Tag Archives: relaxation techniques

Condition blinkers

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I love it when you find something good, almost by accident. Lately, I have been having a lot of neck and shoulder pain, it doesn’t take a doctor to work out why, just as I’m sure you too know the culprit, my wheelchair. I have been doing all the standard things, massage, relaxation, warmth but nothing seemed to be making much of a difference. Just over a week ago, I went for my afternoon nap and settled into bed as I always do. Lie down, obviously, get comfortable, which for me, has to be on my back, but it still takes positioning. I know, surely flat on your back, is flat on your back, I used to think so too, but, it still takes the normal shuffling, for true comfort. Then the last two acts are probably different to anyone else. With my arms either side of me, I reach with my fingertips as though I am trying to reach the bottom of the bed. Doing so, means that I am forcing my shoulder down, so it’s impossible for them to tense, a simple, but effective trick. If you have never tried relaxation techniques, or thought them airy-fairy, or even tried and failed, I can honestly say that I’ve been through each of those steps, and eventually, I became a convert about 5 or 6 years ago. If you are a doubter, skip the next paragraph, unless you’re ready to open your mind just a little bit. The final thing I do is to run through my relaxation process, simple and effective to let me slip into sleep. On this particular day, sleep didn’t come, sometimes it doesn’t, so I lie there for an hour, just running around my body in my mind, relaxing each part over and over until the alarm sounds.

My neck had been really sore that day, so as I couldn’t sleep, I worked again and again on my neck, especially, at either end of it and right around it as well right up to my jaw. The best description I can think of is to say, that I was trying to relax it right down to cell level. Even though I was as sure as I could be, that there wasn’t any tension left, as I had long since passed that point where my neck felt as though it had vanished. I was lying there totally motionless, when I honestly felt something change in my neck, not so much a physical click, but more like a muscle I didn’t know was even there, suddenly let go, and it cascaded. I know better than anyone, that this next line sounds stupid, but it is exactly what happened. It felt as though, a hole had appeared exactly where the sudden change was. It slowly grew, spreading up to the base of my skull and down to the top of my spine. For the rest of the day, I neck didn’t hurt at all, but I was so intrigued, that I tried to repeat it again that night, but it just didn’t happen. Two days later, the pain was back and when I went for my nap, I decided not to let myself sleep. I repeated the whole thing and once again, eventually the same thing happened and the pain vanished for nearly the whole day. That time I wasn’t so lucky in the result, but I had come up with a plan. I have been working on my neck every afternoon and every night before I sleep. Not for the whole hour, as I now know where that “click” point is. I do have to be really relaxed to before I start on it, but as long as I am, I always feel a change. Since I started, I haven’t had any pain bad enough to complain about, and if I do feel anything, even when sitting here, I can improve it. I think what is happening is actually quite simple. I believe, that there is a nerve that is being caught by the tensed up muscle, not near the surface but deeper in my neck than my normal sleep relaxation process goes. With everything as relaxed as I can possibly make it, it is simply released and the pain is gone. Not rocket science, or anything to do with my PRMS or any other condition, other than normal everyday muscle tension, but it’s so worth doing. Hippy-dippy mumbo jumbo finished.

