New to forum- lower back pain/spasms.

Hi all,
I just heard of TMS maybe about two weeks ago. I remember hearing Howard Stern, talking about Dr. Sarno and how he really helped out when he had bad back pain problems.
I’ve had some degree back pain for the last 20 years or so even though I’m only 45 yrs old now. It started off as chronic middle back pain that seem to get worse when I did a lot of activities such as fishing, which require you to spend a lot of time sort of hunched over. That back pain mostly went away once I lost about 25 pounds. ( I wasn’t incredibly heavy to begin with, but that weight loss did coincide with the middle back pain going away).
After that, I noticed a couple of minor episodes of Lower back pain. Wood put me out for a day or two, but not a big deal. The big situation came about seven years ago when I was hauling a lot of firewood around. I got another one of those twinges of lower back pain. Decided at that moment to ignore it, and then proceeded to pick up a very large piece of wood. That resulted in severe back spasms, which had me on the ground literally screaming. Since that time, I’ve “thrown my back out “probably too maybe three times per year. That and I’ve noticed a significant reduction in my physical abilities because of my back pain . The pain is quite variable and almost always gets worse with increased activities, like lifting or yardwork. It’s gotten to a point where I would figure I’m able to do about 10 to 15% of what I used to do prior to seven years ago. It’s been a real ordeal to say the least.
I’ve been to PT a few times next to no positive result. I’ve seen my general doctor, a physiatrist and an Orthopedic surgeon whom have told me that I don’t require any type of surgery. I had an MRI done, which was essentially clean. Very minor issues noted. I’ve seen a chiropractor, which I now view to be A total scam. Went to see this person for like three months 2 to 3 times a week and it literally did absolutely nothing, in spite of the fact that I was doing the physical exercises that he also recommended.
One thing that has been noted several times that my hamstrings are extremely tight and probably always have been. Even though I played sports as a young person, I’ve always been very inflexible. While I’m guessing that this may play a role, I really do have a hard time thinking that tight hamstrings have caused what could be thought of as a minor disability to myself at this point because of the back issues.
Sorry to ramble a little bit here, but I really have been excited to discover Dr. Sarno’s work. I’ve listened to the books on tape for healing back pain and the mind body connection. I’ve noticed that overall, my general pain level has gone down slightly just doing normal things like going to work and walking my dogs in the woods. I’m still noticing that I’m back feels worse after doing more physical things like processing firewood or other types of yardwork that are a bit demanding.
Can you let me know what your thoughts are on if what I’m describing sounds like TMS? Also, what do you figure the role of my tight hamstrings might be? I’m actually wondering, perhaps if TMS may cause the muscle tightness that I’ve experienced throughout my life. The TMS “diagnosis“ Really resonated with me because I’ve been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a teenager. I’ve also known myself to have a personality that Focused on being “ a good person” I am perfectionistic to some degree.
Thank you all in advance for taking a look at my information and let me know what you think, I appreciate it!

 

Hi! Welcome!
Have you ever felt or noticed stress, anxiety or any particular thought pattern, even in passing around the times your symptoms increase?
This is the type of focus of Dr. Sarno’s work entails - to “think psychological”. Your post focuses almost solely on the physical, although you touch on the fact you have an OCD diagnoses and that some described personality traits register.
TMS is about the internal stress we generate: most often revolving around thoughts about ourselves and personal identity, which creates stress and internal pressure we often don’t even realize is happening, generating emotions we usually suppress. The mind creates symptoms so we take the focus away from the mental and emotional suffering and instead intensely focus on the body; keeping our minds safe by distraction.
You can see how this is so similar to OCD - (definitely a form of OCD).
How does this relate to tight muscles? When we are anxious and in fight/flight/freeze our bodies and minds tense and are in high alert. You unconsciously clench, and tighten.
Sarno believed that we clench and tighten, and our minds become rigidly focused on symptoms because of an intense anger or rage we don’t express. I can imagine OCD may play a role in this.
Have you tried doing the Ace’s test? Highly recommended -helpful to see how your mind may have been influenced to personality and emotional development.
Are you interested in going further with your journey to self-discovery and wellness? You can look at Alan Gordon’s Pain Recovery program (less emotional and self-discovery work) or the Structured Educational Program (more intense, more emotional and self-discovery techniques) that are free by scrolling down tmswiki.org

Best wishes! We’re here to support you!

