How to support a pseudo-death - Chronic pain, parent's divorce, or break-up...

I have dealt with a number of what I call "pseudo-deaths." You know, like when your health ups & dies, your parent disappears, or you break up with someone after dating them for years & years. The problem is that society doesn't provide landmark events for these. "There's not an app for that" sort of thing. There is no funeral if your dad abandons your family. There is no fundraising & general panic if you have chronic but not-life-threatening pain. And there are no divorce parties if you break up with a long-time love. You just suck it up, and go it alone.

Because society doesn't validate these events as tragic, when it comes to supporting people in these categories, there are no guidelines to follow. So let me suggest one. If you are interacting with someone experiencing a pseudo-death, and you don't know what to say, check out the following list. This magic trifecta of verbiage avoids foot-in-mouth syndrome & prevents you from saying all kinds of landminey things.

Just try the 1, 2, 3 steps below...

1. "I am so sorry to hear that"

2. "How are you doing?"

If you want to be really great do what my boyfriend does & say

3.  How can I support you?" (See why I am with him?! He came up with this one all on his own.)

If you use these verbal support statements effectively, you will win the medal of support by your person in pain, because you provided grade-A service in earning the Relating to Pain (RTP) degree.

And in regard to all those things you would have LIKED to say but that weren't on this list? To quote me, "Be nice, not right." You can't go wrong with that.

Party in the frying pan...Because what else can you do?!

Yesterday I realized that what I thought was a resolution on how to live with the psychological impact of chronic pain was only - an explanation. (Referencing my previous blog.) I was a bit annoyed to see this, because after more than 20 years, you would think I would have figured it out.

Compounding the issue, is that it is a bit like being a frog in a frying pan. Because you have to adjust at each change in your condition, you don't know where you started out. I know I certainly don't remember what it feels like to be normal or pain-free. It would be logical to conclude that if you want to analyze how to deal with the long-term impact of pain, that you would at least understand what that impact is. No such luck, since you are frying-panned. So the logical starting place of realizing where you're at, is pretty much impossible. And don't they say that realizing your condition is the starting point to improving it?

I am not sure that there ever comes an acceptance of chronic pain. I'm not sure it would be good if you did accept it - Because then you would stop fighting it. And fighting it is key to improving your condition. It sounds like people who lose limbs and the ability to do certain things come to an acceptance of their condition. But I have not heard these people say they suffer chronic pain along with their loss of mobility. Perhaps they do, and I am just not aware. Which begs the question, if I had to choose, would I give up a limb in exchange for losing my pain? I absolutely believe I would. But I can't try and see, unfortunately. Not that you can't remove my limbs, but that my pain would not go away with that.

I believe the loss you suffer when you lose your health, and you get chronic pain, is too big for the body and mind to process. The problem is with many of these types of pain, is that they are man-made. They are not the result of your body breaking down naturally, therefore it cannot repair itself naturally. I think the body's inability to fix itself is unusual, and the body and mind cannot process this problem.

Heck you can even recover from cancer. But not from chronic pain. So if you wonder why those of us  who have it are pissed off, that observation might explain it. We can't do a fundraiser, have an operation, or any other normal recovery fix and have any chance of it working. It is our sheer inability to get out of the frying pan is the problem. Ain't no way to remove the pan from underneath us.

So the reason I started this blog, and can't cover my main topic (which was how to deal with the chronic pain) is because there's really no way to deal with it. When you keep realizing that all your fixes are only temporary, it's incredibly debilitating. The human mind just realizes the fatality of the matter and stops trying, in order to conserve energy.

It's not like religion helps either. You cannot pray for people with chronic pain, and have them recover. Nor does religion make you specially equipped to handle the permanence of the condition. For illustration, just think of Paul, who kept asking God to remove his physical condition. God didn't, and Paul just kept asking. And life went on. I bet he eventually stopped asking.

In my experience, there is no way to deal with the long-term impact of chronic pain. You just have to go through it. You can't really resolve it. You can't hope to get better, because the nature of it is that your body cannot. Which is why I wrote in my last post, that you distract yourself. It's that or die. And you can't die, because your illness is not fatal. How ironic.

So now that I've said a whole lot of nothing, I have arrived at my lack of conclusion. There isn't one. It is one of the great mysteries of life, still to be discovered perhaps by an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein.

Chronic pain means you'll have it for ever. And that's about the short of it. So - now that we've gotten that sobering topic out of the way...let's talk about the Party in the Frying Pan.

You coming? I hear there are good frog legs!!!

How to Live With Pain: You Don't Dwell On It...You Keep Movin'

The reason I started this blog was to detail how to live with chronic pain in a joyful manner. I have not achieved that. Well, people think so, but I know the truth.

I have been trying to figure out what the answer is to handling the long-term psychological impact of chronic pain. I realized just this week the strategy I use most is distraction. I was about to blog on it and then...

I heard this quote by a Chopped contestant, formerly homeless Sammy Davis. Jr. He said, "Since I was a kid I just learned to live with pain. You don't stop to dwell on it. You keep movin...And that's just how it's got to be in my life."

This is really surprising to me, in a way. I never imagined that you could deal with emotional and physical pain in the same manner, but this makes so much sense. It's essentially what I've done. Sometimes to my detriment, in fact often.

