TMS stands for tension myositis syndrome. In TMS the mind causes physical complaints, usually in the form of pain. TMS has been investigated in depth by John Sarno (among others) who wrote several books on the subject.
Let's talk about the psychological background first. Why would the mind cause physical pain? As you probably know, humans have a conscious self and a subconscious self. The subconscious self is contained in the most primitive part of the brain. This part of the brain is responsible for primitive emotions like anger, rage, sadness etc. Each time a human experiences one of these emotions there are 2 options: to experience the emotion or to suppress it. People in western society like to suppress emotions. "Tough it out." "Be a man about it" When emotions are suppressed they are contained in the subconscious mind where they are stored in an emotional "reservoir". This reservoir is not endless, it fills up over time. When it is filled up, the emotions need to be expressed in one way or another. The things I just discussed are all basic psychology, and the ideas are generally accepted by psychologists. The brain's decision maker, the ego, determines what happens next. The emotion stored in the subconscious are simply too painful to be experienced, as you could imagine. Releasing these emotions would be too much to handle. So the ego determines that there has to be another way to get attention to the emotions. It resorts to causing physical pain. If anything gets your attention, it's physical pain.
How does the subconcious do this? The subconsious has the possibility of directing bloodflow when faced with emotions. Examples of this are blushing (where blood involuntarily rushes to the head), getting really scared (where blood involuntarily flows from the head) and nervousness (where blood is withdrawn from the extremities). You have probably experienced each of these. The subconscious can cause pain by causing slight oxygen deprevation to take place in muscles. The fact that this hurts can be easily demonstrated. Hold both your arms out to the side horizontally. After a while this causes muscles to tense up, limiting bloodflow and causing pain in the muscles. The limiting of bloodflow is called ischemia. Local ischemia causes myofascial trigger points. Therefore myofascial pain could be called TMS pain. Trigger points are accepted by the scientific community, since they can easily be spotted on MRI, CT and x-rays.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/PainManagement/7545 However, the medical community fails to explain what causes trigger points. TMS explains this. Further scientific evidence for this paragraph is given later.
The last 40-50 years there have been sudden epidemics of certain illnesses that basically didn't exist before. Examples of these are: carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, stomach ulcers, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrom, whiplash, slipped disc pain and many more. Let's take carpal tunnel syndrom (CTS). CTS has reached epidemic proportions over the last decades. It's interesting to note that before 1980 the disease was practically unheard of. It is often said that CTS is caused by straining repetitive activies (computer use in particular). That would explain why so many people started getting the illness as soon as computer became popular (the 80's). Right? What about typewriters? They take a lot more effort to operate, so they cause a lot more strain. Still, before 1980 CTS wasn´t a problem, even with people who used typewriters all day. The best example of this are the typists in WW2. Tens of thousands of women typed constantly at least 14 hours a day for 4 years. Yet none of them experienced any problems. And then we're not even talking about musicians. How strenuous and repetitive do you think a concert pianist's job is for the hands when compared to someone why uses a computer keyboard all day? Yet the concert pianist doesn't have CTS but the computer user does. CTS occurrences seem to be completely random. There have been multiple studies that link ischemia to CTS (I can provide links to some more if needed):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9280998https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18674994https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/micr.20071/abstractLet's take back pain next. Slipped disc pain (hernias) are often said to cause pain because a nerve is pinched. In 99% of the cases, this just is not true.
https://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/58724C06DE466C1F852569F9004A13A1?OpenDocument&id=29DA64443C49B34E852568CB00031B46&c=Back%20Pain&count=10In 53% of all back surgery there is absolutely no relief of symptoms and the patients end up worse then they were before. In 99% of the cases the back pain disappeared without surgery:
https://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=44464Furthermore there is a huge online community of people who have read the books and are now symptom free, while doctors told them they wouldn't be able to walk properly if they didn't have surgery (this is just one of the books):
https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connection/product-reviews/0446392308/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1The most common surgery is spinal fusion surgery, yet there is no evidence that this procedure does anything to improve the symptoms. This article also links to 2 studies which prove that 90-97% percent of all chronic back pain doesn't have anything to do with the nerves, but instead it is caused by the muscles. All of this corresponds with TMS. With slipped disc pain we have the exact same situation as CTS: before 1950 chronic back pain was basically unheard of. Then suddenly it became huge. The human body has not changed the last 50 years. Then there is also the issue why some people get back pain but others don't? Why are there 50-year old marathon runners who don't have any back pain while there are 30-year olds with desk jobs that do have back pain? Their bodies are the same.
The reason that these diseases reach epidemic proportions is that the subconcious needs to find a place where pain can be caused without arousing suspicion. Diseases that are in vogue are a good way to do this. The media plays a big role in this. It seems logical. "Hmm, these people say that bad workplace ergonomics lead to CTS and back pain. I have bad ergonomics." And before you know it, they have CTS and backpain. The US government even stated at some point: "The White House promised relief today to millions of works with aching backs, crippled fingers, sore wrists and other physical problems caused or aggravated by their jobs."
In the face of this evidence, why doesn't the medical community look into this or even accept that there may be such a thing as TMS? Well, pain sells. Carpal tunnel and back pain relief are the current cash cows of the medical community. The marketplace and economic factors have taken over. It´s not just about the surgeries: Pain clinics have sprouted up all over the place, there are "posture adjustment lessons", lessons to "lift properly", people sell ergonomic chairs, ergonomic mousepads, ergonomic pillows etc. The last one is especially interesting. As you may know, a large part of the population of Japan (and before 1950 the entire population) sleeps on 10-inch high pieces of wood:
https://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/images/cen/culmination/asia/japan/9_9160.jpg Yet neck pain is virtually unheard of in Japan. Also, I'm pretty sure our prehistoric ancestors didn't have access to ergonomic matresses and pillows. Yet if each one of them had had horrible back pain then the human race would have become extinct long ago.
Ofcourse there are many doctors who are sincerely interested in helping patients, but it's hard for someone to throw away a big part of what they've learned. Then there's also the problem of "victim-identity" among patients. They have identified themselves with their illness. A big part of their personality consists of being "a sufferer of this disease". Many people don't actually want to be cured.
Up to about 20 years ago the medical community still thought that the mind and the body were completely seperate. But now they have already accepted that stomach ulcers are caused by stress and that the brain's structure is influenced by the way we think (neuron pathways). If you had said this 20 years ago they would have laughed at you and said it was impossible. It's amazing how fast things change.
While this theory was written out and perfected by John Sarno in his books, the basic ideas were discovered by many different scientists starting with Charcot around 1850. He was followed by Freud, Adler, Walters, Franz Alexander. They all recognised that physical complaints were caused by the mind. I have tried to condense a big amount of literature into one post, so if anyone wants extra information about a certain part I can do that.
Topic: For those who are interested in evolution. (Read 14200 times)