It is actually one of the easiest things to fall into without even meaning to, that everything that is happening in our bodies has something to do with a “condition”. Once you have a diagnosis, or especially, a collection of them, we are very inclined to sit here and try and make it fit, to something a doctor has told us we already have. I used to be so guilty of it, I simply couldn’t have an ache or pain, or something odd happens that wasn’t to do with either my PRMS or Fibro. I even found myself sitting scouring all the different sites, actually hoping that my “new” symptom, would be listed somewhere. It was almost as though someone had suddenly fitted me with a pair of blinkers that I just couldn’t see past. Stupidly, when I got over that phase, I went totally the other direction for even longer. I will actually take a little of the blame of myself, in both cases. For someone who is diagnosed today, there is a wealth of detailed information on almost everything other than the rarest of conditions. When I was diagnosed, nearly 15 years ago now, the internet was still very much a baby and doctors, well they didn’t like anyone putting anything online about health at all. Back them, even companies, like the Mayo Clinic, put up nothing about conditions. What was there, was sparse, mainly put up by people who not only had the condition but were amateur web designers as well. No, you couldn’t just set up a blog, or open a Facebook page, they didn’t exist. There were some fledgling site in the USA, but back then and even today to some extent, the information country by country changes. Having discovered that fact, well, the “new” symptom, might not be recognised here, but what about elsewhere? Eventually, I got fed-up with never finding what I wanted to and I stopped looking. Over the years of not looking, the information improved, suddenly things like nausea were a symptom of MS, according to medical sites in the USA, on some in the UK and definitely not in other places. Trust me, it gets confusing.

You would think that a condition is a condition, that the symptoms that make it up would be recognised and set in stone worldwide, but they’re not. From what I can make out, it doesn’t end at the web, it is just the same story with our doctors, they have just as many varied opinions. As patients, we don’t stand a chance of knowing if we are new ill, normal ill, or iller. If the so-called professionals can’t make up their minds, we are never going to stand a chance of assigning anything correctly. As a rule of thumb, I have come to the conclusion, that it is best to assume, it is something totally new, as I did with all the issues I had with my intestine. So OK, it did land up as I feared, being down to my PRMS, but if I hadn’t been sent to see the Gastrologist, I wouldn’t have eventually been given the right solution to managing it. I very much doubt if I had insisted in seeing my Neuro, that that would have been the outcome.

There is, of course, one other factor when it comes to knowing where our “new” symptom belongs and what is wrong with us, ourselves. I know I have done it once, but I can see that there is a potential for it to happen to all of us. Once your chronic illness is fed up of living alone, it invites its chums along for the ride, and we, eventually, stop caring. A new pain appears, you’re more tired, so what! It’s an easy one to fall into and totally understandable. Putting everything down to current conditions isn’t sensible. For me, it was a case that I was passing out or feeling as though I was about to. I put up with it for years, even after I managed to knock myself unconscious. Dizziness is clearly part of my PRMS, but this was slightly different, as I can feel the blood draining. If I lift my arms when I feel bad, I will pass out. In PRMS, you don’t pass out, just fall over due to lack of balance. I gained another condition they can do nothing about, Vasovagal. They can’t treat it, but there are drugs and situations I need to avoid. Life got easier with an answer. If I hadn’t seen the doctor, I might have been unconscious more often, but now I know. Years have passed and I could with easy now ignore symptoms, simply because it’s too much of a bother to do anything about it. I know, that that has to be avoided.

Our health issues don’t have a start date or an end date, we can get worse with the conditions we have, or possibly better. New ones can appear and often there is a simple answer, even if we think it’s an odd answer, it’s worth trying. It doesn’t matter if you can find it on the internet or not, if our doctor recognises it or not, if it’s there, there is probably an answer. We don’t need to be told, that cures are rarer than most people think, but we don’t have to suffer either. I was the biggest sceptic when it came to anything that didn’t look like a tablet, now I do relaxation daily and it helps me. If there is one thing that I know for sure, if we try to ignore it, it normally get’s worse. On which note, yes, I am talking to myself, I know that my hands are getting worse and I know that the day that I need to pick up the phone and ask for help is getting closer. Yes, I did try relaxation, it didn’t work, well it did when I wasn’t useing them, but the second I did, it was all undone. I know I have been putting it down to my HMS, but is it? They couldn’t do anything about it years ago, is the answer still the same? According to the web, yes, but who knows. Ultimately, no matter what, our health is in our hands and if I do nothing, nothing my hands won’t improve.

 

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 01/12/2013 – Accepting it’s happening

Nothing to do with my MS I know but I have a really sore shoulder and arm this morning, whatever happens to me it always seems to be my left side that it happens to. Injury or…..