 

Thank you very much for your reply!
I am pretty new to the TMS concept, But I definitely suspect strongly that the physical pain experience is in relation to my personality and the strong tendency that I have to please others. In the last couple weeks, I feel like I’ve learned a lot About myself with the idea of wanting to please others. I see this most, especially in groups of people, where I very often feel like I can’t be my self. I have felt that way for a very long time One on one with people, I’m a lot more comfortable internally.
I can trace back the OCD behaviors and also a strong sense of wanting to “do the right thing” since I was a very young child.
My wife has often made comment to me about how I appear very stressed out often. Although I do feel a good amount of stress fairly often, I think there’s also been a lot of stress that I haven’t been consciously aware of at the time. I wonder if part of that is just the fact that, I only know what it’s like to be myself, so that sort of would be one’s version of normal.
I think the aces test that you were describing is the one about adverse childhood experiences? If so, I scored a 1. Although not diagnosed, I think it was very clear that one if not both my parents had some substantial anxiety problems. Aside from that, nothing I’m aware of. I will say, though, that my father struggled with lower back problems and would periodically throw his back out like I do. I know on one occasion, he was taken to the hospital because he couldn’t move at all. Somehow, that resulted in him buying a hospital bed For himself to use in the home. I’m not exactly sure how that may tie into my own issues, but looking back on that, I’m pretty sure that anxiety was playing a role in his addressing of his issue at the time. What sort of interesting about that situation as well, is that He appears to be basically fine now from those sort of significant pain problems, although he literally never went to any sort of physical therapy or other sort of physical medicine person (aside from the brief ER/hospital stay). One thing I know is that he sort of “found God” a number of years ago, and he describes how that did wonders for his overall level of stress . Although I don’t believe that’s gonna be my way of addressing my own pain problems, one has to wonder if there is a correlation there for him.
I’ll definitely check out the other resources you listed. That, and I’m gonna keep on working at the TMS. I’ve been reviewing the “12 daily reminders.” In the morning.
Thank you again for reading all this information. It is very cathartic to be able to get it all down on paper in a somewhat cohesive way.

 

@SteveW
Since you have successfully begun some self-discover and are very open and welcoming to what is unfolding, you may be interested in journaling.
Dr. Sarno discusses it in one of his books, and one of his patients and protogee's Nichole Sach's has developed a method to follow his recommendations. It helps with self discovery and a bit of the "why" you developed certain personality traits which in turn allows you to explore your emotional development. Seeing the "cycles" of the traits and emotions helps you learn to manage things that trigger your symptoms eventually.

https://www.thecureforchronicpain.com/journalspeak (How to JournalSpeak — The Cure for Chronic Pain)

There is a strong link to spiritual development within people and their overall wellness. It's why many of the current practitioners suggest meditation and other forms of spiritual connectivity to calm the nervous system, and the mind. It addresses the need for control and the acceptance of what we can't control and embracing what we can control. You can still heal without the "woo woo" - but finding ways to de-stress in a way that works for you (eg. my husband runs, or goes on long walks - I meditate and do artwork and go on long walks) and disengages your mind from stress, daily life, worries and outside influence so that you can just "be" (that sounds a bit woo woo but that's the spiritual side of realizing you don't need to do anything at all but "be" to belong in this world).

This is a lot. Sorry to whallop you go slow, take your time and allow your brain to just let things sink in and accept all the newness as it can. When you find that you don't believe or sort of "push away" concepts accept that your mind might simply be resisting OR that it may just not resonate with you. Resisting in pretty common - your brain has been protecting you in it's own creative way from whatever it feels it needs to protect you from.

