Emily's Chronic Pain Success Story

: On today's episode, Emily's chronic pain success story. Welcome to the podcast that gives you the most up to date, evidence based information on PHT rehab. My name is Brodie. I am an online physio, but I've also managed to overcome my own battle with PHT in the past. And now I've made it my mission to give you all the resources you need to overcome this condition yourself. So with that, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back. Thanks for joining me. I am delighted to share Emily's success story with you today. Emily's had a tough few years, as she'll quickly explain, and has most recently discovered her connection with TMS, which stands for Tension Myoneural Syndrome. Myo meaning muscle and neural meaning nerves. So tension, myo neural syndrome, which Emily will talk about in a second. And her discovery about her pain presentation, her past history, her emotions, her personality, and how all of that really ties in to manifest this pain and eventually overcome this pain. And even if you aren't injured, you're gonna love this story. It dives into learning just the. complexities of pain and if you do so find yourself with pain in the future. You've got a better understanding of some tools and strategies to move forward. And if you are listening and you feel like there is a relationship with the symptoms of TMS and what you're currently going through, Emily outlines a ton of practical interventions and takeaways to really help you. Emily is also kind enough to share her email. So if anyone has any questions, I'll leave her email in the show notes. And since recording like several weeks after this recording, Emily actually decided to educate people more about TMS. So has started a Instagram page. It is pain explained underscore TMS, but I'll leave that handle in the show notes as well. And she is actually starting to become a practitioner, a TMS practitioner. So she's starting to do that at the moment. So. Definitely found the, a passion and interest and wanting to help others. And yeah, I think this podcast episode, uh, really is in line with that and in line with her mission and hopefully helps you as well. So hope you enjoy. Let's take it away. Emily, thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Let's talk through your history. Um, I know you said that you had even prior to us working together, there was, you've had some issues and some injuries that might link into our conversation today. So do you mind starting off with that? Yeah, so PhD was just kind of a small blip of my health story. I wouldn't say small because it was still a year and a half, which is a long time. But my total time was like four and a half years of injuries and issues. So it all started back in 2020. I started to have this toe swelling and it was just super painful, hard to wear shoes, socks, hard to walk. Went from doctor to doctor for about a year and finally received a diagnosis of seronegative peripheral spondyloarthritis and started injecting myself with a bunch of medications for about 10 months and really didn't have any improvement from that and actually added on more symptoms like neuropathy symptoms and changes of color in my feet. So I ended up going to Mayo Clinic in 2021 to get another. and they told me that I was misdiagnosed and to stop all those medications. And they diagnosed me with Raynaud's, which is something I've had my whole life and I've known that. But the chillblains is what the toe swelling was. So like an extreme form of Raynaud's, which is triggered by the cold and triggered by stress as well. So I started with my medication for that and got that under control. But then in 2022 is when all the injuries started. So. It was kind of like one injury after another. Once one injury started to improve, something else would pop up. So from 2022 to 2024, I had cubital tunnel syndrome. I had Galter's elbow in both arms at the same time, which was horrible. TMJ disorder, inner knee pain and swelling. Nobody could really diagnose that as anything. PHT, sciatica, piriformis syndrome, low back pain, hip. pain and headaches. So throughout those two years, I was still kind of going from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong with me, trying to figure out why I continued to get these injuries without actually doing anything to become injured. And got a few more misdiagnoses along the way, which were also autoimmune conditions, but none of them really made sense because my lab work was always perfect. So going back to when I first Got PhD, I was stretching my hamstrings multiple times a day because it seemed to be helping the random knee pain that I was having. So one day I suddenly had a strong pain on my right sit bone. And then from then on, it just really never left. It was very constant and really debilitating. Were you active at that stage? Were you doing any strength training or anything for, I guess, in between the years of 2020 and 2024? Um, I was just very scared to injure myself further. So I really didn't do much other than walking on the treadmill or walking outside, if it was nice enough to do so outside, but yeah, no, just walking on the treadmill. Okay. And when was it at its worst? Like what can you think of a timeframe when, you know, whether it's function or the severity of pain when it was at a tight Yeah, definitely during sitting, really it didn't bother me much when I would walk. It was just mainly sitting. So I sat with a cushion everywhere that I went. And even in the beginning, even the first year sitting on the cushion also hurt too. It just helped a little bit. So I ended up just. avoiding sitting altogether and just really became afraid of sitting and afraid of the pain. And it was just very isolating. And I barely left my house and just like wanted nothing more than