New To Group and in Raleigh, NC

Greetings all,
My name is Eden and close to two years ago, my son Patrick moved back home. He was in a car accident 8 years ago and developed chronic pain and has lived with it since his accident. When Patrick moved home his pain got so bad that he couldn't work and he also doesn't have health insurance. So it took me a while to find resources to help him, however I finally found a local clinic that offered sliding scale doctor's visits and also accepted him into a program that helps pay for specialist.
A few months ago he had his entire spine x-rayed and MRI's and multiple doctors who have looked at his test results have said he has a normal spine and should not be in pain. Hearing this shocked both me and my son. His doctor told us that pain is complex and said that people who have experienced childhood trauma are more likely to have chronic pain as adults. Once I was told this, I was obsessed to find out why this is. And searching for answers on the internet led me to several youtube videos of Dr. Sarno and other doctors who explain what chronic pain is and why as well as the cure for chronic pain and other Mind Body Disorders.
Once I knew chronic pain was linked to childhood trauma and stress, I really felt that this is what is going on with my son. I have been learning as much as I can about TMS and putting what I have learned to use.
I also learned the areas of my own life where I am also affected by TMS. I have anxiety disorder and struggle with insomnia and TMJ--- have fractured molars from tooth grinding when I'm asleep. And I get horrible tension headaches that last 24-48 hours and can turn into migraines if they lasts longer than 48 hours. It hurts to move my eyes and the pain is so bad--- taking ibuprofen doesn't work at all. I should mention tension headaches past tense, because I have learned to stop them. 4 weeks ago I was dropping my daughter off at her job. It takes less than 10 minutes to drive from home to her work place. When my daughter got in the car, I was grabbing my head because it hurt so badly and as I drove her to work, I started telling her what I had learned about tension headaches being caused by stress (the mind) and not the body. As I started describing what I had learned and was also realizing that I was having pain caused by my mind, I realized that according to Dr. Sarno, it's possible to stop the pain once you realize it's from the mind and not the body. And I stopped it in a matter of seconds. I was blown away and felt like I had a sci-fi experience (smiles). When I went to bed and woke up the next day... I was starting to have another bad episode and even in my groggy mental state, I knew what was happening and before I got out of bed, I made it go away again. Now it's been close to 4 weeks with no horrible headaches at all. And I am thankful I was able to recognize and be able to stop the pain.
My biggest challenge is reaching my son. He has had so much childhood trauma, including me being mentally ill and suicidal when he was little. I know I was mentally ill from my own childhood trauma and happily for the last 6 years I have been in therapy and getting more and more mentally healthy. Patrick's trauma is extensive. Abusive father, mentally ill mother, domestic violence and shelters and moving and he even had a baby sitter that abused him in horrible ways.
I have tried so hard to show him that he has TMS and has all the signs of it, however it's hard for him to accept it because he's been in pain for so long that he can't believe there is nothing wrong with his body and it's his mind that is causing his body to be in intense pain.
I am hoping that someone in NC who may be local to me and my son, my reach out to us. So if you are reading this and you have had many years of horrible back pain and then started healing and your pain is gone or even greatly reduced, please contact me. Thanks for reading this!

 

Hi Eden,

I live in Western NC. You can read my TMS success story on my profile or in the Success Stories sub-forum. I recovered from decades of fibromyalgia and migraines, and recently have recovered from terrible chronic insomnia (I need to write a Success Story about that). I had significant childhood trauma as well, so recovery is possible using TMS treatment strategies even with that history.

So maybe a good place for your son to start is watching the Success Stories posted on YouTube or reading the ones in this Forum. I think he will realize that many people just like him have recovered. Then take a look at the free programs we have here: The TMS Recovery Program and the Structured Education Program that he can engage in.

Some people find that working with a TMS therapist or life coach is helpful, but it can be done on one's own if you don't have the money or insurance for therapy.

So there is hope for your son. He just needs to believe he has TMS, and then start a program to work on it.

Wishing you both the best......