One tip doing the Ace's test. Don't look at it from your parents perspective - that's allowing other life and feelings and perceptions of others color the perceptions you had as a child. How did you feel to see your father hurt, your parents anxious. What did you learn from this? Clearly it's part of where the people pleasing came from (I know this from experience). So do the test again and look at it from the stance of a little 3 year old who doesn't understand the word "anxiety" but is dealing with the fall-out. This can be an eye opening way to do the quiz.

 

Thank you again for your response. It definitely means a lot to me to get some feedback specific to what I wrote.
I’ll definitely check out the journaling you mentioned with the link you provided.
Believe me, I do look forward to increased awareness and spirituality that may come from continuing with me looking at my pain through a different lens.
I definitely will take my time to let things set in with different TMS concepts. Really glad to have this forum as a resource too now!
I will take another look at the aces quiz. That said, I can tell you that I believe the anxiety in my house growing up was probably enough to have instilled a lot of faulty ideas of things such as overidentifying danger and having a very overblown reaction to common colds and that sort of thing. Although I look back and really hate that part of my upbringing, I’ve adopted many of those mindset choices about concern about impending medical problems and that sort of thing. Very fortunately I myself did not have that overreaction tendency to Covid at all, thank god, I sort of surprised myself with that one.My wife was stupefied, lol!
Again, thank you for the help!

 

I think this makes perfect sense. I believe that I early on decided to stay within bounds, so to say, of what was sort of a strict environment. I never really thought of my parents as strict, per se, but I suppose it comes in different forms.
Thank you For sharing your thoughts on what I wrote, it’s definitely helpful!

 

Hi everyone,
Full disclosure, I haven’t yet checked Out the link to the journaling, but I will do this, probably tomorrow and start that up.
I’ve been finding myself having some doubt come to mind in terms of what I’m going through being TMS or not. I think the main thing that I question is my history of very tight hamstrings being a contributing factor. I know that Dr. Sarno encourages people to very much get away from the physical aspect of pain, and that things like stretching and exercises can perpetuate someone being in that physical realm, when in reality, the cause of the pain is psychological, but I was wondering What peoples thoughts were on taking a bit of a dual approach. Specifically, I was thinking about continuing with the mindset that this is TMS While working on the tight hamstrings. Just curious if people think that might be counterproductive to the process or perhaps helpful.
Again, thank you in advance for the help. !
While I’m at it, I was curious if people felt comfortable with giving me an opinion on the person who runs the YouTube page “pain-free you” . Seems like a nice guy and I think he does some coaching of people with TMS if I’m not mistaken. I’m naturally skeptical so was wondering if people had a sense if me trying that out was a good idea or not. Thank you!

 

Thanks! I will use that search feature. I appreciate the feedback!

 

Welcome to the Forum, Steve!

I think the dual approach is possible, but very tricky to navigate. You have to be able to hold in your mind that you're working on the tight hamstrings just because it feels good, and not because it will "cure" anything. At the same time, you have to be committed to the idea that your physical complaints have a psychological cause. You're the only one who truly knows if you are able to do this.

 

I hear you. I will continue with the strictly psychological approach.

 

Hi, @SteveW,

I’m reading this book right now on anxiety called Anxious to Please: 7 Revolutionary Practices for the Chronically Nice. It is very mind blowing on the trait of people pleasing, which directly feeds TMS. You might like to check it out. I know you are bombarded with a lot of ideas here! Best of luck on your healing journey!

