TMS pain and proven chronic injury

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if someone might have gone through TMS being greatly triggered/affected by a chronic injury.

I am asking because I had a pinky boney injury some years ago, and I was left with a chronic mallet finger, which from medical diagnosis has some level of arthritis. The only surgery available is joint fusion, which I tend to ruminate about getting but eventually never do, for fear of it being worse afterwards.

However, I also have burning on my left arm from another situation, which is almost certainly TMS due to everything I have noticed over the years (and because doctors checked and found nothing). I also feel it is quite triggered by fear inducing situations, such as ruminating about my finger injury.

I tend to read a lot about how to eliminate all your pain, or how to treat pain holistically as TMS, but I haven't been able to find an example of how to also include a proven injury into the equation when tried to reduce other pains caused by TMS, and it makes reducing the fear factor a bit different (at least in my experience).

Thanks,

 

Hi @melkien
I think you are looking for something very specific, and not recognizing a few things about TMS theory.
It doesn’t address injury -because injuries are real, and human and sometimes we hurt.
However an injury becomes TMS when we freak out in fear and ruminate to the point we are using it as our brain’s focus so that we do not have to think about our true underlaying fears, and emotions.
Right now you have identified you “might” have tms but your brain is still looking at excuses to the physical. You’re wrapped up in the story of your injury.
What if you could drop that? What if you did have some pain in your pinky? What would that prevent you from doing in life? Why does it make you feel so unsafe that you fear?
The fear is part of being stuck in fight/flight, and it’s a very common tms symptom and part of anxiety.
What might your life look like if you could reframe your story to deal with the underlaying cause of anxiety? You’ve mentioned you see a relationship to arm symptoms and stress (or anxiety).
TMS work is not necessarily about completely eliminating the pain. It’s about the internal conflicts (Sarno points to rage and anger) which drive fight/ flight and anxiety. Once you can deal with these, live life more fully your mind moves away from pain and fear focus and you don’t notice the sensations because they loose importance. An injury won’t magically heal, but it will have less negative focus in your life; hold less importance.
Turning towards what you learned about TMS, do you see yourself in the personality traits often described as associated with TMS?
Have you tried taking the ACE’s (childhood adversity) test and noticed even the most subtle similarities?
These things are helpful in eliminating doubt and beginning to accept that you may reduce your suffering by doing the TMS work.

 

It is not that uncommon that TMS attaches itself to the site of injury. Unless a nerve is directly impacted, injuries usually heal. If the pain persists after the bone or soft tissues are healed, you are most likely dealing with TMS.

It really complicates the situation when people can't get their minds off the injury. I have a mallet finger from the injury of 40 years ago. It used to hurt, until I went through a very severe case of TMS. Interesting enough, exactly as per Dr. Sarno, my mallet finger pain was replaced with a much bigger pain about 8 years ago, at which point it went away and never returned. I used to remember about this finger, but then completely forgot about it - until I read your post! Guess what, I now feel dull pain in my mallet finger, but I am sure that I will manage this pain away as soon as I switch my attention to other things in my life!

You may want to listen to this story of the woman who is on the path to recovery after being severely injured in a car accident:

 

I had legitimate ligament injuries - partial ankle and foot tears identified via three MRIs - three times in less than a year. (In addition to having Ehlers-Danlos, I stupidly refused to stop being super physically active during the initial healing periods and went back to my usual routine too quickly every single time, sigh.) The specific ligaments I sprained were extremely uncommon and difficult to heal compared to more common sprains. It was a nightmare.

The injuries have finally healed. Both of my physical therapy providers, one being a small business and the other being one of the largest US chains, regularly sent patients emails. Several emails included content related to central sensitization causing chronic pain after the injury has fully healed, which is absolutely TMS. I dealt with this and sometimes still do when I'm stressed out. Relaxing my nervous system and not being afraid helps.

To help ease your mind about reinjury, continue engaging in safe and physical therapist-approved strength exercises. My anxiety cannot convince me that I've reinjured myself when I know I'm as strong ever.

 

Hi everyone, thanks so much for taking the time to answer so thoroughly. I apologise for taking long to answer, but I have been thinking about what you all said.

I have read Sarno's Healing Back Pain, and also a part of Ozanich's The Great Pain Deception, but most of the work I've done has been based on Schubiner's Unlearn your Pain. I have also recently gone through Alan Gordon's The Way Out which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Apart from that, I also have a really good EMDR therapist which has helped me so much, going from diagnosed and medicated depression, on to a much better place.

Regarding TMS personality traits, I do find myself quite represented by them since childhood: perfectionism, goodism, hard on myself, fear of failure. I do believe I have improved a lot here, but they have clearly been present.

I also went through the ACE test with a score of 3 or 4 (one question I wasn't too sure about).

I have been thinking a lot about what you all said that I am wrapped up in the story of my injury, and that I should ask myself in what aspect does it prevent me from living the life I want, and why does it make me feel so unsafe. I have talked a lot about this with my therapist, mostly because she specializes in EMDR, and I specifically researched for an EMDR specialist 4 years ago because at that point I was hugely caught wrapped up in the story of the injury, and she helped a lot in terms of reducing those flashback thoughts I had which were extremely exhausting.

Also, I can see a considerable improvement because at first (a couple of years ago) I was terrified, I felt crippled and was scared of doing stuff such as weights or playing ping pong, mostly because of the finger injury. Now I understand that I was clearly over-reacting, but in hindisight I also understand that I was going through the most difficult moment of my life (there were some other personal issues going on at that time), which clearly contributed to my over-reacting.

I have also been thinking about how my finger's pain is also probably quite affected by my state of mind, which is something I only used to think about my arm. In other words, I used to feel that my finger was 100% a physical issue, caused by some degree of arthrosis. Even if this might be the root of it, my perception of it clearly is very affected when I get wrapped up in the story.

There still are some tough moments where I can feel the self-guilt fear creeping in, or when I am getting caught up in the story of my injury re-living the situation once again in my head, but as I mentioned therapy has helped immensely there and I am also meditating daily, so this happens much less. I am also learning not to compare my life to others, as this activates some occasional self-pity based on my subjective views and a lot of missing information, and it also is very unhelpful towards improving.

After reading through your comments and thinking a lot about it, I feel I am gaining perspective in terms of understanding the patterns by which my mind gets wrapped up in the story of my injury, which lightens up the weight of it and lets me focus on my underlying anxiety which is using this story to protect itself from being thought about.

Thanks everyone for all of your time.