Kids and Chronic Pain

I just saw this on BBC America news last night, and it's pretty sad that so many medical professionals have their heads in the sand. Could this be anything but TMS?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23152464

 

These poor kids! It certainly sounds like it could be TMS. I hope psychological causes are being looked at, although I think it would be very hard for parents to accept a TMS diagnosis because it can reflect on their parenting. I had an alcoholic father and a controlling mother who were in tremendous conflict with each other. I was angry, but it wasn't "acceptable." My TMS started at a very young age (3 or 4) with bad headaches, "growing pains" in my legs, allergies, ear infections, frequent colds, an attack of hives. My little body was sending a loud and clear message about the stress in my life. I'm finally listening.

 

I know that Dr Sarno speculates about whether "growing pains" at night are a result of TMS in children. The condition described in the BBC video though sounds like a scenario typical of chronic pain in adults that's triggered by an injury that causes a real pain that never really goes away, but modulates into continuous chronic pain after 3 months or so. It also looks as if the doctors are trying to reprogram the first girl's neural pathways so they don't carry pain messages. Or perhaps they are trying to use some kind of bio-feedback to activate alternative neural pathways that are free of programmed pain messages? I'd like a fuller explanation of how that environment with the colored lights is set up and what they're attempting to accomplish. Sure hope they can improve those kid's lives. To live like that when you're a kid must be hell on earth, taking those strong narcotics all the time.

Lilibet, I was wondering too about whether they were reluctant to look into psychological stresses because of the potential reaction on the part of the parents. Like you, I can remember when my parents were really fighting all the time when I was around 5 -7, I had illness after illness after illness, including asthma, measles, pneumonia. My body was saying that it couldn't take mom and dad fighting so much. Makes you wonder whether there's some kind of stress setting off TMS in those kids.

 

While I was growing up, during the 1930s Great Depression, my mother and father argued and fought a lot.
I felt trapped, but my older brother ran away and joined the army at the age of 16 during World War II.
My sister and I were younger so we just tried to put up with it all. Mom sometimes ran to the bathroom
saying she was going to kill herself.

I finally graduated from high school and went away to college, then the army, and kept busy working and dating so I guess I put the psychological stresses of my boyhood out of my mind. A year ago I lifted a case of beer and felt severe back pain. I learned by reading Dr. Sarno that my back pain was caused by repressed emotions, and I sure had a lot of those. I finally accepted that theory and forgave my parents (after they had died). I loved my parents and know they loved me. They were just under a lot of stress during those hard times of unemployment. Like now. I hope kids today can forgive their parents if times have been hard. It's the better way to face those stresses and let the past go.

 

Another thought...

Yesterday I was out walking with my dog Annie and saw my next-door neighbor's boy, about 12, bouncing a basketball in their driveway. But he was also looking at his iPod or another of those handheld electronic devices so many people today seem to be glued to. It struck me that he wasn't paying attention to bouncing the ball, he was focused on whatever he was watching on the iPod. Another neighbor said his two kids, the boy in high school and the girl in grammar school, were on the computer all the time or on their iPods or cell phones. They weren't outdoors playing. I wanted to suggest that he limit his kids' time on electronic stuff and tell them to play more, or read a book. But he's such a nice guy, I didn't comment.

I see so many people today, kids and adults, walking while on electronic devices, people walking their dogs or pushing a baby carriage while plugged in. Multi-tasking instead of doing just one thing at a time, enjoying the walk they're taking with their dog or baby. Looking at the gardens along the walk, or stopping to smell even one rose.

Just about everyone of every age tells me how fast their days, weeks, months, and years are going. I believe it's because of technology stealing so much our time. I say tune it out. Live more unplugged. What do you think?

 

I think it's about anxiety (angst) levels too. Feeding your mind with so much bad news from around the world - that's instantly available and present in cyberspace - creates an environment that's full of future fears. Living in an environment that full of artificial stress and worry makes it increasingly difficult to attend to the moment as it unfolds. That's why I've been going down in the backyard and picking ripe fruit off my Royal Plum tree each afternoon and talking to a bunch of hungry deer. No PC, no iMac, no iPhone. Sometimes you have to get real!

 

Bruce, that's great... picking fruit off your plum tree and talking to the deer. I love deer, almost as much as I love dogs and a couple of my best friends.
I think you're right that many people have anxiety today because they watch too much of the bad news around the world, even the Weather Channel that takes viewers right to a tornado to see homes being leveled and lives being lost. It's watched on tv and all those hand-held gadgets (I own a tv but not a cell phone or iPod or any of those things, and refuse to). Many people want to be tuned in today, but I prefer being tuned out. I get the news in my email each morning from the Chicago Tribune and New York Times online editions, and also check the weather locally, but avoid television news.
I was a reporter for the Tribune for seven years but got tired of covering murders, fires, robberies, etc. and left the news business. I became editor of a travel magazine and then left the corporate world to freelance, mainly writing upbeat books for preteens and teenagers. I've been happier working on and thinking of more positive aspects of life. Crime and violence only made me depressed. A lot of my TMS pain probably came from those stressful years on the newspaper. Bad news is the same every day anyway, wherever in the world it happens. Tomorrow there will be more, from other places.

