Post trauma Thumb arthritis following fall, pain percentage organic/TMS? Warning: Long story!

I fell very hard 5 years ago on both hands which I naturally put out to break my fall. Both thumb cmc joints literally took my whole weight as I landed on a hard railway sleeper stepping down from a split level garden bed. I fell about 3 feet. At the time although having bruised palms I regarded it as being a close call "wow that was close nearly landed on my arse."I was 55 at the time of the injury and 60 now.

Long story short I was ultimately diagnosed with post trauma arthritis of both CMC thumb joints. Scans demonstrated moderate arthritic degeneration. It was painful to do many things, I went through depression especially being a piano player.
After a few difficult months the condition settled and had remained that way for 5 years had never got better or worse. It hurt to do many things involving thumb use but after some time I adapted and it became normal. I had since been able to do most things within reason, pretty much all of my duties at work using an axe or hammer no problems (I'm a grounds maintenance worker, it was a work injury). I could also engage in my hobbies as well.
These past 5 years I have had a few other health concerns with the hands being pretty much forgotten. I honestly rarely thought about the hands due to the "reliability" with 5 years with no change for better or worse.
It is important to note that I had a back injury at 31 years of age with 15 years of problems and pain which pretty much went away after reading Dr John Sarno's book "Healing back pain". Unlike my base of thumb injury not much pathology could be found with the back problem. BUT MY PAIN DID BUILD UP OVER TIME AND GOT WORSE WITH EMOTIONAL RESPONSE IN BOTH INJURIES especially significant grief following the injury!

I am a difficult patient, especially concerning problems with the body. A HAVEN FOR TMS! When a depression/anxiety attack happens it often comes on suddenly, it is so incapacitating that I barely function at all...a blown light globe would be too much to cope with. I lose all interest and joy in life even if I was ok the day before!
However when I am well and happy I am nothing like this!
Fast forward 5 years to about a month ago, I was getting ready for holidays and had to get a lot of stuff finished before I left for holidays...it's an 8 acre site and my work partner who usually helps was too busy doing more demanding maintenance duties.
I had to perform all types of duties and repairs, one involved pulling on shade cloth of a large green house shelter to secure it, it was windy and was starting to rain so I wasn't in the best of moods. The grasping/pulling of the shade cloth in both hands was challenging when the wind took it....a bit of a wrestling match LOL. Anyway I got it finished, hands hurt a bit at thumb base...like they often did after certain activities. I had to repeat the same or similar duties 1 week later with the shade cloth with hands hurting a bit as well...there were other demanding jobs too but the shade cloth was something I don't usually do! Hands were hurting a bit but there was a change in weather heading towards Spring here in Australia. I heard that it's good to strengthen muscles in the thumb/hand area so I used my hand strengthening tool that I got from the hand therapist years ago, I did a few sets every second day or so for about a week but stopped because the hands were hurting..probably over did it.
Started holidays on a Thursday and really appreciated the spare time to just take it easy and went out to dinner for my Daughter's birthday, it was a good night.

Friday I got up to see that I had a flat tyre so I had to get the trolley jack and change the tyre, a couple of the nuts took a fair amount of force to undo but I did it ok and hands seemed ok about it all.
Saturday morning I woke immediately in this horrible ALTERED state of mind/consciousness...with fear that I have done irreparable damage to my thumb joints...probably due to the shade cloth work a month earlier (being the only activity I don't normally do) the other activities although hectic have never caused problems. I felt so angry at myself for the "damage" I had done doing the shade cloth.

