All posts tagged: pain

How to Succeed on Your Terms When Life Interferes

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Success is only what you put into it. The harder you work for something, the better the success will be. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. I Googled “stupid quotes about hard work and motivation.” How pithy are these quotes? How out of touch with reality are they? My reality, anyway. I think about quotes like this often, especially now, because I thought I was done with this blog. I thought it had taught me all I needed to know. Except… I had another MRI that shows degeneration above and below my two fusions, which explains the pain down my arms and up into my head that grows with intensity every day. Breakdown isn’t supposed to happen after a fusion for at least 10 years. My surgeon said that, unfortunately, I have “bad connective tissue.” Yay. This could lead to what is called the “ladder effect,” which is when you have fusion after fusion, laddering up and down the spine until there …

Abdominal Migraines — Did You Know They Were a Thing?

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Hi, kids. I wanted to take a moment to talk about migraines today. Did you know that “migraine” is an all-inclusive term for a host of terrible, nauseating headaches? For instance, my headaches closely resemble migraines, enough that my doctor just calls them by that term. I get headaches a few times a week. I can work with headaches. I can function. I get migraines a couple times a month. Those put me out of commission and land me in the recliner with the heavy meds. The migraines, technically, are post-traumatic stress headaches, which — as I have been so kindly informed by my doctor — fall into the category of “very unpleasant, would like to reschedule, please.” These PTS headaches begin in the base of my head and travel around, vibrating upward along nerves to the top of my head and downward into my shoulders. Fun! The more popular kind of headaches have been listed out below. Diamond Headache Clinic sent me this slideshow of common types of migraine headaches, some of which I didn’t even …

The Quell Pain Relief Device: Entering the Third Year

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Here we are again, folks. We’re entering the third year (since I can’t do math), and I am still using the Quell pain relief device (give or take two weeks when I forgot to wear it because my schedule was so disrupted that I forgot). Five bands, who knows how many electrodes — both normal and the new sport model, which I very much prefer in these extremely humid summer months — and two Quell models later, we’ve made it to this point. Well, I still like the Quell! At one point before I upgraded to the new model, I feared that either my pain was getting worse or I was becoming sensitized to the electric current. Turning it up didn’t help, but I still couldn’t go without wearing it for very long before I was overcome with pain. That has been my overall plan, you know. To eventually go without wearing it, trying to set myself to absolute zero to see what my pain really is. I’ve been throwing medication at my pain since …

Effective Alternative Therapies for Dealing with Chronic Pain

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We have another guest post from Jackie Waters of Hyper-Tidy.com!  There’s no silver bullet approach for dealing with chronic pain. Everyone’s pain is specific to them, and you can’t solve everything with a single pill or by eating more kale. A true holistic approach to chronic pain management will utilize a variety of coping methods. For some, the risk of developing dependencies to medication is enough reason to seek out alternative therapies for their pain. Others find that a combination of treatments works best for them. Some are still searching for the right treatment. Whatever the case, the good news is there are alternative treatments that show promise and are already being relied on by millions suffering from chronic pain. Add some specific foods to your diet Proper diet and exercise is vital for anyone suffering from chronic pain. It’s important to reduce refined carbohydrates, excess sugar, and caffeine. Do everything that you can to maintain a healthy weight, as obesity exacerbates most forms of chronic pain. But did you know that there are some specific foods …

Reworking Your Home Life to Minimize Chronic Pain

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We have a lovely guest post from a new contributor, Jackie Waters, of Hyper-Tidy.com!  Living in constant pain can cause worry, stress, anxiety, and depression. You wonder if you’ll ever feel better or if you’ll keep feeling worse. It is possible to get your life back and get a handle on chronic pain. People who suffer from it can incorporate everyday, holistic changes to improve their quality of life and manage their pain. Lifestyle and Diet Mindfulness meditation is a way to effectively train your brain to turn down the volume on pain. According to The Huffington Post, “A typical meditation involves focusing on different parts of the body and simply observing with the mind’s eye what you find.” Doing this makes you aware of the connection between your mind and body; you observe painful sensations as they happen, and then let go of struggling with them. You may doubt the impact mindfulness meditation can have on chronic pain, but it has been shown to reduce it by 57 percent, and skillful meditators can reduce it by …

