No more arm pain

I've been super busy not thinking of my arms all the time, but I shouldve written this months ago. At it's worst, I had pain on the inside and outside of both elbows, tingling pinkies on both hands, a sore neck that would cramp up whenever I didn't lay down or stand, and on occasion bilateral burning on the insides of my legs. It was a pretty long list of unexplainable and drastic symptoms. No medical diagnoses could be made and the only constant was pain, which I now know was coming from my head. In the end, 95% of my symptoms improved within 2 weeks of reading sarnos book and within 7 weeks total I didn't have any pain at all.

I kept thinking of the inconsistencies in my symptoms, how they didn't align with anything that made structural sense, and then I started doing normal activity instead of acting disabled. Returning to normal-me was a huge morale boost and helped a lot psychologically. I had avoided the computer for so long because it was so painful and as a result, it was the last thing that gave me pain. Keep in mind I was climbing 3 times a week. I just told myself the pain was in my head and within a week, no more elbow pain. That was it and now I'm totally normal again.

I just went climbing in Joshua tree for a week, I can type with whatever posture, I can knit, and of course open doors and do dishes. None of those things were remotely possible without pain for 4 months, so Im pretty thankful for all the resources out there.

 

OMG!!! What a success. Such a joy to read your story

And the part that related the most with me is “no more not being able to close doors” my main door had a turn teist kind of door knob which for almost a year I couldn’t open, had to ask my 6 yr old that time to do that for. What a feeling of shame frustration disability... once i knew i can and when I started opening it on my own my daughter said you are fine and that gave me a sense of pride even though i had pain but i knew i am stronger than what my mind percieced of me.

BTW, anything in particular that you did to heal? Journal meditation self talk etc?

 

Most of my techniques are covered in earlier threads, which I wrote while I was going through it all. What I remember working was reading The Mindbody Prescription in 1.5 days and already noticing change. I made a list of evidence to repudiate a structural cause, and the main themes were that the symptoms were too inconsistent and just didn't make sense. I also didn't have any diagnoses despite the numerous doctor visits and tests. I needed to buy into TMS a little more, so I listened to a lot of podcasts that I actually found somewhere on this website. I listened to neuroscientists and psychologists speak about TMS, or something similar without that specific name, and it provided additional legitimacy to a psychosomatic cause. Finally, I started going through Alan's program and I think I made it to day 17. I would binge on his program so each day, maybe I'd do 5-6 days worth. The thing that resonated most with me was that I was associating my arm pain with fear of never being my normal self again. I needed to divorce the two, which I did by being as mindful as possible. That can be a nebulous term, so essentially, whenever I felt arm pain, I would notice it with curiosity, but I wouldn't allow the pain to ever overcome me.

Hope that's helpful!

 

lisamr,

Beautiful story, and thanks for sharing. I appreciate your easy specificity explaining what you did and how you did it. For example:

Andy B