to be able to sit again. Yeah. I know when we started working together, we sort of said, Yep, PhD, let's start doing some strength exercises. Let's start doing all those things. But looking at your history and recognizing that there was a lot of stuff going on, you also had, and we sort of created like a long list of other interventions like meditation, breathing, being social, like those sorts of things, because recognizing that it's not just purely a physical thing, let's start doing strengthening, no, we need to address the psychological and the social elements, because if you can't sit and then you're not. you're fearful of sitting and then you don't want to socialize because you don't want to have pain. And so then you're torn away from the social element as well. Like all of those are really important, but along that side, you know, we're learning more and more about pain, more and more about the complexities of pain and pain science, and you're reading books and all that sort of stuff on your own accord, which is fantastic. Um, what did you come across? So what did you learn about your own pain? presentation and those particular resources and that sort of stuff that helped you. Yeah. So like when we were working together, I did see like some progress with those exercises that we were doing. They were very different from the exercises that I did with my past physios. Um, just we were doing the wrong thing with the last one. So I saw a little bit of progress with you, but it was just like a very slow progress and then once, um, Once it was about six months, I think that's when like the hip pain and the piriformis, the sciatica and back pain kind of took over. So I couldn't even do those PhD exercises anymore. So that was kind of my rock bottom. And when I really started to look at the psychological side of things, and you had recommended the book Think Away Your Pain by Dr. David Schechter. So that is really what got me into thinking more psychologically about it and just reading that book and seeing myself on every page of that book. I just really had felt like I finally found what was going on with me. Can you recall anything in that book or anything that might have, like you say, you felt you were reading about yourself in every page? Like what kind of things did it discuss? Um, basically just like the repression of emotions that resonated with me a lot. I thought back to all of the different things that were going on in my life when everything hits and there were a lot of different things like before. The symptoms hit, I worked at a job at an elementary school for about three years, and it was kind of an intense job working with kids who had behavioral disorders. And it was basically my job to repress my emotions. Like no matter how intense situations got in the classroom, I always had to appear calm and like state certain verbiage to them. And I think that's where I really learned to repress my emotions. And then after that, I had another not so great working situation. where a coworker was very fixated on why I didn't have any children. So I remember being tense all day, holding my breath, just waiting for the next comment to come at me and having to respond professionally to that. And also planning a wedding at the same time, looking for a new job and then starting a new job. COVID hit the US, I was finishing my second college degree. And my dad was diagnosed with cancer and it was going through surgery and radiation. So like looking back at all of that, it's no wonder that I exploded with pain. That's a lot of things going on. Definitely. Um, but along with that, just fear is a huge driver of TMS. So basically I was terrified of my body. I was terrified of the medical system. I was terrified of the pain itself. Um, I was really. put through the wringer with doctors for four years and that did a lot of damage to me mentally. Conventional doctors really don't mention TMS to patients because it doesn't make them any money. So they're so focused on the physical structures rather than the psychological. So, you know, chronic patients get into this loop going from doctor to doctor, trying to figure out what's wrong with them, you know, have endless medical bills. I couldn't even tell you how much money I spent over that amount of time going from doctor to doctor, but it's a disgusting amount, so. Yeah, you kind of just get into a loop of trying to figure out what's wrong with you and conventional doctors not helping. You've mentioned TMS a couple of times. Because that's similar to like the path that you explored and what you found in terms of the, you know, the syndrome that's sort of encompassing your life. How would you best describe what TMS is for someone who's got no idea, just starting from scratch? Yeah, so basically your brain is creating the pain. So it's due to unconscious repressed emotions that are coming to the conscious. So your brain kind of like distracts you or protects you from these emotions and creates pain. So then you then think about the pain rather than the emotions. And actually like triggers a response in your body as well. It reduces blood circulation and oxygen in the area that the brain is targeting. So that leads to muscle pain, nerve pain and tendon pain. What was like your, well, I guess we've gone through your history and like exactly how that manifested. There was a lot of suppression of emotions, a lot of high stress, a lot of high fear, just like with everything that you've been through. So it's no wonder that your brain is not only sort of producing pain, but different areas, like you get one area better than it decides to pop up somewhere else and then it's on like shifting sides and it's just changing symptoms here and there. Um, so you can see how that would sort of mimic that. Um, but even from pain science