your tricky brain will do its best to find your own personal unique way of experiencing TMS symptoms. It's important to understand that - we have people here who spend a lot of time and emotional stress trying to find someone who has their exact set of symptoms - and those are the people who are almost guaranteed to have symptoms unlike anyone else. And they just can't recover while they are stuck in that state of mind.

Whoever suggested fibromyalgia to you was just guessing. We here know that "fibromyalgia" is just a fancy-sounding Greco-Latin construct that translates to something like "muscle and connective tissue pain". When you think about it, it's not much of a diagnosis, is it? IBS isn't much better when you look at the individual words. It's all TMS - or what Dr. Sarno calls TMS equivalents.

Everyone will experience their version of fibromyalgia in different ways. So maybe there are some classic similarities - if you've been on the fibro forums, I expect you'll find as many variations as similarities. I had at least one of the classic pain symptoms of fibro - which went away after I started doing this work. I also had weird neuro symptoms plus good old back and shoulder pain, plus digestive symptoms, plus anxiety and depression. I don't know if other people had all of the exact symptoms I had, because by the time I read The Divided Mind, I didn't care about exact descriptions anymore - I knew I had TMS, and I never looked back.

We have a self-guided program on the wiki, called the Structured Educational Program - it was designed by volunteers, and it's completely free. Please check it out, and keep us posted on your progress! Because it sounds like it can't do any harm for you to assume that your symptoms are TMS.

~Jan

 

[Deleted at BeWell's request]

 

Great post.

 

Rebecca.... I want to assure you that your symptom similarities (or lack of) compared to others is irrelevant. In the most severe point of my TMS I developed thrush. A pretty "left field" symptom I think.
Anyway. My recovery process began when my Dr infuriated me, yet again... I decided I'd had enough of him, that I'd figure it out on my own. I haven't read any of the recommended books yet, just articles and interviews with Dr Sarno, and if course thus forum.
I knew immediately that I was dealing with TMS. How?? Because I'd had months of blood work done, all normal. X-rays normal. MRI normal. Biologically, physically, I was perfectly healthy. So it was my logical brain that made the connection, and that opened up the pathway for the rest to follow suit.
Keep coming back, there's a lot of valuable info here.

 

Hi, everyone. A wonderful exchange of posts. I think the bottom line in TMS healing is total 100 percent belief in our emotions causing our pain.

It's good to re-read Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders about TMS, I especially like this extended version by another of this TMS community:

Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but it is caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does also cause real pain.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or anxiety then the blood is restricted from going to your lower back, for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain. Remember, where there is no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, the pain stays because of fear.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from TMS healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. TMSers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits, traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build, then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks it is helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you won’t have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed because you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear, then I feed the pain, If I fear, it’s impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless. If I want to work against the pain I could but it’s better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I have to be in pain trying to heal because facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them, then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my body’s ability to heal now. I can move as I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how it is hidden -- its illusion, its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face every one of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling -- The science behind mind-body/TMS healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of TMS. TMS will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off physical symptoms and on to emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore, thus making the TMS of no pain effect on the body. This will in return, give us the cure and become pain-free.