But I just kept movin' too. I didn't stop playing the violin (for many years), I didn't stop traveling. I didn't stop  skiing (for many years), dancing, or exercising. I didn't stop going out. I didn't stop to sit down much in my house. Literally, I found the way to manage pain was to keep movin'.

So much so that my boyfriends have been annoyed. I just don't sit still. My cat is even annoyed! He now jumps up off my lap if I so much as cough, because he knows I don't sit still for more than a few minutes. The pain gets too annoying.

So I keep movin', and keep myself distracted.

That is the answer to living with pain. I have finally found it. Not ideal, but an answer. Not a solution, but still, it is.

An answer. Finally.

Is what you eat getting on your nerves?

I have researched further (because that's what I do ;) the link between digestion and FMS nerve pain. And the latest research is amazing. It shows the link between FMS and SIBO, as I mentioned in the previous post. In case you are interested in reading it, here are the links:

Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome And Endotoxemia

In lay person's terms, it seems to say that for people with FMS our digestive lining is compromised, so toxins leak out during digestion that shouldn't. A chemical is released and activated that connects with our central nervous system, creating systemic pain. The Arizona Advanced Medicine website describes it like this: "We may ingest a food which causes inflammation in the intestinal tract, sending signals to the brain, which are then expressed as diffuse pain in the muscles."

Anyhow, because I was so amazed by this guy's findings, I have already started the raw organic garlic treatment. He talks about it here:

Why Raw Garlic May Be Your Gut’s Best Friend

I have been using it about 2x/day, because I have appointments to keep. But if I don't notice all the results I would like, I will cancel everything and try it for a week.

This guy's research is amazing because he sounds the most plausible of anyone. Ever. And he explains why more women than men get FMS.

In another topic, I have also been reviewing gluten and its disastrous effects on the body. I just got off the phone with a friend whose pain from arthritis has been significantly lowered through a gluten-free food plan. So I guess I might be trying that also...The Arizona Advanced Medicine Center also claims: "One of our patients had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia since 1996. In 2007 he came to us. One week after we took him off gluten, his pain was completely gone. Gluten, the protein in wheat, is notorious for creating chronic inflammation in many people."

Because I am still researching this, I will not say more on the topic about my experience except that I am feeling better with the use of the treatments I mentioned in the previous post. That means that I have established a clear connection between my digestion and FMS. We will see what is needed next...

Chicken or Egg? FMS or Digestive Trouble?

I went to visit my doctor this year for my annual physical. While there I asked what was up with my digestion. I said, right here is this spot that is always causing trouble. It is somewhere in my abdomen and it throbs like a heart-beat. What is it? He said your small bowel is located there. There are a lot of nerves there.

Really? So of course I went and googled. And googled. What I found added yet another puzzle piece to the mystery of FMS.

Apparently, I had it all wrong. FMS is not the cause, it is just a SYMPTOM. Wow. Who knew. Where have I been the last 10 years with all this research?

My latest research is on SIBO (small intestinal bowel overgrowth) and IBS. Not surprisingly, the mycoplasma virus probably caused both of these. It probably causes breast cancer as well. And this all fits in with my developing theory that all these problems are vaccine-induced when the government started mandating vaccinations after WWII. This fits the 1950s timeline where IBS and digestive trouble - and breast cancer - seemed to have emerged. Vaccines also fits into why FMS is a Gulf-War sickness.

Then, there is what they call leaky gut (yucky) where bacteria eats through your intestines and leaks toxins to your body. Hmmm. Something else to fix. And everyone is yapping about candida and what a problem it is. Not to mention parasites. Gees. Where does it end?!

Anyhow. On to the cure. (Ha ha. Should I have said treatment? Placebo? Next thing to try?)

You can google the benefits and why's of these if you wish. But last week I started using 

- Peppermint oil

- Olive leaf oil

- Coconut oil

- Wormwood
- Organic honey
- Diabe Tea (bitter melon, gymnema, Stevia)

Next up, among many other things:

- Black Current Oil

- Evening Primrose Oil

This is in addition to some other things which I won't confuse the article with, but they are a start. I have noticed benefits already, one of being which, that I. Can. Breathe. Yes, I have been able to get a full range of air and am not gasping like a fish out of water, which I understand is also a CFS symptom.

I ran across a blog today that I want to give a shout-out to. It is lyndsayjohnsonblog.com. I thought I had it bad that I have shooting pain in my muscles 24/7. The folks with severe IBS or SIBO have it far worse, and I feel so bad for them. Some of them report being doubled over in pain on the bathroom floor for hours at a time. I have never had this type of pain. But I learned from it - digestion causes pain. Who knew.

Anyway, I digress. This lovely woman, Lyndsay, reports that her diet is incredibly restrictive, and causes her a lot of emotional pain. I can certainly empathize with the very idea of restrictive diet. I think I should probably try such a thing, but I am going to try the modified version first I believe, and then I might try the very expensive Elemental food plan for 2 weeks to kill off the (possible) SIBO and see what happens.

More to come on this. I am off to write to Lyndsay, to offer my small tiny element of understanding.