 

Thank you Ellen. I enjoyed reading your story. My son is finally seeing a therapist I found and is starting EMDR, which I have also started with my own therapist.

 

My childhood trauma has definitely fed my chronic pain. My pain came down greatly once I started treating the mindbody. Note, when reading Sarno at first didn't immediately cure me, I tried jfb-mfr (john f Barnes myofascial release therapy--a mindbody approach to bodywork), which helped me immensely. It was probably that I wasn't 100% sure about the TMS diagnosis since reading the book only had a slight impact on my pain. But the jfb MFR therapy helped me actually feel the mind connection for myself--my body showed me the link between my emotions and my pain better than anyone could by just telling me so. Once my pain came down dramatically after an intensive 2 weeks of that therapy, then I was able to come back to Sarno and others (e.g., Ozanich, Brady, and Sachs) for moments of pain relief.

(Details of my journey are on my website: www.healingfromchronicpain.com).

I'm still working on reducing my remaining pain, and have also had some success with EMDR and somatic experiencing (also described on my website). It can sometimes be a long and slow process, although some people are fortunate to have quick recoveries. But either way it is definitely possible to get better.

Some books I have found helpful on mindbody pain and trauma include books by Bessel van der kolk, Peter Levine, John F Barnes, & Robert Scaer. I list many resources that have helped me on my website as well.

Good luck!

 

Thank you so much! I look forward to reading your story and exploring your website

 

Eden here everyone has the story to tell, some recover from years long troubles. TMS is great tools in the recovery journey. You need to begin with inspirations from social media and reading more about it. I wish all the success in your journey.

 

Thank you.

 

Both of my sons have been thoroughly instructed in TMS...probably one of the best things I could pass on to them. My older son in particular had a lot of symptoms and of course, he was the one who lived in LA longer and had to sit through the Hell that was his mother and I's drama,separation and divorce.

We live in Nashville now (way less day to day anxiety) and are stable healthy/happy. Coincidentally, none of us is suffering anymore, barring the occasional OBVIOUS relapse. We always discuss them in context of TMS when they arise and they abate rather quickly...days...sometimes hours.

When your son understands the process (and he will) you are actually saving him from a life of BS. You don't need to push it too hard....pain is very instructive.

peace!

 

Thank you for your reply

 

You can certainly tell from EdenNC's narrative how chronic pain and other mind-body disorders run and repeat in families with a history of traumatic stress events.

 

absolutely

 

Yes, EdenNC, it's interesting how the genetic determinists and structural MDs always try to find evidence for some kind of "alcoholic" gene or "schizophrenic" gene that causes alcoholism and mental illness to run in families when it's actually shared emotions, common traumatic stress events and social environments that are the most compelling reasons why such learned behaviors repeat generation after generation. They're just hard as heck to quantify. My late cousin, for example, had an alcoholic father, an alcoholic grandfather, and an alcoholic great grandfather. Obviously, there are a matrix of learned behaviors that tend to repeat from one generation to the next. I'll bet the same thing is true with TMS and other mind-body behaviors.

 

Eden, your story is both touching and inspiring. I can't really add to what's already been said, but I think it would be great if you repeated your awesome experience with your headaches for our Success Stories subforum!

When you create a new thread, you can pick tags for it to make it easier for others to find the topic - we have one for Migraine and Headaches (which I added it to this thread).

I used to get what I called "5-ibuprofen" headaches back in the bad old days (pre-Sarno). Since achieving a huge amount of recovery and control over my TMS in 2011, I only had one such headache, in 2014, and I describe that experience and how I overcame it in this post, which you might find interesting: http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/still-working-on-it-recent-successful-incident.5547/#post-32979 (Still working on it - recent successful incident)

Wishing you all the best, and continued strength for your son's recovery as well as your own. You have already come so far!

~Jan

 

Hi Jan,
Thanks so much for your message. I look forward to reading your story and I will make sure to add my success story when I catch up with office work

Great to hear you have also healed from bad headaches.

 

Thank you Bruce for your last message.