How to Get Work Done When You Have a Chronic Condition

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Working while dealing with chronic pain is another task on the To-Do List (or so I keep trying to tell myself). I used to crank out work at such a high level, and now I feel so much slower, like I’m trudging uphill through molasses in January. What used to be a machine is now rusted, rickety, with nuts and bolts rattling and clinking down upon the floor. But things still need to get done. Jobs and projects require my attention, divided though my attention may be. How do I focus and get through my docket when my pain tries to pull me in so many directions? Here’s what’s on my docket these days (WARNING: COLLUSION!): day job with Enjuris, editing/writing side gigs, legal side gigs (gotta love this “Gig Economy“), writing a book with my father about his work, volunteering for the MetroWest Opera as a board member (and I need to do the annual taxes), volunteering for the Pain News Network as a columnist and a board member (gotta do some writing), and on top of all that, I …

Pain News Network: Needling Away Pain

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Sorry for my massively long absence, folks. Here’s my latest column for the Pain News Network!  One would think that encouraging inflammation is a bad idea, right? “Let’s stick you with needles, inject a dextrose solution, and create some new tissue. It’ll be great!” That’s what my dad has been saying since 2004. He had prolotherapy done for his low back in college, and it did wonders for him. I was extremely dubious. It sounded far too strange – injecting a sugar solution? Into my neck? I have very extensive injuries from two separate car accidents. To sum it up quickly, I have badly-healed thoracic fractures, bulging lumbar discs hitting nerves, and two cervical fusions that cause a lot of post-surgical pain. The idea of purposefully creating more inflammation sounded insane. But after my second fusion, when the pain started increasing no matter how dutifully it was treated, I decided to give it a try. Prolotherapy, or sclerosing injections, is still considered a bit radical, even though it’s been around since the 1930’s. The reason …

Everybody Has Something Wrong With Them

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Everybody has something wrong with them. I don’t care who you are or how many marathons you’ve run or how loud you are about it, but literally everybody on this planet, no matter how young or old, has something inside that is actively working against them. That young boy bicycling to school has Type I diabetes. The teacher shepherding students into the classroom has arthritis. The school bus driver has sciatica that runs down her right leg. The mailman has a limp because his hip gave out after twenty years of walking his route. The old woman shuffling down the sidewalk has cataracts, rheumatoid arthritis, and skin cancer from the days of tanning with baby oil. If something isn’t wrong with us when we’re born, something will go wrong. As soon as we are born we start to die, and little chips of us are broken away year after year by means of illnesses and sprains and accidents and cancers. Some people don’t even know anything is wrong yet. Two guys see their coworker struggling …

ChronicBabe: 5 Reasons Why Leaving My Job and Working From Home Was The Best Decision I Ever Made

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Check out my guest post for Jenni Grover Prokopy’s site, ChronicBabe! Hi! My name is Jen, and I’m a 29-year-old attorney, editor, writer, and patient advocate. I have spinal fractures from two car accidents that required two cervical fusions. The jury’s out on whether I’ll need more surgery. I worked in an office for three and a half years after law school. At that point I was dealing with the fallout from my first car accident, which happened in 2004 and decimated my thoracic spine. Law school happened, and then my job, and then… another accident. That second accident became a barrier to a normal life. Eventually I decided to leave my job and work from home. Here are the reasons why it was the best decision I ever made. My health comes first now. I was living the dream: I had a legal job that started at 8 am, ended around 6 pm, had great coworkers, and allowed for a life. My bosses were cool. During my second year, however, I had another car accident. …

Why Do I Keep Waking Up at 4:30 AM Every Day?

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Sleep has always been a passion of mine. I’m always a bit grumpy when I have to leave my pile of blankets and start the day. It’s the most comfortable, comforting place I know. Like comedian Jim Gaffigan said to his bed, “You were wonderful last night… I didn’t want it to end.” My high school friends knew not to call my parents’ house after 9 pm because we would be asleep. The weirdest part is that as children, my siblings and I would put ourselves to bed at a reasonable hour. My parents would have friends over, and instead of trying to stay up with the adults, we’d wander downstairs in our pajamas to bid everyone goodnight. My brother and sister have become night owls, but I’ve always needed more time in bed because of my chronic injuries. As such, I was never an early bird or a night owl. I guess I’m sort of a late-morning angry bird. Photo credit: challiyan via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA So imagine my surprise this week when I started waking …