in general, like without the, I guess, suppressions of emotions, like that side of things, your, your brain does a pretty good job of amplifying pain in fearful, anxiety driven worry stages anyway. Um, and so it, there's a lot of complexities when it comes to pain, especially like the. how it manifests and then also how it amplifies and how irritated it becomes, because we can have some people have really benign, mild type of severity, like injuries, in terms of like damage, but have a lot of pain and last for a very long time, purely based on like their emotional states and those sorts of things, which I guess is where we started off. Like when we started working together, I was like, okay, let's try to... get you as strong as possible, get you as active as possible, but also trying to help calm your emotional state and mental state, which I guess only got us so far without really unpacking your suppressed emotions and, um, I guess getting to the underlying cause, uh, and I guess was a bit of a, like you mentioned, when we started working together, you kind of felt a little bit better. Um, things were getting a little bit better with the exercises, which It's probably to our detriment because as a therapist, we're like, okay, things are getting better. Yes. It takes time for things to heal. Yes. It takes months. So if we're noticing improvements, then let's just continue on that path. But like when it comes to like looking over six months to six months, like things weren't really, things were getting worse is like the tendon was getting better, like the hamstring was getting better, but the back was getting worse. And like overall function wasn't really. helping, I guess, can you talk through the that transition when the back was like, and the glutes and everything else was starting to become the main focus? What was your level of capacity like your level of function? What was your day to day like? There wasn't much function at all. Basically spent the entire day on the couch couldn't do much. hiking and walking outdoors is a big thing for me. I couldn't walk. over point 10 miles because the sciatic pain would kick in and that would not go away for like weeks after it would kick in. So I really just avoided everything. And again, just fell back into that fear loop where I was afraid of everything and afraid of my body and just didn't want to injure anything any further than what it had been. Yeah. I'm trying to remember back because, well, it wasn't that long ago, but, you know, having a chat throughout the weeks and week by week, it was Okay, pain, like walking was one of our big, like, things that we kept referring back to, okay, how much walking can you do? How far can you walk before the onset of symptoms? And it got to like, you know, one mile before I had back and leg pain. And we say, okay, well, maybe just try to hover just below that below that threshold, try to keep as active with other strength exercises we can, and then that quickly turned to like half a mile. And that was your main capacity. And then it was like, walking around the house day to day, that amount of walking was causing a lot of pain and discomfort. And from a physio point of view, I'm like, this is crazy. Like there's no rhyme or reason why, there's no signs of overload. There's no signs of you doing too much. You're trying to keep as active as you can. You're trying to do the right exercises, but there's too much pain. And so where you're... I guess level of function is diminishing for no particular reason whatsoever. However, jumping on calls and you trying to explain everything was like, I'm constantly thinking about the pain. I'm constantly like, every step I take, is this going to cause my pain is going to increase the pain. Every time I go outside and go for a walk is like, how long can I last before my pain increases. So like, it was taking up a lot of your, like, mental bandwidth was constantly like that hyper vigilance was always there. And so we sort of tried to push back a little bit and say, okay, try not to think about it or just get on with it. But we never really realized that until, like say, you did your own independent research and sort of linked up with this TMS syndrome, and then started, I guess, turning a corner, would you say? Yeah, for sure. Everything I said there in terms of the symptoms and the day to day stuff and Our approach, would you agree with all that? Yeah, that's all spot on. I was very just hyper-focused on the pain and was really just stuck in that route. So you found out about this team, actually like, Oh, this is me. Um, you know, down to a T what, what were like the first steps to really trying to overcome this? Um, I've had a lot of different steps and tools that I've used to overcome it. Before I get into those, I'm going to talk about personality traits too, though, because I have all the normal personality traits that make you more susceptible to getting TMS. So like being a perfectionist, being a goodist or a people pleaser, just needing for everybody to like you, being criticizing or hard on yourself, just never feeling like you're good enough, being an anxious person and fearing everything. being like aggressive or easily angered and being ambitious, like doing too much, being too ambitious. So moving on to how I overcame TMS before I get into all the tools, I just wanna say that everybody is different. So just because all of these tools worked for me doesn't mean it's gonna work for the next person. Everybody is different and it has to figure out what works for them. But the first thing that I did was stop physical therapy and just really focused on the psychological rather than the physical. So also believing that I 100% have TMS and I don't have any structural issues. So really not having any doubt about that. If you do have