I have started today on another attempt to get my body to do what it is meant to do naturally, go to the loo. I have tired what they call bowel and bladder training in the past with little success, but that doesn’t mean I ever give up, if there is one thing you have to be with any illness is you have to keep trying regardless of if it worked before or not. So I am making myself drink more fluids and to not ever hold on for even a second if my body gives me the slightest clue it needs to go, I have to listen and act, that though is always difficult for me as I have spent so many years grouping actions to limit my energy use, that going to the loo when I have no other reason to head there is totally unnatural to me. The other thing I have to do is to stop pulling up my muscles as I learned to do as a child, what I mean by that is not pulling in my stomach and lifting my pelvic muscles when sitting or walking, well at least in the first part of the day. One of the things about training your bowels is you have to physically let go of all the muscles so that nature has a chance of moving things through you without you unconsciously stopping it, by letting it settle lower in your system when it comes to the point you go to the loo, there is more chance of success.

I have always been told that the best time to go and have a seat is after breakfast, eating actually stimulates your intestinal muscles into action, even if you don’t feel anything, they are apparently working. So with all those things done, the next is to sit on the loo and relax, if nothing happens they say that you need to get into a position as though you are crouching, this means that you need to have a stool in the bathroom so you can raise the level of you legs, well I don’t do that, how the hell do you explain to people why you have a stool in the bathroom, or worse still why you are taking one with you? Anyway I know I can get the same effect by leaning forward and today it all worked! I honestly didn’t think I needed to go but when I gave my body all the correct information, it did was it was told, if that is because of the Dulcoease that is now on three tabs a day or doing what the experts tell you to, I don’t know, all I know is it worked so I will be at least trying to work with the system everyday and hopefully I will continue to get results. Bladder training is all about time, you have to go to the loo every 3 hours, that way you bladder doesn’t get too full and you apparently teach it to give you the message to empty at a lower level and avoid accidents or damage to your kidneys and bladder. This one I have never succeeded with in the past, as the golden rule to both forms of training is you must not strain or push in any way, well unless I apply pressure on my bladder it never empties and if anything does happen I am sat there for 20mins plus as it drips it way through, pointless when a little pressure clears it in seconds. I was first taught all these thing when I was still working and it just isn’t practical in a work situation to carry out a lot of these things, when you are in a meeting getting up to go to the loo for a 20 minute visit, just isn’t the done thing. Like a lot of the advice you are given when you have any condition, putting it all into practise is just not as easy as the doctors make it all sound, I think they forget that their patients live in the real world, not in some ideal little planet they have invented to suit them.

I had real problems getting to sleep last night, yes I did say that, the queen of I can sleep any time, anywhere, couldn’t get to sleep. I was lying there with some of the worst MS hugs I have ever had, I hadn’t had the slightest problem all day beyond normal, but once again I when I lay down, bang it all went mad. The usual suspects were there, my diaphragm, the line under my breasts and mildly above them as well, but there was a new one, lower down on my waist line. At first I thought that it had to be just my meds working on my gut and making the muscles contract and do their job, but when I realised that it was a complete circle around me, I corrected that theory, along with those the new and constant spasm right across the front of me only, just below my diaphragm was there as well. Basically I was locked in spasm from my arm pits to my waist with other additions just for fun and the worse they got the harder it was to breath and the harder it was to sleep. I had to keep trying to break their hold, those in my ribs I have learned there is nothing that I can do about, but the one around my waist and across the front of me where all in soft areas that I could apply pressure and massage. Each time I worked on them they disappeared but with in seconds of lying still again, they came straight back. I tried for about an hour to find sleep naturally but failed so I gave in and took a blue booster in the hope of it relaxing my muscles enough to allow me to drop off. You would think that by now I would have learned to reach for them far sooner, but I have such a built in reluctance to taking them that I simply have to try before I give in, within the normal 20 minutes I was asleep.

I have a vision of me in years to come still living with more pain than I strictly have to, just because I don’t want to reach for the one thing that deals with it. It doesn’t matter how easily available pain control is, there is something so strongly set in me somewhere that taking high doses of Morphine is wrong, that I just can’t get past it. I doesn’t help that every time I get a lift in my pain control, firstly when I was put on 70mg of MST and then again when I was give 10mg fast acting MST, that the chemist wouldn’t fill the prescription without first talking to my doctor to check that it is correct, even they think that I am on serious pain control, beyond what they are used to dealing with. I suppose having a healthy reluctance to taking drugs of these levels is just that healthy, as it shows clearly that I am not the sort of person to just take them because I can and that my doctor can trust me to use then for the points when they are really needed, it’s a trust that I think will be important in the future.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 1/10/12 – Inspiration > http://bit.ly/StVenr