Don’t dismiss anything

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Tiredness is a funny thing, the way that one second I can feel fine, and the next I want to crawl into my bed and never get out again. I know for me that it isn’t just a need to sleep, this kind of tiredness comes from a fatigue. Fatigue used to just be that feeling that my limbs not only couldn’t do anything, they were quite simply dead and I needed, no, had to rest. Over the years, I discovered that sleep wasn’t the answer, it helps, but it isn’t the answer. I could sleep forever, but fatigue doesn’t go until it is ready, it just builds and builds. The longer you live with it, the more it grows, somewhat like an ever rolling snowball, it picks up just the little bit more every day. I know that I have written a post before about the difference between tired and fatigued, and if I say so myself, it was a great post. So why return so soon about something that was written well and describes it fully? Well, because, that post was about that dragging fatigue that holds onto not just our bodies but almost our souls as well. This is about muscle fatigue, something quite different, but without a doubt, rolls over into the more major form.

Recently, I have been finding myself floored but unable to sleep and I don’t remember that happening for years. I still sleep perfectly at night, but it is the afternoons when I now often find myself lying there in a half world. I am on the cusp of sleeping, completely relaxed, but I am totally aware of every inch of my body. I can feel each part of me, even those that appear to be missing and all of those that have their own individual sensation.  My body is alive with areas that are numb, others tingling, some that are both and other that are causing me pain. There is nothing there though that is enough to stop me sleeping, but it just doesn’t arrive. It has nothing either to do with my thoughts or an overactive brain, mine is rarely that, but there I lie, with a completely exhausted body, that is craving to just be allowed to shut-down. In the past, I have tried using relaxation techniques against fatigue with little positive effect. Not surprising really, as fatigue, has nothing to do with anything one would call normal, it is far more than tired, far more than muscles that have just been used too much. Neither sleep nor relaxation seems to be a cure for fatigue, it is more a sticking plaster that lets you forget about it for a while.

A few years ago, if you had suggested that I should go to bed and just lie there for an hour or more. doing nothing, I would have refused point blank. My refusal would have been heartfelt, as there was nothing I would have found more difficult, or more horrific a thought, as wasting an hour, lying around being bored. Even if I had tried to, the boredom would have driven me mad in less than fifteen minutes, I would have been up again. So for me to be able to say, that I can now do this with ease and that I actually enjoy that hour of lying there doing nothing, something major has to have changed. It is the absolute truth, that nothing that has happened to me in the past year has surprised me more than this, but there it is, I can now do it. Clearly, I have made a discovery, something that has allowed me to change so dramatically, and yes it does have something to do with fatigue. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I have found a cure, but I would go as far as to say, I have found a real sticking plaster that soothes and doesn’t just distract. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t looking for something to help, I was just looking for sleep and I was working through my relaxation technique in the vain hope of finding sleep, but I found something else.

I have to admit that I have been holding back on writing this, because it does sound kind of silly, but it has helped so many times now, that I feel it’s only right to share it. I had gone to bed one afternoon and my hands were really bad, painful and heavy the typical fatigued muscle feeling. The second I was settled in bed, they started that intense tingling that is just one click away from painful. I had already earlier in the day been sat at my PC, stopping every now and then to massage them, as they felt so knotted and tight. For me, massage is something that rarely helps anything, other than spasms, but it is one of those instinctive actions that you find yourself doing, whether it works or not. When I couldn’t find sleep, and my relaxation system hadn’t worked, I found myself lying there cursing my hands. They were so alive with sensation, that I was sure they were what was blocking my sleep. I decided to work on them again, but this time, instead of just mentally relaxing my whole hand, I went finger by finger. When I reached the ones that hurt the most, I added in what I can only describe as mental massage. In my mind, I imagined gently massaging the muscle and adding rays of warmth. I could think of no reason why it would work, it was intended more as a way of keeping me from getting up, as I knew I really needed the rest, even if I wasn’t going to sleep. To my surprise, when I had completed my entire left hand, the level of complaint, honestly seemed lower, not gone, but a bit better. There was a marked difference between the two hands, that hadn’t been there before. I did the same exercise on my right hand with the same result. I had purposely done all this very slowly as I was time filling after all. When the alarm sounded, I got up and thought no more about it.

