About Me
My name is Taylor Robertson, and I am here to help people overcome neuroplastic chronic pain. For over a decade, I dealt with various chronic symptoms throughout my entire body: runner's knee, tendonitis, shoulder issues, tension headaches, food allergies, to name just a few. But by learning to discern the difference between neuroplastic and physical symptoms, I was able to eliminate most of the pain and symptoms I was experiencing and began living an active life again.
What is TMS?
TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) goes by many names: PPD (Psychophysiologic Disorder), the mindbody syndrome, neuroplastic pain, neurocircuit pain, Perceived Danger Pain (PDP). But they are all referring to the same phenomena in our bodies. TMS is moving beyond the idea that pain is always caused by structural or pathological reasons. Sure, sometimes they are, but a lot of the time, chronic pain is caused by malfunctioning circuitry in the brain and nervous system. And this is good news, because using certain techniques, we can retrain the brain to stop sending those unnecessary pain signals.
Emotions
Neuroplastic chronic pain circuits basically live in the centres of the brain associated with emotion, so if there are any strong emotions that are not flowing properly, these will cause pain and other symptoms. And it’s because emotions are physical. Whenever you feel an emotion, there is a physiological effect in the body. Sometimes it’s as innocent as blushing when you feel embarrassed or having “butterflies” in your stomach when you are feeling nervous. But these bodily sensations are due to real physical signals being transported through the nervous system.
To illustrate, I want you to imagine a giant pot. This pot is a metaphor for where all your emotions initially manifest in your brain. In this pot, though, there are drainage pipes near the bottom that allow the emotions to flow out, so they can travel where they need to go through the body. For example, you might feel happy that you are just about to enjoy a nice cup of tea. The feeling drops in the pot, and flows out. The feeling doesn’t last forever; you feel pleasant, enjoy the tea, and then you get on with your day.
However, sometimes people will put filters on the drainage pipes that don’t allow certain emotions to come out of the pot. You might not think anger is acceptable to feel, so you suppress it. The anger drops in the pot and it has no way of escaping. In small doses this is fine. But if you feel a lot of anger, day after day, then the pot is going to slowly fill up. Now imagine there are other emotions that are deemed unacceptable. Sadness is off the table because you’re afraid it will make you look weak, so it gets trapped in the pot, as well, making it fill up even faster. As you can probably guess, the pot is eventually going to overflow because the drainage pipes are not able to empty everything out anymore.
You can now imagine that at the base of this pot is a series of wires that are receiving and sending information to every part of the body. Every physical sensation the body experiences is relayed up to the brain through the nervous system, an appropriate response is determined, and that response signal is sent back to the body. The more danger the brain thinks we’re in, though, the more pain will be included in the signal sent back to the body. If the emotional energy overflows from the pot, it will splash all over these wires and will infuse the signals with a sense of danger. What may have started as a neutral sensation on the skin can turn into searing pain because of the emotional energy warping the signal.
Acute Pain
Vs
Neuroplastic Chronic Pain
Acute pain is when our pain system is, more or less, working properly. If I, for instance, broke my forearm after falling out of a tree, I would feel a lot of pain, and, though extremely unpleasant, it serves a purpose: to strongly encourage me to not use that arm anymore until the bone has properly healed. The pain centres in the brain are receiving correct information and are responding accordingly.
However, after about 4-6 months, if I am gentle with my arm, I can expect the bone to fully heal. What the mindbody will do, though, over that healing period is create a mirror image of the initial pain, but will place it in a separate part of the brain that is closely linked with emotion, which is where that emotional pot lives. This is the shift from acute pain to neuroplastic chronic pain. The pain no longer has any true connection to the reality of what’s going on in the body. It now is concerned with protecting you from hurting yourself again. So instead of interpreting neutral physical sensations as neutral (e.g. lifting something with my arm), the mindbody will interpret those sensations as potentially dangerous and will create pain. It’s motto is: “better safe than sorry”.
TMS Healing
All TMS healing techniques are essentially finding ways to make you no longer afraid of your emotions, so that emotional pot does not overflow. This can mean allowing yourself to feel feelings that you deemed unacceptable at some point, like anger or sadness. This acceptance allows the emotions to flow properly through those drainage pipes, making sure the pot does not overflow.
This can also, though, mean learning to break out of fear loops that cause more emotional agitation. If you are afraid that your arm is permanently damaged, you feel fear. The fear gets dropped into the emotional pot continuously and quickly overflows, which causes more pain, which causes more fear, and on and on. When you realize that your body is fine, you start to learn to break this loop, allowing for that fear to flow out properly (or to not even get added to the pot in the first place).
Do I Have TMS?
So you’re probably wondering, how do I know if my pain or symptoms are neuroplastic? Because physical pain and neuroplastic pain can feel very similar, it can be tricky to tell them apart.
However, there are some questions you can ask yourself to see if there is any evidence that it is neuroplastic. If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these, then this may be something to explore.
-
Did your pain start with an injury but has had ample time to heal (4-6 months)?
Once an injury has healed, the chronic pain will exist in a different part of the brain that is heavily influenced by emotion.
-
Did your pain start without an injury?
If pain just pops up seemingly at random in the body, that’s a sign that emotional signals are being turned into pain.
-
Did your symptoms come on during a time of stress?
E.g. divorce, having a baby, death of a loved one, moving, getting promoted, etc.
