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Hi, my name is Nathan and im 31. I injured myself at work which really seemed like a minor injury at the time but the pain progressed over about 2 weeks to the point where i couldnt walk,sit or even lay down without pain. It seemed like a sciatica type pain down my left leg. After 4-5 weeks of physio i was back to normal and livin the dream. My wife and i jus got married and had our honeymoon in Koh Samui, Thialand which was great for the first day then we had the worst floods in 70 years!! No toilets,no electricity and well pretty much no nothing lol even all the streets were flooded up to the first floor of our biulding! Anyway we came back and all was good but about 1 month later BAM! The pain came back with avengence but this time both legs. May i add it also still took about 3-4 days this time to get to real extreme pain from time of onset. So i struggled with that for 6-7 months seeing chiros,physios,osteos etc with no great outcome. The osteo did help a bit but inly for maybe a day or 2. The pain would switch from side to side too. I ws told i had retrolosthesis L5/S1 which showed no nerve impingement and also had some disc degeneration. I was even told i had AS as i apparently have the HLAB27 gene but appart from the pain in the SI joints the symptoms jus didnt seem to match. I had blood work done and there was no real significant abnormalities to say i had AS. So what the hell is it? i was also told my hip slightly out of allignment. I had 8-10 months of say 90%npain reduction but all i could think about was when it was gonna come back. Well that was answered this feb 2013 and have been strugglin ever since. and again all day and all night all i think is am i gonna be sore today? what about tomorrow or when will this go away? It scares me the most to think that i wont be able to look after my wife properly and kids in the future. I used to be very fit and lifted weights alot so my strength i felt was a defining characterisitic of mine but now i feel i have lost it amd am scared i cant get it back. for me its all about fear and of course the pain. Id better stop ranting now and sorry for the super long post but must admit it feels good to get it off my chest. i literally started looking at this today and am starting to believe it. Maybe about a 7 out of 10 of course im a little sceotic but im sure that will start to pass as i read and learn so much more from Dr Sarno amd all of you awesome people. Thanks for listening and any replies or messages are encouraged. Thanks again and speak soon

 

What you say is a very good indication that what you have is TMS. It's not the pain itself that causes the emotional stress behind the syndrome, so much as it's the fear that it's going to come back or hurt worse. The doubt and fear are the stressors generating the tension that makes the pain necessary as a distraction.

Of course, I'm not a medical doctor, so cannot diagnose, prescribe or treat your pain condition, but you might want to consult a TMS doctor in your area to give you a bona fide TMS diagnosis:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Find_a_TMS_Doctor_or_Therapist

That combination of pain and fear that you describe does sound like classic TMS, however. You might want to start working the 37-day Structured Education Program available by clicking the TMS Wiki tab above too. It doesn't involve drugs or surgery, so there's no way it can cause you any harm. It does sound like you've been the usual route with MDs and therapists already.

 

Nate, fear of the pain returning or getting worse is one of the worst parts of TMS. I have found Claire Weekes's book Hope and Help for Your Nerves to be most helpful in dealing with fear.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Bruce I just started the structured program. I'm feeling a little better and confident and I'm almost sure I have TMS as I used to suffer anxiety and really work myself up to a state where I would be really freaking out but learned to talk myself out of it and haven't suffered with that for years now. Although I did take me 2 years to get right over it. I'm always a worry wart and think how everything is going to affect my future even thinkin will the pain cause me to lose my job and then home etc. so for now I've made a promise I'm gonna jus take it day by day. Thanks again for your input. It's much appreciated

 

Also does anyone have a listing of TMS dr as I'm finding it hard to find in my area. I'm from Sydney Australia. Thanks

 

You might want to consult this list of TMS doctors and therapists on the TMS Wiki:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Find_a_TMS_Doctor_or_Therapist

You'll notice that James Alexander is in Australia and consults via Skye as well as, I presume, face-to-face. He's the author of The Hidden Psychology of Pain: The Use of Understanding to Heal Chronic Pain (1912) and a TMS therapist as well. I think there are other TMS therapists on that list who use a video remote to session with their patients.