doubt, you're not gonna make it far. You just really need to believe that TMS is your issue. Educating myself with all of the TMS books and watching YouTube videos, journaling about past traumas and emotions, meditating, becoming active again and rebuilding my social life. not tracking the pain and progress or watching the calendar for how long it's taken to heal, which was a big thing for me because I had tracked everything. For the past four years, I had a health binder, I had a health notebook, I was tracking every single day how my pain was, and it was never good. So it was just constant negative thinking and writing. So not tracking anything anymore, changing my mindset from... negative worst case scenario thinking to positive thinking. That has been a huge thing for me too. I'm very much a worst case scenario thinker has kind of raised to be that way. So every day now I talk to my brain. So at night I'll say like, good job today brain, we had a good day, we're gonna have a good day tomorrow. We're not gonna have any pain. Or I'll say, well today we had a little bit of pain but that's okay, tomorrow's gonna be better. We're not gonna have any pain tomorrow. or in the mornings I'll say, good morning brain, today we're gonna have a good day and we're not gonna have any pain. And it sounds crazy, but it actually works. And then also talking with ATMS therapist weekly. So she has really helped me process traumas from childhood, past relationships, and has helped me become more confident in myself and has helped me become more comfortable with setting boundaries with others. giving myself self-compassion. I've never had that before. So telling myself that I'm good enough, I'm brave, I'm strong, I'm smart. And then the biggest thing for me is like conquering all the fears that I've gained. So I have like a list of 30 plus fears that I've gained over the past four years. So just conquering those one by one and very slowly too. So like, for example, with the PHT, I was afraid of sitting. So I was using that C cushion for a year and a half. And like looking back, I probably did have PHT from over-stretching, but the body is strong and the body heals itself. So if it continues after four-ish months, then, you know, it's likely to become more of a psychological thing more than anything. And the brain continues the pain. Um, but to overcome the sitting fear, I slowly started tapering off the cushion and started with like five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and just kind of. talked myself up before I would do it each time, saying that everything's okay, it's not harmful to sit, it's a very benign activity to sit, it can't harm me. And so like now I don't use the cushion at all, so I'm very happy to say that. I no longer have that all around with me anymore. But like I said, at work without the cushion, I go out to eat without the cushion and I don't have to haul it in with me, which is like super freeing after so long, because it was really embarrassing to have that with me everywhere I went. But another example with the walking, I could only walk the point 10 miles without my sciatica flaring up. So I slowly increase that distance day by day and now I can walk however far I want. And it's not an issue anymore and I haven't had sciatic pain for two and a half months. So it's really like once the fear decreases, so does the pain is what I've learned from all of this. And then lastly, visualization has helped a lot too. So picturing myself doing activities and it before actually doing them. So I'll like lay down and close my eyes, picture myself walking or hiking up a hill and it going well and not getting pain during or not getting pain after before I actually do those activities. I was just like furiously jotting down notes. So sorry, I didn't look up at you that whole entire time. Oh no, that's fine. Very important to talk about the personality traits because everything that you just described. perfectionist, the goodest, the heart on yourself, ambitious, all that sort of stuff. I sort of those particular personality traits are more prone to, you know, suppressing emotions and not like laying things out like I, I think myself as a goodest, like I try to people please all day long, like they have, I don't know, when we did work exercises with a team, like I was they give yourself like a dog and the type of dog you are. And I was the Labrador because I was the one who was like, wanting everyone's attention and like, you know, trying to please everyone, make sure everyone's happy to my own detriment sometimes. But I do see that like, if I am, if someone says something that I don't agree with, I will agree with them. Like, I just like suppress that. And so I guess all those other things, you know, don't really... I wouldn't really call myself affectionist, I wouldn't call myself hard on myself and those sorts of things. So like, I do have other outlets and that type of thing. But you can just definitely see if someone has a lot of those traits that they're constantly suppressing a lot of these things. And then if you put into a scenario, like you were saying, like for your line of work, or if it's a bad relationship, if it's bad friendships, if it's a bad like, you know, environment that you put yourself in, or that you are in. you know, that's a sort of like a combination of all these suppressed emotions as being tied away. But the other things that I jot down that I wanted to touch base on was like, your journaling and meditation, that sort of things. Can you touch on practically what that looks like maybe with like the meditation to start with? Yeah, so I found a meditation that focuses on TMS and I just replay that every single day. So it's the same meditation every day. It's about 20 minutes long. I just do it right away in the mornings when I have