I had gone from changing a tyre the day before (with barely a thought for my hands) to being too scared to lift the kettle Saturday morning after waking up in this horrible altered emotional state. The fear of impending chronic pain and disability totally overwhelmed me, the dark depression is terrible.
I was looking forward to these holidays and had so much planned to do around the house and yard at home. I have now even started being woken up at night by the thumb pain in both hands...it has never done that before. But I think it's the altered depressed state (fight/flight/DANGER) alert causing the wake ups.
The thumbs and hands in general feel weak and brittle...I wouldn't dare change a tyre now. The resting and babying my hands because I am too scared to use them is making them feel even weaker. I am avoiding using thumb braces too much otherwise the "I'm sick and broken" message to my brain will be reinforced exponentially!
I don't get it, other than the shade cloth stuff I haven't done anything different from what I usually do in the past 5 years. Surely a couple of isolated incidents (such as the pulling of shade cloth) isn't going to have done more damage to the arthritic joints? Maybe if I did it over a long period like a few months yes perhaps, but I did it only on two occasions a week apart and spent only about 30 minutes each time. If my hands were that bad really I surely would not be able to have done all of the things that I have usually been able to do. My hands were so stable that I had forgotten where my thumb braces were...I found them in a drawer.
So what has happened in my brain to cause this sudden trip to hell? My sudden unreasonable obsession with thumbs, I am looking at people's thumbs when I am shopping...what the hell? And the grief of remembering my life before the "event"!
Doctor says she doubts very much that a couple of 30 minute sessions of yanking shade cloth no matter how vigorous would have caused further arthritic damage "otherwise your hands would drop of in 6 months" her words LOL... however she says that I have probably strained both joints with the resultant pain affecting my mental health, when the pain improves my mental health will improve...I think she is more than likely right!
THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR MENTAL HEALTH...FLARE UP FROM STRAIN vs PERMANENT DAMAGE! I went through all that with my old back injury....permanent or will it get better...ended up being TMS for 15 years from a twisting/strain injury...pain is easier when you are winning rather than losing...the BRAIN generates all this!

To anyone who has read this massive "autobiographical account" thanks so much! I am hoping it may help someone in a similar situation by demonstrating how insidious and sneaky TMS can be! In saying that, I do have physical pathology, however it's more the mental state I am focused on here!

If anyone could shed some light or give me an opinion it would be great thank you.

 

Hi!
You have TMS. Plain and simple. You just aren’t done healing yet. That’s it. It’s got you again. You know a lot. You can get out of this. And once and for all. But you’ll have to work harder than you ever have, probably. It sucks to have more yet to do. But that’s the truth. By the way, Sarno said arthritis shouldn’t cause any pain. If it does, it’s TMS. Maybe go back at the basics with reading or listening to a book by John Sarno. Healing Back Pain (replace back with thumbs. It’s all the same.) This wiki is great! Hang out here. It helps get your head straight. You’ve healed before! You can do it again. Read this post I wrote today: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/doing-better-thank-you-to-the-forum.28720/ (Doing better! Thank you to the forum!)

 

Hi,
I also forgot to mention this! Writers (like me) and musicians (like you) often get symptoms that put their hands supposedly out of action. It’s really common. Our brains know exactly what will scare us the most. Our primitive brain wants to keep us alive. That’s its only priority. It thinks our buried emotions are too dangerous for us. It doesn’t want them to get out. It doesn’t care about anything else. I’m a writer and my hands cramped up so that I can’t type, can’t work. I kept on journaling and digging into my emotions anyway. I told my brain its little plan isn’t working. It’s not scaring me into not living. It’s not panicking me into depression anymore.

You mention emotions from the trauma of falling. But you will also have to look at your whole life. All your trauma. That’s what your TMS is trying to keep you from doing. This free program in the wiki can help you do that. https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Structured_Educational_Program (Structured Educational Program)

These overwhelming feelings you have in the morning are anxiety. A life changing book is Hope and Help for your Nerves, by Claire Weekes. I also get woken up in the night with bad symptom attacks. It used to be every night. Is it is less often since I’ve been working on my anxiety issues.

Your doctor said when your pain improves your mental health will improve. It’s the other way around. When your mental health improves, your pain will go away.

Most people in this wiki have repeated TMS episodes that get worse as time goes by. That’s me, too. But if we Do the Work, we can get healed. There are successful healers in here who have done it. They worked really hard and still keep at it to keep it at bay. Hope this helps you!