Usually in the evenings, I find my hands incredibly painful, especially since I have been in my wheelchair. That evening, yes, they were still painful, but there was an improvement, I didn’t link it at all, until a couple of days later, when the whole thing was repeated, as it has been multiple times since. I decided to test it out on not just painful muscles caused by use, but highly fatigued ones, it works with them too. I have analysed and worked through the whole thing and now, I don’t bother with the imagined heat anymore, that I think was just silly. What I have done, is to have come up with what I think the reason is, and the system that makes it work. I use my relaxations system frequently, so I can now use it with speed and efficiency, for going to sleep. By slowing it all down and really concentrating on making sure that every muscle, rather than just whole limbs, are as relaxed as they can be, not just enough, but totally, is what is reducing the pain. I am more than aware that the technique I use, is used widely, and I am sure that many who use it, like me, has become skilled at relaxing at speed. I suggest strongly, that you slow it down as like me, you might actually be missing a benefit that is there waiting. It is a long way from a cure for fatigued muscles, or that dragging fatigue that goes much deeper, but it is a help, a really good amount of help that makes it worth well. So much so, that I now go for my nap, not caring if I sleep or not, as that hour and a half, is of benefit either way.

I am so convinced of it’s benefits that if I find myself aware of aching muscles during the day, that is now my first stop, rather than just putting up with it. It isn’t a miracle cure, but it does make life just that bit more comfortable and that to me is worth the time I lose. In the past couple of months, all I seem to have done is to slow down everything that I do, to take more rest, relax more and generally, take life at a smoother slower pace. Every time I have tried this in the past, it just hasn’t worked, I guess that I just wasn’t ready for it to, well it does now. It appears, that no matter what it is, just because something hasn’t worked before, isn’t a reason to say it doesn’t work at all. I would strongly suggest that even if you have tried any relaxation techniques in the past and dismissed them, try them again and even again, you might be surprised by what you discover.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 30/10/2013 – Avoiding depression

I have always been someone who likes to live life with challenges, to have lists of things to achieve and to work on, not for money, praise or anything else, other than self-pride. I have lost count the number of times in my life people has asked me….

Relax or maybe not

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They say you shouldn’t speak too soon, guess what? I did! I published my post yesterday and within an hour I was once more struggling to keep going, my arms and legs were once more tight throughout and feeling as they were going to explode, in fact, I was feeling as though I was going to explode. I pushed through until just after 2pm and went to bed as I couldn’t even manage to click on one more item on a screen, I had to stop that very second and headed to my bed. Just like all last week, it took me a while to manage to relax, my arms somehow relaxed first and as I was working on the rest of me I became aware that they felt like lead, totally dead and useless. I didn’t move them I was to scared to as I had to get some sleep so I lay there, arms dead and legs slowly drifting into a relaxed state, but totally aware of the fact that I was still wound up and so tired that I no matter what my body did after, I had no choice but to give in and sleep. How long I slept I don’t know, but in all, I was in bed for 2 hours and when I woke my arms were still dead, well at least that was how they felt, I could move them and use them to pull on my clothes, but they felt dead, beyond fatigue. Fatigue is a muscular thing and yes all of the muscles were fatigued, but it was almost as though my nerves had found a way of joining in, they were sluggish in their actions and the only sensation they were returning was one of an amplified nothing. When I pinched myself I could feel it, but the nothing was bigger and more over powering than the pain, not like a limb that has lost circulations this was different, some things were similar, but there was more that was different to make it stand out above anything else. I have felt this a lot in the last few weeks, as you can see describing it is difficult as in many ways it is like trying to describe silence to someone who has never heard anything other than one sound. There is a known absence of life, even though there is function and feeling, both my arms and legs have all been falling into this state lately once I have been in bed for a while and it takes time for them to come back to anywhere near normal.

