Looking for thoughts/opinions/advice

Hi everyone! I have been browsing this forum, as I am fairly knew to TMS and everyone on here seems so kind and also knowledgeable.

Probably like many others on here, I would like thoughts on whether or not what I have is in fact TMS. I read so many conflicting opinions about it. So maybe getting more opinions won't be helpful, but I trust this forum!

I will attempt to make this short!

2 years ago when I was about to turn 37 years old, I was exercising for the first time in a few years. Nothing strenuous. I noticed that evening my knee hurt so I iced it, rested, elevated. The next day, it was completely fine. The next time I exercised it again hurt afterward so I iced, rested, elevated. This pattern continued for a few weeks until it became so painful in the evening that I was crying in bed. But it was still on an off, although, becoming a steadier pain. The other knee slowly acted up as well but only in correlation to exercise.

Not long after the knee became more consistently painful, a few weeks, I noticed aches and pains in some other joints as well. So I asked my mother, do I have arthritis?? Already? At 36 almost 37? I decided to call my Dr. to see what she thought.

She did suspect arthritis and did an entire autoimmune panel. I came back with high antibodies for RA. So of course I immediately began my own research about RA and autoimmune disease and already had an idea of what an appointment with a rheumatologist would be like.

I decided not to go on drugs- although I did use steroids on and off. I found a functional medicine Dr right away and after I met with him, within 4 months, I felt like a whole new person. My body felt so much better, inflammatory markers in my blood dropped, etc. When I did begin to feel better, a a massive, massive cycle of anxiety began which caused huge amounts of stress for close to a year, and the joint pain and inflammation remained and worsened. However- my RA antibodies have significantly decreased as shown in my blood work, even despite being in pain.

For the past two years I have been quite obsessed with my pain, and healing, how to heal etc. And lots of negative self talk. "nothing is working, I'm sick, this is permanent, no matter what I do, it doesn't go away". I spend a lot of time researching. AND, I have seen so many success stories about people who have healed all types of chronic illness, so I certainly believe it can and does happen.

But, it's true, I have "become" RA in a way. I am constantly thinking about and focusing and checking in on the pain and inflammation.

I don't want to make this too long and I thank anyone who reads it! I have looked into TMS ad I know Sarno said autoimmune is a physiological condition and is not TMS. but here is the thing- recently, on a day I did a lot of walking and my knees hurt- I was on a lovely beach at a nice time of day with my family. I FELT NO PAIN! I thought to myself.... this has got to mean something.

What led to me to join this forum today, is I had a realization that at the time of the onset of the RA, I had recently experienced a very sad and stressful event concerning my father. I was deeply disturbed. But, I have had a lifetime full of anxiety, stress, and fear.

My gut tells me this started from stress. But my question to everyone is- CAN autoimmune disease in fact be TMS? What are your thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

Thank you so much in advance for your knowledge! I appreciate it beyond measure

as a side note- I have listened to Phil's story on youtube about his mindbody approach to healing his RA

 

Hi @cap23
It’s tough, because we can’t and shouldn’t diagnose people on this forum.

BUT— if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Right? You have so many TMS experiences, and even victories. You have the proof, and you almost believe it. The reason your TMS won’t go away yet is you’re not done with the Work. It’s frustrating to think it could take a long time. But sometimes it does.

I think it’s interesting that you took that walk on the beach and your pain went away. Very interesting! Kind of a tell-tale sign.

I don’t see how you can go wrong striving to heal your TMS. You have nothing to lose. But your TMS.

 

Thank you Diana for your reply. I'm not sure why, but I feel as though I am seeking confirmation from outside sources to confirm my suspicions. Also, I tend to think "not TMS!" because I can see inflammation. I wonder if I am stalling, because I know the work will be hard.

 

Yes, you probably are stalling. It’s easy to try and avoid the work. It’s a daily battle. Nichol Sachs says Life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse. The Work vs. TMS. I know it’s really natural to want to erase all doubt as best you can. There has been a lot said about inflammation on this wiki. Do a search. It can be TMS. I think in the end the only true proof will be when you start to heal.

check out Nichol Sachs The Cure for Chronic Pain podcast. It will give you a boost of hope and some great direction.

 

Thanks so much! I will check out the podcast today! I am always looking for resources

 

You might be reading his early texts. Later he said that TMS can go after ANY system in the body.

For all of the banging on about 'arthritis' I have only met ONE person ever with it as a 'condition'. i.e. NOT a normal process of aging. I did notice his swelling and stuff always happened under stress... He had to quit taking his meds during covid and only had one short episode in two years of going w/o the meds...which made him curious, as he knows about TMS. BTW, He is a Young alpha male type and it isn't painful, according to him, just messes with his dexterity.