 

Thanks for your kind words of encouragement Diana. I am at this time trying to determine the percentage of structural damage (which there unfortunately is) and the percentage of TMS. By removing the part I can control (the TMS), I will be left with less bother than I am currently experiencing. I am aware of how TMS works in my brain....I can remember vividly years ago sitting down and feeling the "damaged" discs in my lower back compressing as I sat down.....it felt disgusting. I can now feel the damaged bones of my CMC thumb joints rubbing together....these are genuinely damaged but the sensation is amplified 100 X since becoming anxious and depressed about it. Before my holidays I had not really noticed the feeling at all....I was too busy at work getting jobs finished. My aim is to get my head back to where it was before the recent TMS attack. Perhaps when I return to work it will "re-set" my brain! Indeed my mental state is far worse than my hands. I can remember the hands feeling similar in 2018 following the original injury.....certainly could be a high percentage of TMS....it's insidious!

 

I hope you can reset and feel better! I know there is a lot of hope here.

 

Thanks

 

Wow...reading your post is like reading my own Brain. The only difference might be, I have never stopped reading that book.
I am your same age and have the same 'issue'...and I am CERTAIN I would get a diagnosis if I went somewhere...because that's what they do...give out diagnoses. Drug dealers sell drugs. Contractors sell Bids. Doctors sell diagnoses.

What I was doing when pain happens has nothing to do with it. UNLESS , as in your case, the pain is keeping me from what I want to do...like a punishment (not being able to play music).

I always read that book...even when it isn't a back issue. "What is a Strain?" Sarno asked that question....and I don't think he later revised it to 'being real'. After 25 years, I still don't know what that is. I have heard about them, but I only know 'sore' from doing something unfamiliar...like my neck being a little tender from rolling ceilings all day or my arm spasming from working out a little harder than usual.

My symptoms began the day I got a scary diagnosis on my OTHER hand...I have a big nasty looking lump and I just mentioned it in passing to my Doctor. HE got all excited about it. I had been ignoring it, but after HE got excited, my symptoms began in my OTHER hand..the one that looks fine.

Our sensitivity to suggestion and over sensitivity in general is what makes us TMS prone. That is why we need to be vigilant about our emotional state. I just sat down to write resentments out on paper this morning, and realized I am PISSED...and I was papering it over with 'coolness' about "F those guys...I didn't need that gig anyways"...wrong. I am a sensitive prima ballerina and ANYTHING that doesn't go my way makes something happen and if I am not careful it is usually THE MOST LIKELY THING TO DISTRACT ME.

I spent a few weeks with a new book of Fernando Sors FINGERSTYLE music for guitar. My thumb JOINT was bugging me in my picking hand....so I bought a new Telecaster and have been Flatpicking for a few days to 'rest' the thumbjoint a little (I was playing 8 hours plus per day...through the pain)..so the pain moved from the thumb joint to the Thumb muscle...only a few inches, just enough for me to be absolutely sure it is TMS because TMS is a REGIONAL process!!

Why did it choose there? I won't know until I ask God in a few years, BUT I have strong suspicions.

Anger about work.
Anger about Interfamily subtleties.
Anger about my inability to get performing gigs now that I am OLD
anger about not playing baseball
Fear about losing my bitchin' Gig that I just finished (That paid for my new guitars)
fear about dealing with complicated upcoming/low paying jobs
Frustration at feeling totally isolated

and a bunch I probably haven't even figured out yet. See how much easier it is to distract me with a Thumb?
I also got a hint from the universe....I was going to go out for my night time walk that my Dog Demands every night and my Toe hurt??? Bad..like it had been crushed and was bruised?
"Thank You God...I will get to work on looking at the real stuff"...and meanwhile, I walked further than usual and even ran uphill..and the pain left.

Conditioning is fast and sticky..now to continue the instructions and Play harder and keep 'turning my mind to the recurrent sources of irritation'

 

@Baseball65 —I love how you preach this! There are so many distractions and ways to heal. This basic method should never take back seat.

