All posts tagged: wellness

Do We Lose Our Dreams with Chronic Illness?

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Today we have a guest contribution from the lovely Crys Baysa! *** Chronic illness is hard enough as it is. But even worse, the things we used to do, we can’t do anymore. Suddenly, hanging out with people is hard, doing your job is nearly impossible, and understanding the things you’re trying to study is downright frustrating. It is in times like these that it’s easy to wonder if we’re ever going to be better again. ‘Am I going to be able to play my beloved violin again? The pain is too much!’ ‘Will I ever be able to memorize those formulas again? I can’t remember things and I want this degree badly!’ It’s not just the physical limitations that become more and more. It’s the emotional limitations. What Dreams Really Are Dreams are not just desires for the future. They’re expressions of ourselves. It doesn’t matter if it’s something like science, speech, or even simply sculpting a statue. It’s very much a part of who we are, and it’s an emotional release. When you …

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. …

Does Chronic Pain Need a Mascot? (My Answer? Yes.)

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Readers, meet Rufus. I feel that a mascot is needed in my life. You know, a cheerleader who understands how hard life can be when feeling physically terrible and having your attention constantly split in half. Chronic pain is vague by definition; it can be widespread or localized in the body, stabbing or dull, intense or flat. We only have the unifying term of “spoonie,” which is derived from the Spoon Theory. While that does a great job of describing why we power down without warning (because we’ve “run out of spoons,” each spoon representing a daily activity), it doesn’t give me a good visual besides — well, cutlery. I wanted to show the chronic pain and illness experience, but I needed something that would also put a smile on my face. Like, “Yeah, chronic pain is exhausting and endless. Let me explain my day to you. Let me help you understand. I’ll try to make you laugh while I talk about it, because I know how depressing this topic is.”   I couldn’t design that …

The Quell Pain Relief Device: One Year Later

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One year ago today, a beautiful relationship between man and machine began. I shall weave my disclaimer into the story: This day last year, FedEx delivered the Quell pain relief device that I’d bought during their Indiegogo campaign. I hadn’t been contacted by the company to try it, and I paid for it with money that I earned. I keep several alerts on my news feeds, and I found it in a story about new medical devices that contained this slim, mostly unobtrusive wearable. It sounded too good to be true — it could produce endogenous opioids within my body, like natural versions of the medications I fought so hard each month to receive? All-over pain relief by wearing an electrode on the calf? I didn’t care if it sounded too good to be true. I had to try it. And I have tried it for approximately 350 out of the past 365 days. About one week of that was when I transitioned to a work-from-home situation. My routine was so interrupted that I simply …

Guest Post: Water Exercise for Chronic Pain Relief

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Chronic pain comes in many forms: aching in the joints, dull burning in the muscles, or shooting pains throughout the body. While some bodily pain after an injury or surgery is normal, pain that persists beyond average recovery time or that arises inexplicably is considered chronic. The National Institute of Health (NIH) defines chronic pain as “any pain lasting more than 12 weeks.” These pains can be sharp or dull, localized or felt throughout the body. The American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA) widely recommends exercise therapy, or “active therapy,” to increase the range of motion, strength, and flexibility and to enhance the quality of life. Though resting the body may seem like a tempting option, doctors have come to recognize that inactivity typically exacerbates symptoms. Dr. Edward Laskowski, a rehabilitation specialist at the Mayo Clinic, explains, “[w]hen you rest, you become deconditioned — which may actually contribute to chronic pain.” Whether you suffer from fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraines, Crohn’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, or another physically debilitating illness, remaining active is paramount to managing pain. Exercise for …

Does HFactor Hydrogen Water Actually Work for Fatigue, Recovery, & Energy Levels?

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Through my membership in the Chronic Illness Bloggers program, I am able to review products that normally I would never even see or — if I did see them in a store — think to buy. It’s exposing me to a world of items that I had not thought were remotely relevant to chronic pain and illness patients. Like, for instance, HFactor Water — infused with more hydrogen! NECESSARY DISCLAIMER: This is a sponsored post. I was given six Capri Sun-like packs of HFactor, as well as straws, through my membership in the Chronic Illness Bloggers’ network in exchange for my thoughts and opinions regarding the product. All opinions are my own, and besides the gift of the HFactor pouches, I have not been influenced by the company in any way.  Of course, water already has hydrogen, hence the H20 makeup. However, hydrogen-rich water is supposed to help a number of ailments ranging from diabetes to the side-effects of chemotherapy. Improvements have been confirmed by studies (this linked one is specifically on metabolic syndrome), but the benefits of hydrogen-rich water have not been …

Pain News Network: Media Hysteria and the Opioid Crisis

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Hello, my darlings! Check out my latest column for the Pain News Network! _________________________________________________________________ I recently received this email from a family member: Hi Jen, I was listening to a thing on pain medication and why prescription meds are so dangerous. They turn the receptors off in the brain and the person forgets to breathe.  That part is a totally separate thing from the pain. Dr. Sanjay Gupta was on talking about it. I think that is a very valid argument about overuse of pain meds. For example, Prince had very valid issues to use the meds and also lived a very clean life style. If he overused, it goes to follow that someone who doesn’t lead a clean lifestyle is in more danger. It’s not the meds as much as the brain receptors. The breathing part is scary. So I’m not such an advocate anymore…..unless you can tell me this isn’t true and why he would say that. I love you and don’t want anything to happen to you. Xoxoxox I got mad after …

Pain News Network: Dressing for Comfort and Success

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Check out my latest column for the Pain News Network! Comedian Patton Oswalt once apologized for all the times he made fun of sweatpants. “I thought the pinnacle of mankind would be Mars colony or teleportation. Nope! Sweatpants! That was it. Sweatpants!” he said. “We started with fire and the wheel and writing, agriculture, penicillin, sweatpants. Everything else, we’re just on the downward slope. We did it. We’re all done.” Oswalt went on to say how one never puts sweatpants on after showering; they’re always worn over “un-deodorized flesh,” with which I disagree. Why? Because I just took a shower and then put my sweatpants back on. (That’s not the point of this post.) If you are one of the approximately 60 million people in the world with chronic pain, you know that regular clothes can just hurt. It becomes a burden to wear something as regular as jeans. We operate by feel alone. What is comfortable? What doesn’t compound our pain? What feels good against our tortured skin? Sweatpants! This obviously was a problem …

Pain News Network: The ActiPatch

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Here’s my latest column for the Pain News Network! Loyal readers, I have returned. It’s been a tumultuous month of bad days and flares, so while I was absent from my writing duties, I was trying out a hodgepodge of products designed to offer pain relief. Naturally, none of them worked. Let’s discuss. A while ago it was suggested that I try the ActiPatch. I was originally introduced to this new form of pain product by Lil’ Bub, the celebrity cat. I should probably explain that. Lil’ Bub, full name Lillian Bubbles, is a perma-kitten, meaning that she will retain her kitten-like characteristics for her entire lifespan. She also has an extreme case of dwarfism and a rare bone condition called osteopetrosis (the only cat in recorded history to have it), which causes her bones to become incredibly dense as she grows older. This causes pain and difficulty when she tries to go from Point A to Point B. Her person, called the Dude (like Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski”), discovered the Assisi Loop, which …