time. And where do you find that? Is it on YouTube? Is it on Spotify? On YouTube? Yeah. What do you search? Do you know? Let me bring it up really quick. I'm sure people can find something that suits themselves. If they just type in meditate, TMS meditation or something, I'm sure like. A few that will come up and then you just find one that might resonate with you the most. Yeah. It's called powerful chronic pain healing meditation for TMS mind body, Dr. John Sarnel kind of long. Yeah. But it's really, it's really helpful for me anyways. Very cool. And the journaling side of things. Um. Do you have a particular structure? Do you write things down? Do you type? Like, what does that look like practically? Yeah, I had a structure right away. I would say now it's more just free whenever I feel like I need to journal if I have like a stressful day at work or something, I'll journal about it. But in the beginning, it was pretty structured, really focusing on past traumas or things that I had repressed. So I wrote down just a list of all the horrible things I could think of that had happened to me in my life. And I just one by one went through that list and tackled each one. So once I got through all of those, I had like a lot of progress after that. But now it's just more on like an as needed basis. And when you say tackling them, are you just trying to break down like how you were emotionally? Or like, do you have a system to sort of break it down? Um, it was really just journaling about what happened and like, how that made me feel more than anything because with a lot of the things I had never like looked at my emotions, I just kind of kept moving on with life and just repressed everything. So yeah, just really picking it apart as to how it made me feel. And then maybe sometimes at the end of the journal, just write down that like everything's fine and it's okay to feel these emotions and stuff like that. Yeah. And would that be kind of the crux of what was happening with your TMS therapist, like, just trying to get to those emotions and trying to, I guess, make sure they're not harbored away and you're processing them in your own time. Yeah, basically, she really would pull things out of me, just things I had never even thought had been traumatic to me. She would point things out and be like, that's not normal. Like, you shouldn't have gone through that. So yeah, she had really helped me realize and like, just... think of the different emotions that I had gone through during each separate trauma. Was it hard to talk about initially? Like if you're used to suppressing a lot of these emotions, then someone's sitting in front of you and you have to talk about all this sort of stuff. How was that? Um, it was a little hard at first, but you get to build a relationship with your therapist and that just kind of comes easy. And she knows a lot of my story now. So it's pretty simple to talk to her about anything. But yeah, in the beginning, it was maybe a little bit. a little difficult just really going from not talking about my emotions at all to talking to somebody about them. Yeah. In my line of work, like I see injured people and I see a lot of chronic people that, you know, when you have a lot of pain for so long, it's really hard to see a way out. It's very hard to think positively to try to see like a path forward. And I do. Like I try my best, I'm not a therapist, but I do try my best to, you know, highlight some of the positives and try to get people optimistic and try to see that there is some benefits and positive things that they're going through. But it's very easy when you are in pain to focus on the negative stuff. It can become a habit to always think negative. If that's like ingrained in you for months and months and months, then. it's very hard to make that switch. And you did say that you've worked hard on getting rid of or trying to focus less on the negative thoughts and more on the positive thoughts. Someone's really struggling with that. Do you have any advice for them? Yeah, so definitely I was at rock bottom. I was just thinking the worst thoughts really just didn't want to continue on with life to be quite honest with you because it had been four and a half years of just constant pain. And I really was a negative thinker at that point. probably have any positive thoughts go throughout my brain. But yeah, just starting really slowly and going just day by day, just repeating to yourself, like I'm gonna have a good day today, I am going to get better, I'm going to heal. And even if you don't believe it at first, the more you say it and repeat it to yourself, the more progress you make and then you start to believe it. Great. I do think like, they say with habits, like, you know, forming a habit is a habits like so light that you can't notice it's there until it's so strong that it can't be broken. And it's like, I think with negative thinking, it's, it's very similar, it is like a habit in a way, if you're constantly, that's where your attention goes, it's very easy to draw your attention to there. And then if someone says change, how you're thinking, it's, you have to sort of untangle and break some habits in order to do that, which is extremely hard to do. Yeah. So You know, I like to think for people if they are, because I have, I work with a lot of runners and they, they can't run. And so they're constantly thinking of what they can't do. And I say, Hey, but you can walk. I know there's a lot of people in this world that can't walk and would give anything to walk. So that's something to be positive for. You can stand upright, you know, there's most people don't think about these types of things, but it's like it's a skill that builds and maybe you can find one thing on one day and just focus on that. Maybe you can find two things the next