Your most ridiculous diagnosis? Play the game

Here's a new game for us all to play! To highlight the vast array of ridiculous diagnoses out there and also to illustrate the many ways that TMS shows up, post a comment on your most ridiculous diagnosis ever received that was in the end TMS in disguise. I'll go first...

I was once told by a medical doctor in an attempt to explain wide spread body pain, that I had "not enough fatty deposits on the bottoms of my feet."

Yea...no.
Your turn.

 

Oh this is hilarious! The most ridiculous rabbit hole I fell down was the Lyme disease one. The dr. who I refer to as "Lyme Lady" had me on copious amounts of antibiotics and an anti malaria drug that looked like yellow paint. She was super shady and as soon as I showed her some literature on crps, she ghosted me. Even her office was not hers. I also found myself in a shady "pain management" office that was highly suss. When I tried to use the rest room in the hall, the cleaning woman of the building screamed at me that it wasn't a "public restroom". I think she assumed I was a drug addict/prostitute because it was summer and I was very thin at the time with a short skirt. I left that creepy place in a hurry. Of course I was also misdiagnosed with RA and fibromyalgia. I also endured many useless and traumatic procedures that I never even detailed in writing because it's too much to remember.

 

gah! the “chronic lyme” is one of the more ridiculous.

 

Yes! It's rife with charlatanism and it became the trendy thing in the media a few years ago. There was a whole cottage industry around this nonsense. Anytime a label can bring profit, it flourishes in the collective consciousness. The more labels we have, the more the epidemic of fear grows. Long haul covid and central sensitization are a couple I've been hearing lately.

 

I've totally been down that chronic Lyme rabbit hole as well with all the antibiotics and sitting in a hot sauna for 30 mins/day. No lasting pain relief...of course.
You make a good point about the diagnosis du jour. This is referenced in both Sarno and Ozanich literature. So much easier to say that "My back went out" than to say, "my nervous system is feeling overwhelmed and I need to soothe it and reduce my fear."

 

This is exactly what an orthopedic doc who operated on my left foot for fifth metatarsal head pain told me when the surgery did not reduce the pain at all. That had to be the explanation because, as the doc pointed out, I was pretty skinny--right? I believed him. The upside was that I used his explanation to justify eating lots of ice cream. The not-unexpected downside was that the resulting fat deposits went to my belly rather than my feet. But I enjoyed the ice cream.

I continued to have recurring left foot fifth metatarsal head pain for two decades or so after the surgery. Then the pain went away. What happened? I had the epiphany that despite a known structural abnormality that impedes normal foot pronation during the gait cycle and results in extra pressure on the fifth metatarsal head, the pain was not structurally caused but rather was rooted in conditioning (as Dr. Sarno called it) or predictive coding (as some pain neuroscientists and Dr. Schubiner now call it). My knowing that with certainty stopped the pain instantly, completely, and permanently.

 

Did they do tick-borne antibodies panel?

 

I don't remember. I tested positive for 2 things from some crackpot lab lol! Lyme is treated with antibiotics when you see a bulls eye rash. "Chronic lyme" is nonsense. It became a whole industry profiting off of fear mongering.

 

What miffybunny said^^^

 

Thanks for the info. I also just found other threads here dealing with Lyme. Family member just about finished with antibiotic treatment (Mayo Clinic). She is saying this will be only time she does it and after that it is up to mindbody medicine. I am with her on that and have seen her reverse other conditions.
I just started using Curable App. Will probably post some topics or questions about that.

 

We're your RA tests positive? RF? Anti-CCP? Changes to Xray?

Lyme can occur without a bullseye rash. Using that as diagnosis sounds wrong.

You either had a shady doctor or, I don't know.

 

I had TMS and am now totally better. Actually there was nothing wrong with me to begin with. The doctor was shady, the lab was shady, there was no rash, and I took copious amounts of unnecessary antibiotics for months. There is no such thing as "Chronic Lyme"...it's a garbage diagnosis. I did not test positive for RA, yet I was prescribed RA drugs...luckily I did not go down that rabbit hole. I had bone marrow changes that could be seen on an MRI in all of my toes. It was STILL tms. Signals from the brain can alter our physiology. Eventually I was bestowed with the label of "CRPS". It is STILL TMS. My advice to anyone reading here is to throw labels out the window. They serve no purpose other than coding for billing insurance. They tell us nothing about the truth.

 

Muscle tension is primarily due to emotional stress/repression, yep

 

Probably my diagnosis with Sleep Apnea, and when CPAP didn't work, I was fitted for a Mandibular Advancement Device. This is like a medieval torture device that screws into your jaw and pushes your mandibular forward, supposedly to improve breathing while you sleep. It caused my teeth to move. And of course none of this helped my fibromyalgia. It was all very expensive, but insurance paid for it. The stuff of nightmares.

 

Pleasantly, and surprisingly, most of my doctors I dealt with downplayed structural issues and tried to get me to "wait it out" with most of my issues. In hindsight, they were almost always the voices of reason when I was most definitely not. I was generally the one doing the Dr Googling etc and coming to them with my diagnoses.

HOWEVER, I do want to play this game! So I do have one small example to share.

In 2018, I had severe groin/adductor pain that an MRI revealed was "caused" by a torn hip labrum (i.e. "Femoral Acetabular Impingement" or FAI). I ended up having surgery to repair this and while I greatly regret going down that path unnecessarily, I have come to terms with it because the entire process led me to Sarno and TMS, so it was just a price to pay so to speak. Anyway, FAI causes pain all over the groin and hip and pelvic area, even down the inside of the thigh. This didn't make sense to me at the time (because it was TMS all along) but when I posed that question to the surgeon's PA, his response was "oh, the labrum is loaded with nerve endings and can refer pain to many other different locations." What a bunch of bunk. I mean the guy meant well, and was only sharing what he was taught, but this "refer pain" stuff is ridiculous.

 

I read about those jaw devices on here were also used for TMJ and I thought it was crazy. Anyone who clenches their jaw due to stress will feel the tension. I had little impressions on my tongue from clenching my jaw and I trained myself to relax my jaw to a normal position in about a week.

 

Referred pain doesn't necessarily mean surgery was needed- could the tear heal on its own?

 

"You're just getting older." I think I was around 30 at the time.

 

Chronic Lyme is real.

 

That's a myth. It's TMS.