Not all chronic pain is due to learned neural pathways in the brain.

It took me a very long time to diminish my pain and this is because there were only Sarno's books and ideas. All I achieved for the best part of a decade was a worsening of my pain and suicidal ideation. No one could have felt more wretched, angry, hopeless and overwhelmed than I.

My saving grace was caring for someone who had received a crushing prognosis; my partner was told he had 3-5 years to live or best case scenario, be in a residential care home. I look at him now, smiling as he listens to music, fresh from his regular morning walk in the sunshine and reflect on how much we have achieved. The prognosis was made 10 years ago.

The medical profession simply do not understand the nervous system and in caring for my partner I have outstripped them in terms of knowledge and understanding. What use is a fine intellect if you cannot apply what you know? As a Chinese Proverb states:

"To know and to not do, is to not know."

Most people who desperately struggle with recovery do not yet understand the nature of psychogenic pain and how it manifests moment by moment in their lives. They seek the magic bullet but it does not work that way. Yes, there are ephipanies but these come with graft and a devotion to healing.

I've been on this forum for a while now. I've seen many people pass through, get stuck, get epically confused, dwell in hypochondria, anxiety, rage and best of all I see those who are prepared to go the distance. What marks these people out?

They are open-minded and open-hearted. They learn to be self-compassionate. They find joy in the small things, they lend support to other people here who are struggling and their posts leave you feeling warm, hopeful and cared for. These are the people committed to personal growth beyond healing (please forgive the phrase personal growth. I am aware how annoying and vague it may seem but for now it'll have to do. At least it's not as vexing as 'closure'.)


For you I suggest immersion in the good. I'm sure you've tinkered enough in the details and would benefit from resting that part of your mind. Read Success Stories. This one by @ezer may help:

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/pelvic-pain-healed.8680/ (Pelvic Pain - Healed)

My healing only began when I kicked all notions of TMS into the long grass. Sleeping and pleasure are my trusted allies. Being light of heart and playful and compassionate are qualities I nurture. I am kind to myself. This may be the most healing salve of all.

 

What differentiates TMS from the "care for others and you will be happy, be grateful"-rubbish that you can find on every pulp fiction equivalent on the internet? Where do I get the pure TMS wisdom not diluted by unknowing forum members?

 

Check out success stories. Those are real life practical examples and guidelines from experienced people. It is useful. And they dont sell anything.
The quality of knowledge isn't defined by how hard it was to find it. Its right here before your eyes.

 

Not for you to decide.
I am so sick of people diluting wisdom with their misunderstanding and sharing it as truth.

 

• When discussing topics that are contentious or when there is a disagreement in the thread, make a special effort to be polite and state your opinion as your opinion rather than fact. If someone is saying something in a thread that you think they shouldn't say and you've already exhausted the process of respectful dialogue, just read another thread. There is space here for everyone.
• Do not promote conflict. When conflicts arise within a thread, discuss ideas rather than criticizing people. If you have a problem with a forum member, feel free tolink to these rules or to contact a moderator. Avoid repetitive or mean-spirited attacks of people in the mindbody community, including authors. Avoid discussing topics, such as politics or religion, that are both contentious and off topic for the forum.
• Please keep things polite. Choose a respectful style rather than an inflammatory one. If you see someone making a personal attack or an inflammatory post, just ignore it, or, if it is egregious, click the "report"

From now on, please, be respectful. And check out success stories, I can assure you they are full of usefull knowledge you'll find helpful. In my opinion, a real life example is better than any book.

 

hi AJLDeijkdieEkjdi,

You are oozing anger and cynicism. I can understand this, since you are not making any progress, but I agree with sadoromi about your postings.

take care

 

Quoting rules someone made up as an argument? You are the most pathetic human I have ever come across.

 

I am so sick of people diluting wisdom with their misunderstanding and sharing it as truth.

 

Those are the rules of this forum. You are know judging a thing as complicated as human personality having a very limited amout of knowledge. We are all here to help. No one threatens you, bro.

I know where you're coming from. A lot of us has been through this mumbo-jumbo stuff that only sells and doesn't help. You said you need truth. Is something that works can be considered truth according to you? Well, practical knowledge does work, and checking a subforum full of this knowledge was my suggestion to you all along.

 

You are absolutely right, Sadoromi. In fact, I've worked with patients with 12 and 13 mm disc bulges who completely overcame their pain.

Your right Chizzy, in fact, I went on to say that the majority of disc bulges and herniations are incidental. Over 60% of people with no back pain have structural abnormalities. I ended up taking out the example that was cited, because it could have come off as scary.

My main concern was that some people treat their symptoms as if it's TMS without being sufficiently thorough. In fact, I once tore a ligament in my wrist, and, thinking it was TMS, challenged the pain and ended up making the injury worse. My overall point was that not everything is TMS, and it's important to be comprehensive in determining the source of the pain before deciding how to best treat it.

 

Dlk8l

People have taken the time to write you long and interesting responses such as Plums, and you seem to be ignoring them and repeating the same questions about this magic TMS formula you are looking for.

There is no pure wisdom, there is nothing hidden away in special vaults anywhere. You can read it all in Sarnos books or on these forums.