day that seem really silly and really insignificant, but that's retraining the habit. And then you can find like 10 things. Um, you can find like, you know, I have clean clothes. I have a, as my, um, I've got a truck that's just emptying the bin. As we speak, we have like garbage trucks that like empty our bins for us and take our trash away. Like things like that. People. take for granted, but these everyday things are just like what you can focus on. And then you actually feel a bit better. Like you say, you tend to believe it. Like if you find three things and just constantly think of those three things, you know, you can emotionally find yourself in a better spot and then that can emotionally get you a better set up for the day and get you better set up to do something proactive, do your exercises, do some cardio or some fitness and Yeah, it's hard to work your way out of, but can build over time. Very good. And also the visual, visualization is something that I really want to touch on as well. Sometimes like the brain doesn't really recognize the difference between the two. If you can visualize it and create it and think about it hard enough, like it thinks you're doing it like the, the same neural connection builds and the same thing can be said in the opposite. Like if you constantly think about, when I sit, I have pain. We know in chronic pain, like some people can look at a photo of someone sitting down and they start to manifest pain in their own body, looking at someone sitting down because that association is there so much because if you think about it, the brain thinks that you're sort of going through that experience. And so we can take that phenomenon and sort of use it to our advantage of visualizing sitting down without pain or visualizing running without pain or bending down or stretching the hamstring without pain. the brain goes through that process and thinks about it and thinks that we're doing it. And so along with all those other interventions, interventions that you mentioned, I think that would be something that might seem silly at first, definitely a lot of science behind it, but can be something someone can easily do, I think. Yeah, just being in with your own thoughts and visualizing that sort of stuff is a good practical step. Yeah, only takes a couple of minutes. And it's been really helpful for me. So talk about the benefits that you started receiving once you started like linking this TMS stuff. So sort of like you said, at rock bottom, really just day to day walking around the house was quite debilitating a lot of pain. And then you started diving into these strategies, I'd be curious to know, when did you start seeing the first glimpses of improvement? And then what did that trend look like? Yeah, so the hip piriformis, sciatica back pain, those were all kind of linked together and those were gone within probably a few weeks of starting the TMS work. So those went pretty quickly. I hadn't really attached onto them as much as the PhD pain since I had the PhD pain for so long. I think I was just more afraid of that pain, which is what made it stick around for longer. The PhD pain. Were you happy with that? Were you happy with, like if you said that you saw improvements in the first two weeks, like, Was there a day or a moment when like if first you started first noticing that pain had started diminishing or like your level of function had started to improve? Like, um, what was that moment like? Yeah, I would say the first flip of freeness, I want to call it is probably a couple of weeks into doing the work. I noticed that I like the pain wasn't there. Just I was going on with my day and I wasn't thinking about it and it wasn't there. So it was really a miracle. So that's what really made me grasp onto all of this. And I just like went full force after that. Once I had that little bit of proof, that's really all that I needed. So I continued on with doing all of my different tools, added in a few more different things. And then after a couple of months, the PHT sit bone pain went away. So. again, once the fear of sitting went away, that's when the pain went away. So the less afraid I was of sitting, the less pain I would have. And so now when I sit, I just don't even think about sitting and I don't, I don't focus on it. Whereas before I would sit there and I would think about it constantly, like evaluating it and saying, how is it doing now? Does it hurt yet? Should I get up? Should I move around? But now it's, I just don't even think about it. That'd be tough to do. Like, tough to not think about something that's like, ruled your life for years. Like thinking thinking's weird. Like it's like, you know, don't think of an elephant and then you can think of an elephant. It's like, for something to encompass your life for so long, and then just to think about something else would be quite a feat in itself. But what you said was interesting. It's like, okay, it took me a long time. Well, it took me months before the sitting pain improved, but it almost took you that long to overcome the fear or to remove the fear. And so it's not like waiting for things to heal or waiting for things to get stronger or waiting for inflammation to go down, those sorts of things. It's waiting, it's doing the work and trying to overcome something emotionally, psychologically that's embedded. And then the moment that disappears, so does the pain. Um, you mentioned that the symptoms like the, the back pain, cytokine type of things took a couple of weeks, but you really did the work for two whole weeks and really didn't see any improvement until like, you know, a few weeks in, and then you start seeing those glimpses and then double down, okay, we're onto something here. Let's, um, let's go full force at it. Um, what would you say for those first few weeks