Ten years and counting....is this the end ?

Hello people,

I'm so glad I found Dr Sarno recently while searching for the "answer". I'm looking for some re-assurance and support. I am convinced that what I have is TMS but would love to hear what others think.

I am a 47 year old male, married with 2 kids.

Back around 2003-2004 I started noticing bladder frequency. This was only occurring when I was out drinking with my friends. However, over time it began to give me some concern so I went and got checked out. The Consultant Urologist carried out a number of tests and following a cyscoptopy concluded that I didn't have anything wrong with me but I may have had an infection or something which had since gone. I had heard some of the hospital staff reference Interstitial Cystitis during my visits but this was not mentioned in the diagnosis. I was told to ease off the caffeine and drink lots of Cranberry juice.

So off I went feeling mostly underwhelmed and over the next 12 months or so my symptoms worsened. Basically this was urinary frequency and urgency as well as several visits to the toilet during the night. ( I haven't slept a whole night through for 10 years).

Eventually I went back to the Doctors and got myself referred to a different Urologist (2nd opinion). After going through all of the same tests again I was given a diagnosis of Interstitial Cystitis. I won't go into all the details here but over the following years I was treated in various ways but nothing helped and my symptoms worsened. The frequency and urgency was manageable to a degree but the onset of pain was the major concern. I started getting severe pain not just in my bladder but it was more of a pain in my rear. All checks on my prostate were clear and I also had a Colonoscopy, which was clear.

So, to date I have had many tests but none have actually found anything physically wrong.

Approx 3 years ago I went back again to the Consultant Urologist, this time back to the one I saw first time around. He couldn't really offer me much more besides the usual medication which included bladder instillations. By this time my pain was worsening and I was also having bouts of severe muscle spasms. These gave the worst pain I could ever imagine. I went from random spasms every now and then to having more than one a day ! At worse I had one that lasted 6 hours. I took myself to A&E after this one and was told by the Doctor that I would have these spasms for the rest of my life and would probably end up using a catheter.

You can see so far the whole cycle raising my anxiety, increasing the pain etc, etc.

My final visit to the Urologist was when he said the only thing he could do for me was remove my bladder. I flat rejected this. I had told the Urologist about my pain in the rear etc and that my pains didn't match those of I.C. patients I had found online. He was adamant that it was referred pain and the bladder removal would help. Still not convinced I think I upset the Urologist with what I said before I left. "I appreciate that you are the medical expert but you don't know my body as well as I do". I think this upset him but I didn't care. I was now on a mission to go it alone and find out what was really going on.

My first discovery was the Wise Anderson Protocol and Chronic Pelvic Pain. I bought the book - "A headache in the Pelvis" and thought it had been written about me. I went back to the Doctors and convinced him that I had CPPS. The Doctor referred me to the Pain Clinic and they agreed. So now I had a new diagnosis and a sense of hope finally.

The CPPS diagnosis focused on pelvic muscle tension and how to relieve the tension and trigger points etc. However, it was only treating the symptoms, it didn't explain why there was tension in the first place. I had some physiotherapy and accupuncture but it didn't help any.

My Second discovery was Joe Cross and the "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" films. I was now convinced that nutrition was going to save me. This didn't last long though, there was an initial relief of pain but this soon wore off. I continued juicing for about a year but eventually stopped about 6 months ago.

My Third discovery was Hypnotherapy. I had read more and more blogs from people where they were talking about the mind and pain. Having watched lots of youtube clips about pain and neuroplasticity etc I was starting to believe that this was the path to take. I visited a local Hypnotherapist and set about trying to find some deep buried trauma that may be the underlying cause of my pain. She was convinced straightaway that my pain was psychosomatic. We discovered a few things to work on and this culminated in a regression to my birth. My birth was a traumatic experience, I was positioned wrong and the midwife didn't have the facilities to help me so my Mum was rushed to the local Hospital. During the Ambulance ride my heart rate was so high the machine couldn't measure it ! I was then delivered by forceps after lots of prodding, poking, dragging etc. I was so badly bruised that my Mum couldn't hold me for a good few hours. Then she could only hold me for feeding and changing. This lasted for 4 weeks while I healed. I added the detail here as the birth trauma maybe relevant.