I have had two knee problems in 25 years of this journey. One where it froze .After they withdrew a Quarter sized amount of fluid I thought 'that doesn't even make sense? " I work with leverage and physics all of the time at work...a 25cent piece worth of anything will not wedge an entire leg frozen. As soon as i had that 'aha', It stopped bugging and I focused on the real problem...my crappy marriage.
The second time, I had swelling....and it was STILL TMS because It went away when I realized it was distracting me from the pain of my Divorce. Notice anything?

We learn that just because a chemical or biological change can be diagnosed, that doesn't rule out it being CAUSED by an an emotional process, and that is something 99.9% of doctors can't wrap their heads around...and why so many people who patronize them are doomed to a seemingly endless cycle.

YES. Absolutely.

 

Thank you so much for this. I have really kind of wracked my brain trying to figure out the root cause of the onset of the RA. At the time, I was healthy. I had lost weight, was eating well, was seemingly in a happy spot in my life etc. I have thought- maybe it's because I used to smoke, used to drink, etc etc etc. But I'm not certain the REASON for the onset is as important as doing the TMS work regardless.

My knee began to hurt with exercise on and off, no big deal. but my other joints flared up after I became pretty upset over a situation with my father. It kind of all makes sense, but I do find myself making excuses- such as- "i am attributing this to stress because I am in denial about the fact that I have a chronic illness that will destroy my body". On the other hand! If I accept that I have a chronic illness that will destroy my body...... that is likely what I will get!

I appreciate your reply, thanks so much and thanks for listening!

 

For what it’s worth, I’ve never had knee problems and during the pandemic I had about 5-6 serious emotional issues going on. Plus the pandemic itself. Voila— knee stiffness and pain.

 

Yes- I am a firm believer that emotions and stress manifest within the body. I just have a hard time applying that belief to my own condition, but I'm getting there I think!

 

Hi Jan- I am about to check out the podcast. Just food for thought- I have heard the theory that symptoms flare up when we decrease or stop medication because we, with or without realizing it, expect them to. What are your thoughts on that?

 

Think your opening sentence says a lot: "2 years ago when I was about to turn 37 years old, I was exercising for the first time in a few years. Nothing strenuous."

37 years old is, for some, an existential crisis point. You're no longer a young adult or even at your athletic peak in your early 30s. Such a B-day could product a lot of fear and anxiety in your subconscious or even unconscious body-mind. Can't really say for certain. That you had your symptoms checked out to see if they were RA shows a lot of preoccupation and worry on your part, probably associated with that birthday of yours. You might want to check out the chapter on RA in Franz Alexander's classic Psychosomatic Medicine (1953) where Dr Alexander treats RA as a pure psychosomatic condition. Today the prevailing view is that a patient already has a physiologic predisposition for RA that is then triggered by stress or anxiety and made worse. But the vote is still out on all that. My advice? Treat your pain as a manifestation of TMS and use any one of psychological strategies to remove stressors from your unconscious. Of course, I'm not a certified medical professional so my advice lacks authority. But I would take a close look at what Dr Alexander has to say about RA because what he says seems to apply to TMS. I'd also try working my way through the Structured Education Program (SEP) offered here on the TMS Wiki one click over to the left.

 

Bruce, this is such an insightful reply. I hadn't even made the birthday connection. I actually recall now- when my knee hurt after that first bout of exercise- I said to a friend "well I guess this is what happens as we get older! A light workout will cause an injury!" that, coupled with a lifetime of fight or flight, coupled with the recent event- it absolutely fits.

Thank you so much, I think you have opened up a whole new area for me to explore.

 