of not noticing improvements because I would guess a lot of people find this a bit silly. I'm talking to myself, I'm visualizing, nothing's really happening. It's like two weeks in, I haven't really seen an improvement and then they just give up on it. What would you say for that? To keep going. I know that everybody is different and a few weeks is actually quite a quick turnaround. I read books and people... did the work for a year before things started to calm down. So it really just depends on the person. Don't give up, keep going. Just continue to tell yourself positive thoughts. And another thing with the fear that really helped me if I did start thinking about the sitting while I was doing it is just thinking, nope, it's just TMS, there's nothing wrong with me. I don't need to think about this. I don't need to worry about it because sitting is not dangerous. So. So really just talking to yourself a lot. I know it sounds ridiculous and you feel ridiculous when you first start doing it, but it becomes like a daily habit and it works. Yeah. And I would say when you're talking about the, okay, it does seem silly. It's like I use you and I use a few other clients that I've had in the past that have investigated this. People with really chronic pain, they've had pain for 10 years and they say, okay, well, I have to, you know, do this sort of stuff. I'm like, yeah, but you can get significant improvements in a couple of weeks. This isn't chronic pain that takes two years to go away. It might not might not take two years to go away. We're not looking at tendon pain that chronic tendinopathies that take six to 12 months to, you know, heal and restore function. This can be done theoretically in a flick of a switch as soon as you address those beliefs as soon as you overcome those fears. And as soon as you bring those emotions to the surface. And that's all it takes. We don't need to wait on timeframes. We don't need to wait on healing and all that sort of stuff. It's just your own work. I guess if someone it's, it's like if they've looking back on my own question that I just asked, if someone's tried this for two weeks, and they're not seeing improvements, well, they probably still have fear, they probably still have a lot of things they still need to work on. I would say if someone tries this and buys in full belief, they overcome it. They no longer have fear, they no longer have worry, they have, you know, they do all the right things. And then they still have some signs and symptoms and pain and that sort of stuff. Then maybe we can talk about other options. But yeah, I'd say like, If someone says I'm trying this and I'm not seeing any improvements, well, how's your fear, how's your emotional state, how's all that sort of stuff. And if you haven't fully addressed it, then keep working on it. Keep on, keep doing the work. And what you mentioned as well, which is going to be huge for people listening is the belief. You need to believe that you have TMS. You need to really double down on it. You really need to find that because if there's any doubt that's that doubt is going to hinder that. improvement because the brain needs to believe it, you need to believe it, like this whole thing needs belief in order for it to work purely needs to do that. Because I know, a lot of people will say, yeah, but like, my MRI shows that I have a tendinopathy or like, my scans show this or you don't understand Brody, it's not all just in my head, I went running one day and I slipped and tripped and like tore my hamstring. But The body heals. That was 12 months ago. That was two years ago. You have five years of pain and like things heal. And yes, things might still show up on scans, but you know what? Things show up on scans in healthy people. So, that, you know, I say that because it's, people will, might find it hard to dive in and have a full 100% commitment to believing this is TMS when their scan shows a tear or when they scan. shows a vulsion fracture or something along those lines. And so, yeah, some really important things that we need to touch on. And so looking back, well, you know, fast forwarding to today, you sort of had a bit of a glimpse into what you're doing now, you're sitting and that sort of stuff. Give us some more insights into your function, any symptoms, that sort of stuff. Yeah, so I've overcome all of my pain at this point. I might get like a twinge of pain from time to time, but I know what it is and I know what to do and I can get it to go away within a few days. So it doesn't stick around and it doesn't become chronic like everything else has always become chronic in the past. So yeah, I'm doing great. I'm able to have a social life again. I'm able to go out and walk. Really, I'm just not afraid of much anymore. I'm still working on some of the fears I picked up over the years, but I can live a normal day to day life now. Excellent. How are you feeling emotionally? Like, I guess with years and years of, you know, repressed emotions, then you sort of working on journaling, working with therapists, sort of bringing all those sorts of things to your, to the surface. And I said, you're working with therapists on working on boundaries and that kind of stuff. How are you feeling emotionally? Like, just general as a person. Yeah, when I first started working through all of like the traumas and stuff and emotions, I remember just like randomly crying from time to time. I think it was just releasing from all of the years. But you know, now I'm doing well, I am able to keep myself calm, calmer and stretch stressful situations unlike before where I just have a complete panic attack if something would go wrong. Just, you know, telling myself that it's not a big deal. I don't to be perfect and good enough the way that I am and so on. Great, glad to hear. Yeah, I