-
Have you tried physical treatments that only provided a little and/or temporary relief?
These might include: massage, acupuncture, chiropractic care, steroid injections, stretching, yoga, physiotherapy, dietary changes, creams and ointments, painkillers, anti-inflammatories, surgery, or any other procedures.
-
Are your symptoms inconsistent?
For example, you might go for a walk one day and feel lots of pain, and then the next day you go for another walk and you feel only a little pain. Or the pain might be intense in the morning but okay at night.
-
Do you have symptoms in multiple parts of the body?
This could point to your brain circuitry getting overwhelmed by fear and has started to send pain signals to random parts of the body, where there may or may not have been a previous injury.
-
Do your symptoms move around your body?
Will you, for example, have a headache that turns into jaw pain that turns into knee pain? This is a very common trait of neuroplastic pain.
-
Do your symptoms change during a time of stress? Or a time when you’re having fun?
You might have an important meeting at work that is stressing you out and your pain flaring up. Or you might go on vacation and notice that your pain diminishes. Or you go on vacation and your pain gets worse. Changes in your emotional state can change your symptoms in various ways, either positive or negative.
-
Are your symptoms triggered by outside factors?
These might include the weather, sounds, time of day, places, smells.
-
Did your symptoms emerge after you seemingly overcame another health issue (this would include pain in different parts of the body)?
This suggests that the underlying neuroplastic pain circuitry is still operating and is now creating pain in a different part of the body.
-
Did you experience any amount of childhood adversity?
This is an important time in our development, and it could include anything from major traumas like physical/verbal abuse to minor traumas like having parents that were passive aggressive about your grades never being good enough.
-
Would you describe yourself as having any of the following personality traits? Perfectionist, people pleaser, worrier, overthinker, sensitive, etc.
These are common traits that can lead to a lot of pent up emotional energy that can lead to symptoms occurring in the body.
The best way to feel more confident is to make sure that you see a physician to find out if any of your symptoms are caused by any serious issues like cancer, cystic fibrosis, lupus, or many others. Neuroplastic pain (TMS) healing is not a replacement for sophisticated medical treatmeants for issues like these.
If it's not a major issue, then the tests will either find nothing wrong with you (which is a great way to know it’s neuroplastic) or you will be given a physical diagnosis that involves healing the “structural problem” in the body. Some of these things usually begin because of an acute injury, but will eventually become neuroplastic long after the body has healed structurally.
These physical diagnoses can include (but are not limited to):
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Runner's Knee
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
- Fibromyalgia
- Dizziness
- Herniated Discs
- Tempromandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ)
- Sciatica
- Spinal Stenosis
- Migraines
- And Many More
Which leads us back to the question: do I have TMS? Since I am not a physician, I cannot officially diagnose you with TMS. But I can help provide resources and support to help you determine if you think your pain might be neuroplastic. When people first discover this work, there is always skepticism and doubt; that’s natural. So the best I can suggest, if you are new to this, is to find some success stories of people that have healed. When you start to see yourself in people that have implemented this sort of healing, that’s when some of the biggest shifts begin to occur.
Here are some places to discover people that have been able to dramatically alter their neuroplastic chronic pain. You’ll also find more in the Resources section.
When I started, I had lots of doubt initially. But after testing out these techniques at my own pace, eventually I gained the confidence to make tremendous changes in my life.
I’ve done it, lots of others have done it, and there is only growing evidence about the efficacy of this kind of neuroplastic-pain healing. Please see the Resources section to learn more.
Resources
There are a lot of talented, knowledgeable, compassionate people out there that have resources to help you navigate the world of neuroplastic symptoms. If you’re curious to learn more, please look into these and learn as much as you can from them.
Books
The Way Out - Alan Gordon, with Alon Ziv
The Mindbody Prescription - Dr John Sarno
The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook - Vanessa Blackstone and Olivia Sinaiko
Podcasts and Videos
The Mind and Fitness Podcast - Eddy Lindenstein
The Cure for Chronic Pain - Nicole Sachs
Pain Free You - Dan Buglio
Techniques
Knowledge
It may sound silly, but learning about neuroplastic pain is one of the most important techniques to heal. When you begin to really internalize that your body is safe and that the neuroplastic pain you’re feeling is really just a false alarm, this can be incredibly therapeutic. The nervous system no longer has to be on high alert and this will alleviate those neuroplastic pain symptoms. So go to the Resources section and get a deep understanding of how this all works.
Journalling
Journalling, or JournalSpeak, is a way to express emotions that you may find unacceptable to express. You can find a couple resources here and here that will provide some background and teach the basics of how to do it.
Somatic Tracking
Somatic Tracking is like meditating but with an emphasis on feeling safe with sensations in the body. Alan Gordon, the founder of Pain Reprocessing Therapy and the Pain Psychology Centre, provides a great live demonstration in this video. Tanner Murtagh, of Pain Psychotherapy Canada, has a wonderful somatic tracking exercise that you can do at home.
Get In Touch
I am a neuroplastic pain coach, and I am beginning to do one-on-one sessions to help people navigate through their healing journey. Whether you are new to these concepts or have been trying to heal on your own for years but are feeling stuck, I am happy to meet with you and assist however I can.
Please reach out to book a free 20-minute discovery call to see if we’d be a good fit.