My final discovery, yes I say final because I am convinced that this is the one - is TMS. While trawling through youtube one day looking for pelvic pain related articles I noticed a guy called John Sarno. The clip was about back pain so at first I wasn't going to watch it but that little inner voice told me to click play. Thank God I did.

I watched a 10-15 interview with Dr Sarno and I swear the pain I had at that moment went away while I watched the video. This was about 3 months ago and I remember it like it was 5 minutes ago. The biggest light bulb in the world went off in my head and I literally sobbed my eyes out.

I've read the "Mindbody Prescription" and got part way through "The Divided Mind" when the Steve Ozanich book "The Great Pain Deception" arrived so I swapped and I've almost finished that one. I've also been watching a ton of youtube clips and reading blogs by people who have had TMS.

There have been several occasions where I have become very emotional usually when I read about a person who has been cured of the so called Interstitial Cystitis - which I now know to be TMS. These emotional releases have continued and the Hypnotherapist thinks they are very positive.

I'm now in the process of back-tracking to try and fill in the missing pieces. I'm going through the above events and trying to establish what was going on in my life when all of these symptoms started, worsened etc.

The downside is that since this discovery my symptoms have worsened. I take this as a positive though in that it is the TMS fighting back because my unconscious mind knows I am onto it !

I am very positive at the moment because I have had so many situations when the pain comes and goes in a way that just cannot be due to a physical problem or something I ate/drank. The challenge now is focusing on my emotions when the pain is really bad.

I hope this makes sense and if anyone has read this far, thank you so much.

If anyone can offer advice or even just offer their views on my situation I would be very grateful.

Thanks all.

 

I'm no doctor, but sure sounds like TMS to me!

I came to Sarno sort of sideways. I was in pain for over a year with terrible neck pain, although I've also had chronic UTIs for decades, which I believe are tms-related, but then I read the Mindbody Prescription. Sarno made sense to me but I only had a few days of relief and since I didn't have any deep psychological issues--or so I thought at the time (haha!! Lol!!!), I thought it wasn't "the cure." But I believe it planted the "mindbody connection" seed that allowed me to get to my emotions and psychological issues (that, it turns out, I did have).

But since I had written off Sarno at the time, I kept searching. A year later I came across mindbody-based myofasial release therapy (JFB-MFR), which gave me my life back because it allowed me to identify the underlying psychological issues.

I feel like my emotional stuff was so deep and buried that I needed the bodywork to release the subconscious patterns from my body. Maybe if I had come to believe I had TMS earlier, maybe I could have gotten there on my own or with maybe with the help of a psychotherapist, but the MFR work really was instrumental for me to acknowledge my deep (and literally repressed) emotions.

But because MFR works on the body, I had to be sure not to link the success I was having with the fact that I was getting my body worked on. It was just the way my body was able to discover what hidden emotions I had.

I think this is atypical of people on this forum, but I'm just letting you know that sometimes some of us need to use other means to get at those underlying emotions. (More details of my story are on my personal website: www.healingfromchronicpain.com).

Sorry if this is a bit rambling Good luck to you!!

 

Hi, KBarlow. I strongly believe your bladder problem is because of anxiety, so it is caused by TMS, one or several repressed emotions. If you haven't yet gone through the Structured Emotional Program, free in the subforum of this web site, I urge you to do so. It helped heal me of back and other pains, and has helped countless others with their symptoms. It leads you, through journaling, to discover repressed emotions that cause physical and emotional pain. I hope you will start the SEProgram. It is a great tool for TMS healing,and I am very certain TMS is your problem and your cure. The doctor who said you should have your bladder removed... stay away from him!