did a podcast episode recapping this Huberman Lab podcast episode talking about journaling and talking about like sitting down for 20 minutes, writing down your things you think about the most, your worst moments, how you felt at the time, how you feel about it now and like all that sort of stuff. And did I send you that episode or did I talk to you about that? Yeah, you did, yep. Yeah. And they said in that particular episode is like, you just feel horrible after that, like session, like sitting down for 20 minutes and just writing down everything that comes to the floods to your mind. And you just feel awful after that. But I guess it has the purpose. Like you're trying to bring all these deep seated emotions to the surface and it's going to feel horrible. It's going to feel yuck. People don't, that's why we suppress it in the first place. Cause we don't want to confront it. Cause it's uncomfortable. But. Suppressing it for isn't the solution either. I think letting it out, which is why you're saying like, found yourself randomly crying, that's just release, you know? It's required. I love this story. I'm glad you've made this turn. You found this realization. I'm glad that you, you know, did the investigation about the TMS and found the link and started doing all the work yourself. It's tough work. It's tougher than doing deadlifts and just progressing your exercises and doing that sort of stuff. It's trying to change who you are, how you think, bringing all these other things to the surface. And Also like, you know, other people might see it as a bit funny, a bit like out there, a bit odd. And so that as well makes it even harder. Like you try to convince yourself, you know, it's, um, I try to convince a lot of people to do this sort of stuff and doesn't really land. It's probably my communication, but, um, all those things just make it really, really tough to do. And I'm glad that you persisted, saw improvements. and now can just share your story. I think it's great to see, it's great to hear. If people are listening to this story and they sort of recognize certain links, okay, Emily's stories sound similar to mine. What advice do you have for them? I would start with reading a book on TMS, just so you kind of learn in depth about it. There's also a lot of quizzes out there on Google, which can help you determine whether your paint is TMS related, so I found that really helpful too. And after reading the books and doing the quizzes and everything, you know, I just was able to confirm that it was TMS. And from there started diving into the work. Um, but yeah, overall, over all the different tools that helped me definitely like overcoming the fear of pain and just getting back to your normal life is what really helps a person move forward. Excellent. And I just want to finish by saying, like, if someone does the quizzes, if they have chronic pain and they're really struggling, psychologically and then they do these TMS stuff and they find there really isn't a link there like they probably they maybe don't have TMS. All these things are good for you anyway. The visualization, the self talk, the thinking more positive, the being more social, trying to find out any suppressed emotions you have and bring them to the bringing them to the surface. All that sort of stuff just makes you like a better person. having a better experience, enjoying your rehab a little bit more. I think everyone should just be practicing this one way or another. Like I've made a conscious effort for years to like on positive thinking whenever something like this is trivial that I think that's a bit like silly. Focusing on the positives and my girlfriend makes fun of me every time something negative comes up that I just quick off come with a list of like three to five things of why this is like the best thing in the world. Um, so yeah, I think like, why not just try these things out. It's, um, it's, it's a good, there's a ton of resources and a ton of like helpful practical interventions that you've come across here. You've mentioned, think away your pain. You've mentioned some YouTube videos, some quizzes, all that sort of stuff. Um, any other resources that we may not have talked about? Um, the quiz that I used, I know it's a popular quiz. I believe it's. is this tms.com and it'll bring you to a site. There's two different quizzes you can take to determine whether, whether or not it's TMS, but yeah, there's really no, no harm in doing the TMS work. You're gonna, if you don't improve with your pain, you're going to improve mentally. So I mean, there's, there's no wrong with it. Is this tms.com? All right. Excellent. I'll start. I'll have that as a reference point for future guests that I have that are, or future clients that I have that might benefit from this. Excellent. Emily, thank you very much. Like I said, a moment ago, um, I'm so glad that you sort of found yourself on this path and found those such improvement after a real debilitating hard couple of years, several years, really. Um, and coming on and sharing your story. Cause it's hard to, like, it's probably easy for you to talk about it now, but it's, it's a hard time of your life that, um, at times you probably don't want to share, but it's. going to help a lot of people and I want to thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. If you are looking for more PhD resources, then check out my website link in the show notes there. You will find my free PhD five day course, other online content and ways you can personally connect with me, including a free 20 minute injury chat to discuss your current rehab and any tweaks you might need to make. Well done for taking an active role in your rehab by listening to content. this and together we can start ticking off all of your rehab goals and finally overcome your PHT.