This morning when I got up I timed just how long it took for my arms and legs to feel like they would be of any use to anyone, it took about 15 minutes. I had all the time been using them, but they were acting without any of the feelings we usually get when we move a limb. It really hard to explain this in a way that doesn’t sound verging on the insane, but I could, for example, feel the keys on the keyboard as I touched them, but the sensations that goes with that action, the feelings we have that tell us our figures are moving, without having to look at them to be sure, were missing. Trust me it is as bizarre to live through as it sounds, by now you would think I would be used to all the screwy things that my body does, but it doesn’t matter how long you live with things like this, they still have the power to astound, confuse and even scare you. I learnt along time ago to not try and explain them vocally to others, over the years I got kind of fed up with people looking at me as though I was a lunatic, at least when I write them down, I can reread, rewrite and rethink, until it sounds about right and if I get it wrong, well I can’t see your face or have to deal once more with someone who is confused, or worse still is ridiculing me.

I have for years now used a relaxation technique that I was taught back in the 80’s, I lie there and I concentrate on each section of my body, bit by bit, I start with my toes and I consciously relax the muscles and tell them then to sleep, sending the order down through my body to the muscles I am working on, once relaxed I move upwards to the next section. Normally I am asleep by the time I reach my arms, often a lot sooner, I don’t know if I felt it from the start or if it is something I have somehow invented since, but when I send the command to go to sleep, I actually feel it travelling through me to my chosen destination, like a wave of sleep energy. I mention it because firstly it works really well and I would recommend that others try it, but also because it is that wave feeling, the feeling of it being a wave of energy, but not sent by me, that I feel when my arms and legs are shutting down on their own. I realised last night, I just hadn’t put the two together before, on those occasions when my body drains of energy and I simply can’t do anything else, it is the exact same sensation, expect I don’t pull the plug, it jumps out by itself. I have to say that given a choice between muscles that want to explode and muscles that just go to sleep on me, I would choose them going to sleep anytime.

I wish I understood what triggers all these sensations and actions, sometimes I know it is stress or something else that has happened, but for the most, I just have to get on with them. What I do now know about the muscle tightening episodes is they all start the same way, I thought I had it worked out in the middle of last week, but it was also the point when I raised my medications and they stopped for a few days, so yes I am wondering about my meds again, but because it happened yesterday I can say totally without a doubt they start in my right leg. In fact, I can be even more precise about it, they start in the thigh muscle of my right leg like it is at this very second the muscles just start to tighten and it spreads through me from there. No matter how many times I have tried to take a break it at this point, I have always failed. Not even using the relaxation technique works unless I go and lie down first, I have tired over and over to make it work when I am sitting up, but I always fail, which I am guessing is because my spine isn’t relaxed unless I am in bed.

With everything that is happening right now I am going to make one more guess, I think that there is an answer and that it is a simple one, I have new lesions forming on my spine. The never ending diaphragm spasm, or hug, it’s occasional partners in my upper ribcage and lower abdomen, the pains in my side, the increase in bowel and bladder problems, the continual tightening of muscles and a few other smaller things, all point to it. My progression in the last year has been marked and doesn’t seem to be slowing down, I don’t need a neuro to tell me this because it has been a long time coming and not unexpected in any way. For me, it is more of what next that bothers me, not why it has already done what it has and that is all they can ever tell you.

 

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 29/06/12 – How are you? 

It is going to be one of those days, I can see that already and it is only 10am. The District Nurse phoned to check I was OK and if I wanted her to come out and see me, I answered all her questions and said that I was fine, Sods Law they call it and I’m there again. I had been off the phone for maybe 15 mins and I started throwing up again, which was one of the reasons she called. The Doctor wasn’t happy about the fact I was sick on Saturday night and he didn’t think it was food poisoning and…..