You mention the ' care for others and you will be happy, be grateful" rubbish. I agree there's a lot of shallow and pretentious crap on the internet, but if you think that the sentiment behind that statement is rubbish then I don't imagine you will be very happy, and therefore won't get rid of your pain.

 

My suggestion is to read "The Body Keeps The Score". This is by far the most magnificent book that I've read yet. Remember, everyone can have their own Theory and everyone can have their own philosophy. Everything that therapist and doctor and authors teach today, the Buddhists have been teaching for thousands of years. If you're not healthy upstairs, your body can create illness and pain. This doesn't happen for everyone, but it can happen for a lot. For me, feeling safe, having self-compassion, and not fearing that something's wrong for me are my keys to success. I have complex PTSD, which stems from significant trauma as a child thar was repetitive. 70% of people with PTSD have some form of chronic pain. It's not a coincidence. Find your own way, there's plenty of good mentors along the road. The goal is to be pain-free, find what works. Most importantly, learn to trust yourself.

 

Thank you Alan, my apologies if my post seem rude or disrespectful, but a lot of us come from a place where if we hear one wrong thing from a doctor or therapist it can set us back a year. I didn't realize that you removed the post or revised it. You are very good at what you do, and I do respect you.

 

The nervous system is hard-wired to learn. If as a child you didn't receive a nurturing, loving, generally positive upbringing then you lack those fundamental resource states and it becomes incumbent upon you to learn them for yourself.

I am no Pollyanna and to dismiss my comment as rubbish betrays how little you understand. It is easy, indulgent yet so very human to dwell in negativity, anger, misanthropy, narcissism and superiority. Those are pure reptile brain traits and signify you are dangerously in the red zone. Look around, the world at large delivers this in spades. Being dead below the neck is entirely normal.

The response is not simplistic but a hardcore choice to become emotionally intelligent. That's the graft I speak of. Not yielding to your pettiness, your tantrums, your entitlement, shouting people down, shutting them out...all the countless and tedious ways we have learned to coddle our infantile selves.

I mentioned personal growth. The other expression people use is to finally grow up. Have the courage and humility to look at your own bullshit because it is that very stuff that creates TMS. This is a fierce learning curve in itself.

This community is rich with people engaged in this endeavour. Many very different people facing their own unique challenges with immense courage and vulnerability again and again and again.

Positive thinking is superficial and is not what heals people. People heal when they enter the black box of their mind~body and consciously, consistently make changes. Healing demands commitment, endurance, compassion and a sense of humour.

Wisdom, like respect, is something you earn not something you get.

 

What an amazing response and so right in so many important ways.

 

The conclusion is: if something can be found on the mri or ct, it is not tms, if nothing can be found it is tms. Once medically fixed, the leftover pain is tms.

1. What about those diseases that cause pain but are not detectable, like infections that are not being found or injuries to the nerves that are too small to detect?
2. Is their pain TMS?
3. Also, in how far does the diagnosis TMS help you get rid of your pain?

 

There is no link between being happy and being pain free, just like there is no link between abnormal discs in the spine and amount of pain felt.

 

2. There are people with immense nerve damages and no pain. This suggests mind plays a huge role in regulation of pain. So yes, you can say nerve damage pain is TMS. That means it can be controlled by your mind.
Its not to say you should stop your attempts at medically figuring this out, because the damage itself is physical and it needs to be stopped and fixed if possible.
3. It helps some people to completely get rid of it. I'd like to present some statistics to back this up, but I think that a bunch of real life cases (I cant stress this enough: check them out here and on Amazon) and a ton of studies suggesting how strong are placebo and nocebo effects, and how your gut and immune system are controlled by your moods, and how theres almost no link between severity of trauma and pain, would be enough to at least say something - mind does play a role. You can always benefit from blaming your pain on TMS.
I'm a skeptic myself, and remain a one, but I had to turn it off in order to heal my back pain and my gut, because the more evidence against TMS I found the harder it was to get rid of my pain. That was untill I've come to realize the modern medicine doesn't have an answer to a lot of stuff yet, and it also often attempts to sell you things. Thats where anecdotal evidence becomes your only hope.

If I understand correctly, you're now in a position when you've checked everything and all came negative, and now you believe it must be an undetectable disease? If so, its a horrible place to be. It leaves no hope. And fortunately this is also most likely a delusion, if you've really checked everything possible.

 

A happy person is more likely to have less psychological issues. According to Dr. Sarno's TMS teachings, psychological problems are the driving force of a lot of chronic pains.
So theres no direct correlation, but a huge link.
Also, what Robodelfy was probably saying is "you seem to have a lot of heavy stuff going on in your head", not that you just simply lack joy or magical positive thinking (duh) or something.

 

What I am saying is that you are being quite rude in your responses. I understand how difficult it can be, but coming here with the attitude you seem to have isn't going to help. Calling us unknowing forum members and repeating questions whilst not responding to a lot of the kind words people have written to you!

My point was that acceptance is the key to recovery, and to contentment in life. When I say happy, I don't mean happy in the sense of eating ice cream happy. I mean content with whatever is happening.

Anyway, I think I better duck out of this thread