Boy, isn’t this true! And even when we think we are getting good at it, we falter. Why? Because it’s freakin’ hard and painful. But see it on paper and feel it in your heart, or feel it in your body.

This is crazy, but so true after you say this I can see it. When I was 35–half my life ago— I got this tingling on the bottom of my right foot. later, It expanded to sciatica. Then a few years ago, I got planter fasciitis which expanded to pain on the top of my foot which expanded to tingling in my legs and feet which expanded to numb legs, and then all sorts of weird aches in my legs, tight knees and on and on —aka: Regional. It just kept upping the ante. So, yeah…Case in point. And none of that would make sense medically. It literally climbed up my legs. Hopped from right leg to left. Now it’s both.

Brave, Brave, brave to publish your list! It does feel good to be vulnerable on this forum, and I think it has helped heal me.
Today, I finally had the lightbulb go off why I can’t stop obsessively playing a game on my phone. I’m avoiding. And the minute I said it to myself this wave of intense sorrow roared in. I know I need to “sit with it.” I hate sitting with it. I hate knowing it. And aging has a lot of built in sorrow.

I hope all is going well with you. Sounds like the guitar might have helped a little. Gigs come and go and I’m sure you noticed, they always show up in time. It’s so hard to be in business for yourself and maintain peace. But maybe that’s what you’re meant to learn? Trust.

 

The unconscious issues really are insidious and can really sneak up on you.
You say you want to 'get back to where you were' before this attack... in my experience that creates a blockage, unfortunately,. To get in touch with the feelings you have to be present...
If you are having such big flareup, I would think something big changed in your life, though it might not be like external or obvious. For me, oftentimes I get a big flareup when there is a 'final straw' type of moment,, when I have to give up on one path and take a different one.

 

Wow! Brilliant. This has proven true for me many times.

 

@bluesmuso
I really think you would love Claire Weekes’ book. Mentioned above in my earlier post. She talks all about these extreme feelings of fear coming on as part of sensitization of the nervous system. She also explains how to fix it.

 

That is extraordinarily profound...In fact, I think we get TMS BECAUSE we can't get in the now because we're wasting time trying to get 'back there'. The 'thing' I don't want to look at is always hidden in plain sight...Now!

and being unconscious, I still have to make a lot of guesses...Though I have gotten a little better over time, I am often still "WTF is it NOW??"

 

Well thanks for the compliments guys

 

Although this gets a little long, this podcast explains what the host (and TMS therapist) calls the 7 stages of mind/body healing and discusses how pain flares often get the brain (see, it's not YOU, it's the brain) into an earlier stage in the process of resolving symptoms and how and why you can move through these times with a different mindset to get over hurdles faster and with much less anxiety and fear:

 

It's astonishing. I journal everything, I can even see the date where it suddenly hit...August 30th I was doing stuff around the house...fixed brakes on car and did my usual Friday night workout. Saturday August 31st the second I woke up it hit with FULL FORCE and I knew I was in trouble. There seemed to be no stopping it, it's been downhill since then, the excessive fear and care of both my hand thumb basal joints went on like a light switch....my WHOLE CONCIOUSNESS completely shifted and I realised I was suddenly in "HELL"....then the frantic impulsive medical googling "surgery to repair cmc thumb arthritis" started ...and continues

 

Love this!!! Super useful! Thank you, @Cactusflower !

 

@bluesmuso
I really relate to your response! So easy to feel that way. One thing that really helped me was to make an exception list. All the ways that my symptoms had strange inconsistencies that could only point to TMS. Then every time I was afraid, I’d play that list in my mind. I even included my very long history with TMS. It just makes sense that this is also TMS.

Also I noticed when I get sudden sharp pain flares, if I talk gently to the pain and welcome it like a little child, it subsides. I even did that this morning and it worked! I say, “hi I can see you’re upset. That’s ok. Tell me about it.” Running and scrambling from it by Google searching just intensifies the FEAR and hence the PAIN.