 

Thank you for the Book recommendation! Just purchased the audiobook and I’ll be looking forward to starting it

 

Hi all,
I wanted to report back on an update that I thought was very interesting, and very welcomed from yesterday.
Yesterday while I was at work, I started to notice That feeling of my back starting to “go out”. Because of some increased pain lately, I’ve been regularly taking muscle relaxers. I’ve noticed, that these do appear to help with lessening muscle spasms, But certainly don’t help with anything past that. I’ve taken them for sometime overall, so I’m well aware of my baseline on them. Anyway, because of My focus on the pain and symptoms being TMS, I felt I was better able to not worry too much about what was going on and proceeded with my day pretty much as normal Although the symptoms were on my mind. It’s been slow at work so I was actually able to actually do my first journal entry In an area, well away from other people. Instead of physically writing it out, I just use the Notes feature on my phone and talked it out. I did that for about 10 minutes and then erased what I wrote or spoke. I did a 10 minute meditation/mindfulness video on YouTube. And then proceeded with my day. Every day, I take a walk with my dog off leash in the woods and went out as normal yesterday. My mind was on other things when I happen to realize that my back actually Felt better at that moment than it does probably 90% of the time if not more than that. I thought that was significant, given that several hours earlier at work it felt like it could “go out “. I know I’ve got a long way to go with gaining confidence about resuming all physical activity to the level I had prior to the pain, but I thought this was a step in the right direction for sure.

 

@SteveW,
You are doing so good! You are doing all the right things, and it’s already working. Good for you!

 

Wanted to see how best to handle a small setback.
I have slightly increased activity lately and have been having some noticeable ups and downs lately with how lower back feels. I could tell things felt tight today. I’m heading up to vacation for the summer (teacher) and I’ve noticed that I get stressed with the transition. I’ve been taking muscle relaxers regularly for a bit. Getting dressed after a shower this afternoon, I got a fairly substantial “tweak” in my back. Pretty sure without the muscle relaxers, this would have been physically more imposing. I decided to take some new to me meds that were prescribed by a psysiatrist for “throwing out” (steroids, an anti-inflammatory, and other muscle relaxer). Won’t be doubling up on the MR’s. Will monitor any dizziness.
My plan is to treat the spasms medically, while continuing with the TMS mindset.
Any guidance on how best to handle these frustrating scary back spasm episodes?
Thank you!

 

Hi, Steve,

Other more seasoned people like @Baseball65 may have better advice than I do. But, on my journey I am continually having setbacks. I think that’s par for the course. Also flare ups are common when stress increases.

 

That is the front line. This is a battle of sorts, and when you are feeling the symptoms is where the rubber meets the road so to speak.
On Pg 66 of HBP Sarno says "I encourage patients , when they find themselves paying attention to the symptoms to consciously and forcefully shift their attention to a chronic source of irritation like a financial or family problem... this sends a message to the unconscious that you know what it's doing..."

I have been teetering on the edge of that this week myself. Everytime I catch my attention drifting 'back there' I stop and start to ask myself question
"What is going on right now that is different from when I am fine?"
"Why do I need a distraction right now?"

Like most times when this shit starts, I am doing GREAT! I just got a bitchin' new job for more money and I have been crawling out of the economic hole I was falling in earlier in the year. Bills paid, Dogs healthy, I'm healthy...

But, when I get quiet in the morning, I discover that I have never really changed since I was young and I still harbor a ton of RAGE about things I can never change...so when i catch my attention going into the physical, I keep going psychological. All of the idea's I got when I was quiet in the morning get played on my mental 'playlist' during the work day when anything tries to distract me.

In fact, it HAS to happen while your uncomfortable....we wouldn't have the motivation to do it when we're not...too many hobbies, distractions and books to read.

Nothing wrong with you taking Meds as long as you're doing the therapeutic part..which goes on in your head and only you can toe up in this fight

 