Yes, those existential b-days are good points of departure for analyzing the origins of mind-body pain symptoms. And thank you for the compliments. I think near the start of the Body-Mind Prescription, Dr. Sarno makes the point that one thing that enrages the narcissistic inner child most, what Freud called the Id, is anything that puts a limit on it, the biggest limit being, of course, the end of existence itself. In other words, a symbolic b-day can make the inner child mad as hell and call for pain symptoms to distract the it from its own sense of mortality. I know that my bout of debilitating chronic pain occurred right after my late mother's passing in 2002 when I took advantage of a summer-slow down at work to start running hard on the trails in back of my house on the SF Peninsula. Sure enough, pretty soon I developed what my family MD called a "herniated disk". The work slow-down actually allowed me to confront the loss of my mother and, as a result, start running like a fiend. When it hurt, I just pushed harder. My job had actually distracted me from the fear and anxiety I must have felt acutely at the time of my mother's passing. The work slow down forced me to confront those unsettling feelings and sure enough the pain in my back distracted me from them. At the time, I thought it was all a physical injury and did my PT sessions like a good soldier. However, looking back I can see how the pain was due to repressed emotions like fear and sadness, not due to some physical injury in my lower lumbar region. Your own situation seems the same as mine only in miniature or a diminished mode; however, the principals seem similar. Check out the Holmes-Rahe scale of Life Stress Events. Think there are 44 of them in this classic study from the mid 1960s. The worst being the loss of a spouse. Statistically you are much more likely to get sick or die after one or more of these events are grouped closely together in your life. However, we do know this to be statistically true, but still don't know the exact causal mechanism. That's where TMS theory comes into the picture, and of course this is all quite controversial! Seems like it must have to do with the neural pathways that transmit pain messages (neural peptides) to pain receptors in the brain and the way profound emotions like fear, grief, and anger affects and programs those pain messages and makes them chronic. I leave that to the emerging field of neuroscience but it is fairly obvious that episodes of chronic pain have a way of starting right after big life stress events take place. But sometimes the implications of a b-day or other symbolic event can be just as profound to the psyche as a big trauma. The mind is a subtle instrument.

Does sound like you're beginning to get a good grip on the origins of your knee pain. Good luck at eradicating it!

 

If you guys think 37 is existential— you should try 60! @JanAtheCPA calls it “The Age of Rage.”

 

Thank you, so much again, for this!

Since you are so insightful, can I ask your thoughts on something? On and off for 20 years, I have been in therapy to sort out my anxiety and work through any traumatic issues from my childhood and past in general. I have done TONS of EMDR(in case you are unfamiliar- it is basically a therapeutic technique done to process or 'work through' past events that caused trauma, anger, etc.). All my therapy helped a lot, but still never truly quieted down the fear I have in my mind. My question is, after going through so much therapy and processing these memories that are attached to bad feelings, how can I still possibly suffer from TMS? I feel as though I have worked through so much trauma already.

Thank you!

 

I've heard!

 

Yes, of course. TMS can manifest in personal ways - for some people it's ONLY a fear of the symptom, and challenging thoughts/perceptions about their place in the world and the way pain is participating in their life. For others it is about a LOT more. It tends to be a combination of a lot of factors.
Your personality traits and how they effect your life and thinking
Thinking habits: do you tend to be a glass half empty person - there are a lot of old and valuable posts about "thinking clean" (do a search on that one!) on this forum that are a goldmine for a glass half empty mindset. Are you unconsciously perseverating on topics in your mind that are not reflecting your true self?
Did you address your internal rage? That rage isn't always just about childhood and trauma - it's day to day internal rages that build up like drips in a bucket until they overflow. Generally it involves self and how you perceive yourself vs how you present yourself to the world. You've got this little nasty tantruming 2 year old Id inside of you that WANTS WANTS WANTS and NEEDS NEEDS NEEDS everything to be YOUR way and anything that upsets it is often deemed as negative, selfish, wrong etc. to our rational mind. You really just need to see that it exists and accept it and recognize that some stuff makes us rageful like the guy at work who never cleans out the microwave after letting his fish explode in there, or the person who constantly leaves paper towels on the side of the sink...or the sideways remarks that one person always makes about you that you think you brush off (really you brush them under the rug...and into the deep well of rage). You just need to feel that rage some of the time, enough to regulate your nervous system
Your nervous system needs to be regulated. That means you need to stop and slow down at times (which is why meditation, yoga, qigong, playing guitar, going for walks etc are often recommended) ... you need to break away from your internal stress at times and give yourself a break.

So there are lots of components to dealing with TMS.

Lastly I suggest that for some of us, therapy isn't necessarily continual but may come and go in our lives. My therapist keeps her door open, suggesting that our internal life is like peeling layers of an onion. Sometimes we're good with where we are at for a time, and then we need to peel off another layer. We also discussed that our brains subconcious is like a filing system who's secretary sometimes gives up under the weight of the massive amounts of files she/he is required to file and just throws them all in the air and lets them lay where they fall. EMDR is helps her find the one file that is the key to being able to quickly and efficiently file all the other files away...and sometimes she has to go back to that one file she has avoided, way in the back of the top left drawer and re-file it to make the next round of filing easier. It often just takes a few sessions for a "touch up" to get you to a whole new level.

 

There are certain classic existential b-days, but you can have yourself a good raging existential crisis at 21, senior year in college, at 29 standing for your PhD orals, at 30, at 39 because it's close to 40, at 50 because everyone else has one then, at 60, at 70, at 80. Age doesn't matter so much as the symbolic significance of the age as it impacts your sense of permanence and mortality. It's always psychologically subtle stuff that triggers the TMS response.