My TMS Journey: Lower Back Pain, Migraines, Insomnia, and Plantar Fasciitis

Hi all.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I learned of TMS in college. I suffered terribly from lower back pain when I was 18-19. I went to seven different kinds of doctors and they gave me seven different diagnoses. Before I knew it, I was afraid to bend over to tie my shoes, afraid to sleep on my stomach, afraid to lift weights, afraid to run. I was doing PT. I was doing chiropractic. I was considering back surgery. I don't remember how I found out about Sarno but I remember sitting on a couch and speed reading through one of his books. I more relief the next 48 hours than I had in two years.

We are all searching for the full cure. For many years, my back pain would come and go, but I could manage it because I knew it wasn't "real." I was active - lifting weights, running, living life normally.

Around 2014, in May, I had a really bad bout of migraine headaches. Migraines were not new to me - I had suffered through them when I was a kid, eight or nine years old is when they started, and I would get a couple really bad ones a year during my adolescence. My migraines were always the same - classic aura with the flashing jagged lights that would last about 40 minutes, then a few hours of really serious pain, always on the opposite side of where the lights were.

This time, in May 2014, I was getting multiple migraines a day, every day for weeks, it ended up being for about a month. I took weeks off of work. I was completely debilitated. I had CT and MRI scans done of my brain. I was very worried that I had a brain tumor because my mom had had three tumors, all successfully removed - one at 18, one at 35, and then another at ~60. The scans showed some things as all scans do, but nothing cancerous, nothing that I should really worry about. Nothing that should be causing migraines. I remember having to make a decision about whether or not to travel for my best friend's bachelor party. I ended up going, and I think it was that weekend that "broke the cycle." The migraines went away for years.

Five years actually. The migraines came back in 2019, also in May. About a two week stretch. Had another set of scans done. No real change. A couple weeks later, the headaches subsided.

Five years go by. May 2024 now. The migraines are back. This is a lot like 2014. Weeks of them. Every day, sometimes multiple per day.

Side note. In November 2023, I made some lifestyle changes. Covid had me drinking more alcohol than was healthy, so I cut out a lot of my alcohol consumption. I was a Scotch drinker and haven't had a sip of liquor since May 2024. Around the same time I also quit using nicotine, which had been a vice of mind since high school. Around this same time, I began having trouble sleeping. Three or four months of really bad insomnia which gradually got better, but never really improved. My new normal, after going through this, is getting 5-6 hours a night of sleep.

Back to the headaches. They subsided until October 2024. The same, but different. More frequent, but less painful. And then, I realized that I was getting the usual aura visual effects, but then no pain after. This continued throughout the holidays, and into the new year. We had just welcomed our second child, who was born in November 2024, and I was also training for the Boston Marathon (my second marathon, and I was running it for charity). So, I had a lot on my plate.

The modified migraines continued, off and on - seemingly triggered by stressful moments here and there, sometimes by weather changes, and sometimes for no reason at all. A few weeks before the marathon, I ran a 10k. I did it because my training plan had me running anyway, and I thought a race would be good practice. I set a time goal and pushed myself really hard. I realized with about 2 miles left I was not going to make the time I wanted. Then my left foot started to hurt, in the heel. Really bad pain. I hobbled over the finish line, and could barely walk after the race.

It was classic Plantar Fasciitis (PF). Hurt really bad in the morning with the first step, continued throughout the day but would get a little better. I scaled back my running, tried to heal. Did a lot of stretching. Got massage. Went to a podiatrist, had him do the electric shock therapy. Anything that would get me back in the game to run the Boston Marathon, which I had made my goal for the year, and I had worked hard to raise a lot of money for charity for. The Friday before the (Monday) race, I went for a final 5 mile test run. I hoped that my heel would feel good. I had stopped running for about 2 weeks. The pain was still there. I was very disappointed. Sad, let down, depressed.

We traveled to Boston. I was full of anxiety. Would I be able to run 26 miles? Forget the time goal I had set for myself. I didn't even know if I could finish the marathon. My wife, two little kids, my parents, my brother and sister in law came. I knew I just had to get to Boston, that the excitement would distract me. That it would be like going to my friend's bachelor party - the new environment would wash the pain away.

That weekend I could tell it was happening. I ran the marathon that Monday morning - this past Monday. It was amazing. The foot pain was there, but it was dull. I could tell it was "on it's way out." Just enough of it there to be a reminder, each of the 50,000 steps that I took. A reminder of what? I don't know - of TMS? I was able to find the pain grounding in some way. It kept me from thinking of the other things that hurt. The other things that come up in your mind when you are running 26.2 miles.

It's now Wednesday after the marathon that the PF is almost fully gone. I was convinced it had started as an "overuse" injury from all of my marathon training. Well that's not likely to be the case if it feels better than it has after running 26 miles.

The PF was TMS, just like the (modified) migraines are TMS. How do I know? Because since the PF started, the day I ran the 10k, I have NOT had one of the migraines. The TMS moved from my head to my foot. Of course it did, that is what TMS does.

I haven't solved the insomnia yet. I am sleeping better, on average, than I have been, but it is still an issue. I am not fully convinced yet that it is related to TMS, it could just be the general stresses of life. Or the fact that you don't really ever sleep well after you have a kid.

This is an abrupt ending, maybe I'll come back and add more. But I wanted to share this story. I hope it helps someone. I've read a lot on here, and a lot of other stuff on TMS. It helps me some. But you have to convince yourself. It is hard work to convince yourself.

 

Hi, @demarcation !

Glad you stopped lurking and told us this great success story! Wow! It really shows what can be done when you FACE your FEARS and do things anyway! Congrats to you! You’re a real fighter. I know you’ll lick your insomnia too. Your story helped me a lot. Thanks!