Day 1 my TMS adventure

Hey guys,

Great to see such an enthusiastic and helpful community here
About 12 years ago, I dropped some heavy gym weights being an idiot trying to lift too much at home alone. I didn't break or snap anything and do not recall strong pain (just some discomfort for a couple of weeks afterwards). Then when I tried to lift weights again 1 year later (I'm a bit of a skinny bugger by the way!) I got mild to moderate level delayed onset pain in my forearm. Then fast forward about 7 years without much trouble(avoided weights) soon after a v.stressful relationship breakup, I ended up with, in the same arm... very unpleasant pain in my hand, elbow, and underarm area. Mainly as delayed onset after certain activities but it soon became a pretty nasty chronic ache. It really got me down as I not longer felt comfortable to do things I love such as surfing. Then I found a good chronic pain doc who isolated my issue to my right latissimus dorsi. It was referring the pain from some decent sized trigger points. Anyway to cut a long story short his treatments (lots of prolotherapy & TP injections) helped quite well but the trigger points still just keep coming back (unless I self massage them down again & take it easy). I recently developed sciatic pain down my leg too, with some twitching muscles in my butt and calf. Perhaps my constant massaging forced the TMS pain to find a backup plan.
After some qualified advice from a no-nonsense work mate I decided to give Sarno's theories a go (since 1 week ago). So far I feel positive but still have pain (& trigger points). I know it could take weeks though. I have done some reading of Sarno's books and realise I need to repudiate the physical (amongst other things). But does anyone else have experience eliminating pesky trigger points using TMS theory? That would be very encouraging. My personality does fit the TMS susceptible type by the way.

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks!

 

Hi Escapee & welcome!

My main symptom was chronic tension headache but I had pain in some of the areas you described too.

I've been working on TMS since January and I have WAY less pain now. Occasionally I will still have a headache but it doesn't last as long and isn't as severe and I know where it came from. It's a process that takes as long as it takes and seems to vary for each person.

There's some great stuff on the wiki and on this forum. Hope to see you around

 

Hi Veronica,
Thanks for your reply. Nice to get your words of support.
That's awesome to hear things have been trending in the right direction for you. When you had the arm pains, did your TMS ever manifest itself as trigger points/knots in the muscles? (I know I shouldn't focus on the physical, but just curious).
My pain is much less than it used to be a couple of years ago (before I had all the injections). They did help to give me breathing space but obviously didn't eliminate the root cause. Now I understand the cause, which now has the pains threatening to come back, is likely my mind. I'm going to give this a really TMS work a really good shot so I can get back to doing the sports I love without fear.
Have a good day

 

Yes, I did have some pain in some of the muscles in my upper back and that seemed connected with the headaches--all TMS.

Hope you are feeling better today.

 

Ok thanks Veronica, I'm going through some rough stuff at the moment but surprisingly the physical pain is feeling less