Heal your anxiety (fear) and you will soothe the pain. That’s what has helped a lot of people, including me.

 

The video I posted suggests that pain flares seem to want our brains to head back to stage 2 (of Tanner’s proposed 7 stages of healing). What @Baseball65 does is to only head back into stage 5 -the “meat and potatoes” of Sarno’s theory -to look for your rage. @bluesmuso you speak about your day of new symptoms arising as only what you did the day before.. could they have just capped off a slowly building set of stressors? I’m thinking about things like personality traits that seem to mix or build on internal stressors. Eg how did you REALLY feel about having to fix your breaks in the car and did you truly want to work out that day or did you feel you HAVE to (or else….). It can be (and with relapses, seem to be for many people) a bunch of small things that fill your bucket of stress to the brim. It’s why Baseball65 never lets up on the work -he is an excellent example of poking a hole in the bottom of the bucket and letting stressors that fill it, slowly drip out the bottom. Rarely does his reservoir ever overflow and when it does, he always knows why. Doesn’t have to go back to stage 2, and gets over the symptoms quickly. @JanAtheCPA has this awesome skill too, because she was reminded to keep up with that stress level and tend to herself first, when she was diagnosed with RA.

You are getting an opportunity to learn this valuable skill, right now.

 

Since we are here to help each other, I thought I'd throw down some checklist stuff...this is by no means comprehensive , but just some likely 'overlooked' stuff.

Family. ..even 'good' events
Pets. ..even the ones you love
Best Bro's... especially the semper fi types
Community. ... HOA's, Rent Mortgage
Work (career)... Failures, victories,etc.
Relationships. The 'perfect' wife, your amazing GF,etc.
OR since we're the same age and you were working out...AGING. 'WHy can't I bench 225 anymore.?..I am a Useless POS'

I have had all of these at one point or another. In fact, the stuff that Consciously bugs me is usually NOT involved or is just a factor.

Sarno himself said "When it seems to come out of Nowhere, LOOK Really close!"

Back when I was married I had so many 'mystifying' events. Later, it was easy to see that I had been conditioned to never show how I really felt....if I happened to mention I didn't like something she was doing, the ensuing silent treatment, shunning was more than I could bear.

Also... I don't like to talk symptoms, But the last time I had this thumb crap it also came in a 'matched set'...the second one kicking in was what made me call BS on it and realize it was TMS. It went away almost immediately when I realized what it was trying to protect me from...and it is always trying to 'help' or 'protect' us from something unpleasant

 

Ok, and then there’s the poster children of bad childhoods, like me. Some people have a rage bucket filed by age 5. And then everything in their life continually triggers memories of the feelings involved. Not necessarily the exact events. Just enough of a reminder to awaken the dragon in the subconscious.

For me, it has taken a ton of therapy. And frankly, journaling and learning everything I’ve learned on this Forum and on the wiki, have accelerated that understanding that took years in therapy.

Either way, I’m still uncovering things. And personally, that’s why I think my symptoms haven’t magically disappeared despite my hard work.

Now, I’m also living in the conditioned zone. Super conditioned to have the pain. Super anxious. Hyper vigilant. Working on all that, too. Plus my internal dialogue of talking mean to myself: changing that to be a friend to myself. Cutting back all my seriously aggressive goal making. That would pressure anybody.

BUT—- in defense of @Baseball65 ’s insistence that something is hiding in plain sight. I have been working hard on that. Really hard. And I keep discovering things. One thing I found last night while journaling is in my present scenario. And it also has a tendril that goes back to my childhood. It has taken a lot of journaling to discover this. It unfolded slowly. So yes, very intense. ( I might share that story sometime soon. But it would be a long entry. Sharing on here has been a huge help to me!)

This stuff ain’t easy! Just sayin’
The deeper you dig, for some of us, the deeper you dig. I can’t wait to be on “maintenance” journaling!