Thank you guys for the replies. Believe me, I’m listening to everything you all say. I will be continuing to stay psychological. I started having some small doubts about the TMS about a week ago but, at the moment am totally all in. I’ve always been physically inflexible even though I was a good athelete. My father is the same way- and I appear to have same pain problems he has had but mine have effected me more I think. I forever thought, and was told by PT’s doctors, etc. that that tightness, especially in my hamstrings was probably contributing to the back issues. I remember even as a kid in elementary school when you do that sit and reach box thing for the physical fitness test, I remember I did extremely poorly on it and was flabbergasted because I never Noticed being less flexible than other people. I guess it was a matter of only having my own experience to pull from. It’s like fish in water doesn’t know it’s water until it’s pulled out of it. But that said, having learned about TMS a few weeks back and really getting into it, I’m now convinced that both mine, and probably my father’s history of significant inflexibility has to be due to TMS. Both him and myself have a ton of anxiety. I’ve acknowledged mine to some degree in the past, but with the TMS work now, I can see that the anxiety has affected me in ways that I wasn’t aware of before. My father, has next to no awareness that he’s anxious in spite of the fact that I’ve had some very open conversations with him about it, Especially recently. I suppose I mention all of this, because I think it’s therapeutic to get it all out on paper. I think there’s been some generational significant anxiety that’s been passed down to myself and my brother that has affected us significantly.
Overall, I’m very pleased with knowing that the pain experience has been due to TMS because I can do something about it now as opposed to seeing a bunch of doctors who in my estimation have a hammer, so everything that they see is nails. When the hammer doesn’t work, so to say, they tell you that they could try hammering more or refer me out to somebody who also has a hammer that doesn’t work. I was recently Seeing a chiropractor that was recommended to me by a physiatrist that I saw. That physiatrist had said that he’d recommend either PT or chiropractor. That was one of my first clues that the pain management industry is pretty suspect. You would figure with any injury that essentially there would be one best treatment. There’s a scene in that movie “no country for old men” where the bad guy says to someone matter-of-factly “ there is only one best tool for a job” . So I end up seeing this chiropractor person because I had never done that before and was hoping that something new might be the thing to help me out. The person recommended that I see him for 12 weeks seeing him three times per week at first and then we gradually work down. The take away for me was that after 12 weeks we’d be all done and then I should be feeling better at least some substantial degree. Interestingly, I noticed the chiropractor also recommended a series of physical exercises that would strengthen my core and flexibility. Again, another professional, who recommended that I could do more than one different thing to physically get better. Again, it seemed suspect. Along the way, after sometime, I told him that I literally felt the exact same as when I walked in. He told me that an option was to see a physiatrist. That person ordered an MRI, which came back, essentially free of issues. One thing that I thought was very interesting was that I kept hearing from the the professionals I had seen and from other people that my issue had to do with “inflammation”. I never had a back MRI done before so I went into it thinking that if there was significant inflammation, then MRI would show that. When I got the results back, all that was indicated on it was how my discs and overall spine appeared. Nothing that Reflected any inflammation. I suppose it’s just something that does not appear on the test or isn’t meant to appear. That was yet another clue that I was caught up in a scam. I retuned to the chiropractor, and we kept going with the “treatment”. At this point, it was at about week eight or so. I told him that we would soon be approaching week 12 and was curious what his plan was moving forward. He said “well I think we keep moving along with this conservative treatment”. Basically, he might have just told me, we’re gonna keep doubling down on what has not been working for you, OK Steve.” Yet another suspicious statement. But the thing is is that I kept feeling the need to see this through, so that I could know that I did what was recommended and that it did or did not work. I didn’t want to half ass anything. A week or so after that, I told him that I was gonna have to stop seeing him at least for a bit, because I’d be heading out on summer vacation soon and that is out of state for me. I work in a school so I have the summer off. I remember feeling actually a little bit nervous telling him that because I figured he might say something like “oh, that’s not a good thing for your treatment plan to stop like this, or something to that effect. He was basically like “sure no problem, we’ll just pick up where we left off when you get back, because I figure you’ll probably need some more treatments”. That statement really solidified that this whole thing was completely Fraudulent. One would think that if you’re doing something that should be working to stop for two months completely would carry with it risk of relapse/pushing back improvement, etc. I will say, it’s been very interesting-of the probably four different Medical medical professionals that I’ve talked about the back pain, literally no one has mentioned a word about stress or anxiety or anything like that at all. Not even as anxiety being a potential contributing factor or something that would exacerbate whatever physical issue they figure I might have.
I realize that this has been quite a rant on my part, but it was something that I really wanted to get out of my system. Thank you guys again for listening and helping me know what best to do for myself. I appreciate it greatly!