Archive for April, 2009
Can Back Pain Be ‘Emotional’?
April 6th, 2009 | Author: Craig
The relationship between emotions and pain has long been documented and many theories have been proposed to explain why this ‘manifestation of physical pain’ occurs. Certainly when our emotions are difficult to deal with we feel ‘pain’ to a certain degree, but can this produce ‘physical’ pain?
Being a proud ‘typical male’ I personally have trouble relating emotions with the feeling of physical pain. I think it comes back to the chicken or the egg thing, when we feel stressed or are sad, depressed etc our pain can be worse, a lot worse, but can emotional pain be the underlying cause of our back pain in the first place?
An article written by Darla Magee at The Examiner explains that there is a certain pattern in people suffering back pain that points to an ‘emotional’ cause and touches on what is called Tension Myositis Syndrome. Here is an extract of the article.
Tension Myositis Syndrome. TMS is a painful disorder that is characterized by having no structural abnormalities as the cause, but by specific common emotional disorders.
Studies suggest the cause of most back pain is emotional. The “years of responsibility” of adults between 30-60 years of age seem to have the highest occurrence of TMS.
In almost every incidence of TMS the patient will have tenderness when pressure is applied to 3 different parts of the body – the outer aspect of the buttocks, the muscles in the lumbar area and the shoulder. The consistent pattern supports the hypothesis that the pain syndrome originates in the brain rather than in some abnormality. (the author later states he believes these places of tenderness are the central zones of oxygen depravation.)
The nerves most commonly affected by TMS are the sciatic nerve, the lumbar paraspinal nerve, the cervical spinal nerves and the brachial plexus.
The most common pattern in TMS is for a person to have recurrent acute attacks. Although the pain may come and go, the fear of physical activity and fear of pain are ever present and have a profound effect on all aspects of life.
The “purpose” of the syndrome is to create a distraction so undesirable emotions can be avoided. Many people with TMS are conscientious types but not “type A” personalities. TMS personalities are more in touch with themselves; they are just avoiding emotional pain.
The article is written in reference to a book by John Sarno M.D. called Healing Back Pain – The Mind Body Connection which sounds like a fascinating read and with so many cases of back pain defying medical diagnosis and/or treatment one has to wonder if this theory is heading in the right direction.
One thing I would like to say is if you are finding you’re pain emotionally hard going please go and talk to someone. Although I see myself as a ‘typical male’ (i.e. someone that doesn’t talk about emotional issues) I am not immune to the continual nagging of a certain female in this house and I did agree to go and see a Psychologist last week. She could see that I was not handling my ’situation’ as well as I normally do, that and I wasn’t being as attentive as I usually am or something like that, I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening!
Seriously though, that first visit to the Psychologist really set a lot of things straight. He got me thinking about the possibility that my life may never return to the way it was before I injured my back, which was something that I basically refused to think about previously, and also made me take a good look at why I was still pushing myself and felt lazy when I couldn’t achieve things that were a piece of cake before.
It was very eye-opening and I have now decided on setting different goals for my life as the goals I had were more than likely not achievable in my current state and I was setting myself up for a lot of frustration. It does feel great to have a path mapped out that I have a good chance of succeeding at, even if it is a different one than I would ideally like.
Anyway, the point of the story is that I was against talking to someone as I thought I could handle everything myself and as I found out it was probably the best thing I have done in a long time and I highly recommend it to anyone that is dealing with pain. Oh yeah and thanks babe for nagging me for so long!!
Take Care,
Craig
