Much more pain at day 11

Today, as most days, I took my 2.6 mile walk. I walked in the shoes that had the orthotics, thinking that it would make a difference. It did. It made it worse. But also something else happened. I have been ruminating about an issue that has given me pain over the years. I decided that I wanted to speak to my "sometime therapist" about it and sent her a text requesting an appointment. As I was walking, I was talking to myself as though I were in a session, trying to get it all out about what and how I was feeling. When I finished my walk, my physical pain was much worse. I was surprised as I thought dealing with emotional pains would make the physical pain disappear. That was not the case. Could anyone weigh in on this for me?

Many thanks

 

Hi Livinginhope,


I'm pretty new to all of this myself but just thought I'd take a crack at it anyway. I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like maybe both the orthotics and/or anxiety or tension might be to blame for the increase in pain.

First, using the orthotics could have just reaffirmed your belief that there is something structurally wrong with you, not psychological or emotional. And if you have TMS or believe you do, you must start to believe that there is nothing structurally wrong with your body. Therefore, you wouldn't really need the orthotics. The symptoms are coming from your brain, not your body. The brain is basically conditioned to feel this pain at certain times or during certain activities that have caused you pain in the past and that will cause fear subconsciously and therefore pain. So just using the orthotics or maybe even expecting to have pain during a walk could have made the pain worse.

Also, perhaps talking to yourself as as if you were talking to your therapist caused you some kind of anxiety, tension or fear. Any of those feelings could have a direct correlation in your increase in physical pain. You might want to ask yourself, what you were feeling emotionally or psychologically during or immediately after you did that.


I hope this helps somewhat.

 

Thank you, JulietBlue. I did think about it when I put in the orthotics that it was more a reaction to physical pain than psychological, so perhaps I am still more on the fence than I thought.
I have been struggling with some personal stress and I think that that is part of what is causing the leg pain. I had a positive phone call with this person today and noticed after it, that my leg pain was totally gone. It didn't last for long but at least there was some cessation, so I am cautiously optimistic!

 

It sounds like you have a reason to be optimistic. Any reduction or cessation of pain, even if it doesn't last is a good sign!