At the age of 48, I am now in a place in my life where my health is somewhat challenging. Living with chronic pain and neurological issues has really made me simplify my life. As a bit of a background, I will tell you that I do have cerebral palsy. This is something I have lived with since birth and the limitations associated with it are all I have ever known. When I am talking about my health now, I do take into account how the cerebral palsy has an impact. Simply put, if I didn't have the the preexisting condition of cerebral palsy, I probably wouldn't have the chronic pain issues that I have now. That said, when I am talking about making my health a priority, I am talking about the chronic pain and the new limitations it creates and the best ways to cope with them.
When you have been used to being a very active and independent person, the idea that you can no longer be that person because you are in so much pain is very frustrating. Some people use the term body betrayal. This is when your body is no longer able to function the way that it was and you feel betrayed by the loss. And I can tell you I felt very betrayed by my body. It has been a feeling of losing even more than I already had. Living with cerebral palsy has always been a challenge, but I was fortunate that my condition was mild and that my body has settled into a nice comfortable existence. The new challenges posed by chronic pain, numbness and tingling in my hands, and the brain fog ment that I was back to square one. I had to find new work arounds to deal with these latest limitations.
It has been a very long time since I truly felt limited. While I am aware that compared to other people, I do have limitations, I have always been able to find a work around so that I could manage. With chronic pain, I found it much more difficult because the pain is different every day. You never know what is going to come, or how bad is going to be, or when you might have a good day and feel almost normal.
With the chronic pain also comes a sense of numbness in my fingers and hands. So I may plan to write on my blog tomorrow, but then I may wake up feeling very painful and unable to feel the keyboard. When the pain and numbness are at the highest I have discovered that I just need to take the day off and rest, but there's more to the chronic pain and numbness than just the physicalness of it. I find that chronic pain and the uncomfortable sensations that come with it can deplete me of my energy. This depletion means that I have to work for shorter periods of time or that I have to do less things in a given day than I would have done before. In essence, I was being forced to slow down. When this first started happening I would get very irritated. I hate the idea of wasting time and not getting things done. I also knew that there has to be a reason for the symptoms I was having. So now, on top of not being able to do as much as I once did, I have to make time for medical appointments.
The other thing with chronic pain is that it changes your thinking pattern. Some people use the term brain fog. This is a very good way to express it, as you may know what you need to do but you cannot get focused enough to organize yourself to get through all of the things you need to do. Brain fog became another reason why I needed to slow down.
For me, it was important to realize that all these symptoms, chronic pain, numbness, tangling and brain fog were increased by stress. So the more I tried to push it, the worse things got.
The most important things I did to slow down were:
Rest when my body was tired or sore.
Keep a to do list, but flexible about it. Show myself the same compassion as I would, someone else struggling with chronic pain.
Learn to rearrange my schedule in accordance with my chronic pain, numbness and tingling, and brain fog.
Work for shorter periods. Do 3 or 4 readings rather than 7.
Work lying down or in more comfortable positions, using my phone or tablet rather than my desktop computer when necessary.
Use voice dictation software to decrease the amount of typing that I needed to do. The software is not perfect but it does allow me to get things done and give my hands a break.
When dealing with doctors, be persistent until we find something that works. Keep notes about what triggers pain, numbness and tingling and what seems to alleviate these symptoms.
Use natural treatments in combination with allopathic medicine. The rule is it is my body and I know my body better than anyone. Use whatever will work to relieve aggravating symptoms and allow for an improved quality of life.
Eat and drink simple foods. Cut back on sugar, gluten, dairy, spices. Drink more water and avoid alcohol. In a perfect world, it would be wonderful to eliminate sugar, glutin, dairy, spices and alcohol, but I am the first to admit it is not easy to do that. So rather than beat myself up for what I haven't done, cutting back is better than not doing anything at all.
For me putting my health first is a daily process. Some days I will do better than others. The most important thing is to listen to my body and try to do what is needed in the moment.
In the next blog post, I will discuss finding a better work life balance and cutting down on work when necessary even when that does not seem possible. How I was forced to cut down on work and how this helped me to decrease my chronic pain and other symptoms is very important.