Jesus said not to be concerned about today's anxieties or worries because tomorrow will have enough of their own for us. I can wait.

Anyone else have thoughts to share on how technology is causing or contributing to our TMS? If you're really plugged in, can you tell us why?

 

This reminds of a story that my former "magnetic healer" told me. This of course was before I found out about TMS I somehow feel it resonates with the subject, so here it is.
One day when she had just started "healing" people, a young couple was at the front door who shoved a crying baby in her arms. It had been crying for weeks on end and the parents were near exhaustion and completely stressed out. She managed to "heal" the baby within the hour, it was having head ache from the birth as she explained, and the parents were over the moon so happy.
I have been wondering what may have actually happened. As it was a months old baby, I find it hard to explain as TMS. Thing is that once the parents were away, it stopped, for good. It is almost as if the presence of a stressed out person near the baby was registered by the baby and so a cycle started. The presence of a relaxed person broke the cycle.... any thoughts?

 

Gigalos, the baby crying around stressed out people is totally in accord with what Dr Gabor Mate says about early childhood development and the effect of stressed out parents on it. An infant and toddler's brain is growing rapidly during the first six years of life and is greatly affected by its interaction with parents or caregivers. This is when it learns whether the world is a hostile and fearful or accepting and loving place, learning that can last a whole lifetime thereafter, preserved in the brain's neurochemistry. The title of one of the chapters of Mate's groundbreaking book on addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, is, not coincidentally, "Their Brains Never Had a Chance".

 

mystery solved then
The cycle broken also relaxed the parents, so there was no stress fed to the baby after that. I can imagine this could have already started before the baby was born. Stress hormones from the mother gave stress to the unborn child, maybe even the mother's milk influenced the baby after it was born (?). What are the mechanisms that play a role. Is it just picking up vibes from the parents? Does stress smell, can it be heard or felt?

 

I read in Mate that even the pupils of the mother's eyes when they dilate to look into the infant's eyes has an affect on the baby's stress level. Yes, the brain of the unborn fetus is definitely affected by the pregnant mother's mood, especially whether she is anxious or worried or not. At least, that's what I read in Mate's In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Dr Mate notes that 100% of his female addict patients were sexually abused as children. 100%, no exceptions.

 

That news report was really upsetting. I recall a few years back when I volunteered in my younger daughter's primary school. I filled in for the school secretary on a Friday afternoon doing a variety of admin tasks but also having some contact with the children, namely those who came to the office after bumping themselves or falling down. They were sent straight to the office to get one of the ice packs to put on the 'injured' part of their body. Was the school taking extra precaution because they were worried about parental complaints or possible law suits? I just thought they were being wimps. When I was at school or even at home and out at play in the street, I had numerous falls and bangs on just about every part of my body. The other kids were no different. We didn't run to the adults for an ice pack after every mishap. We brushed ourselves off and carried on playing. I have no idea if the kids in this news clip are being abused but my guess is they are not. They have just become overly sensitized by observing their elders and the world around them.

My first symptom of TMS was stomach spasms. I used to get these as an adolescent/young teen. My mother had them too. I must have picked up on her pain and developed the same symptoms as her. She was prescribed a drug to relieve the spasms. She used to give them to me when I was suffering. They did help at the time. I am not going to get into a discussion about giving young children drugs that were not prescribed for them. That can be the subject of another post. However, years later I read about this drug that we used to take, my mother and I. It turned out it was a sugar pill!

 

Just happened to see this comment mentioning "growing pains" in your legs. My 4 yr old occasionally (but often enough for it to be a concern) complains of his knees being "hot," and he's definitely suffering when it happens. But they're not hot or warm to the touch, and there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong. As someone who recovered from back pain after learning about Sarno and seeing Dr. Schechter in L.A., I jumped to stress/anxiety after I couldn't figure it out physically. I try to comfort him. It most often happens when he's in bed. When I first started looking around, the only thing I could find is that growing pains may indeed be real. When I stay with him and put my hands on his knees and massage them and stay in his bed with him a bit, it ultimately goes away but it doesn't quickly/magically go away with my presence. And I try to coach him to take deep breaths - he's old enough to say to me, But mom I'm not nervous or stressed, why does it hurt!? In any case, I still do think it's anxiety/fear related. But wondering if you or others ever experienced parts of the body feeling "hot." That's all he can really tell me.