Keep educating yourself on pain remedies

I have to admit, these have not been the best weeks of my life. Neck and shoulder pains were rearing their ugly heads. The resulst were severe pain in that neck and headaches that on some days made it impossible to even get out of bed. On days like these even my belief in positive thinking is stretched to it's limits and I have to admit that on one day it completely failed. After that day it was time to act!

I sat myself down and started thinking about solutions. Also talked to some good friends to cheer myself up.
Fact is that I am getting more headaches in the mornings now and getting up extremely sore. I know my matras is a good one and not too old so I am ruling that out. Then we come to cushion and that I am not sure off. So time for research. I have included a youtube video I found. [Sorry it is in Dutch but maybe the images speak for itself] It tought me something I did not know. I thought that I had a healthy sleeping habit sleeping on my side and using a cushion with neck support. But.. my cushion has been outdated by new technology and sleeping on my side is not as healthy as I thought it was. When you sleep your body relaxes and you sink into a 3/4 belly position which puts a lot of strain on your neck muscles. Best thing is to sleep with a sleep rol which supports your knees and your upper arm. This way your neck stays in alligment with the rest of your body. I tried it out with an old cushion just to support my upper arm and the difference was remarkable!  Already it gave pain relief.


So now I am going to get new cushions as soon as possible. What I want to share here is: know your body! If a new kind of pain joins, do not accept it without research. Be a detective and try to figure out a solution. Either alone, with friends or with therapists and doctors. [never do something invasive without talking to a doctor first!] Even with older pain, technology never stops. Keep searching and willing to try new remedies. And never give up hope! Life is too good.

 

login2life living in a virtual world

I first became aware of this documentary during the 3rd virtual conference on counseling organised by Counselor Education in Second Life. Immediatly I was enthusiastic and noted down the air date of the documentary. It aired on ZDF [german tv] on monday the 17th of october. The reason that I am blogging a day early this week is that you can still watch it online for free until sunday evening. This is the link. If this subject interests you at all, I would urge you to do so. It's nearly 90 minutes long and don't be put off by the fact that it is German. Most of the documentary is in English, so you will be able to follow most of what is going on.
 
Now what is it all about? Filmmaker Daniel Moshel followed some people from all over the world who spend parts of their lives in virtual worlds and made a documentary about them. Last year I watched a documentary that highlighted the negative aspects of such a lifestyle and it was refreshing to see that login2life stresses the postives.

The focus is on two virtual worlds. One a gaming environment, World of Warcraft [WoW] and  Second Life [SL]. For those who don't know. SL allows you to make an avatar and then explore the many many worlds with that avatar. So it really comes close to a 'second life' especially with how fast technology is growing.

The documentary follows a few people active on WoW and doing more than just gaming. There is someone who makes movies involving Wow characters. Another swedish gamer talks about being in one of the best guilds in the game and what that means in his life. 2 stories moved me the most. A young chinese man who was up in the middle of the night collecting gold which he sold to other people and who actually made a living in the real world this way. He was just scraping by and his whole bio rythm was disturbed because he was online most nights. The other was a young man from the US who had been paralyzed in a car accident and could only work the computer with his mouth. It made me smile that he would tell those he defeated that they were defeated by a criple and the joy it gave him to be able to do this with his avatar. He was able to live out dreams that he would never be able again in the 'real' world.

The other part focussed on SL. Here the mother of the paralyzed young man would read parts of the story she had written about her life as a caregiver. There was a German musician giving great concerts to an audience all over the world. A man selling sex aides on SL, it was very funny to see how they had to make the movements so it could be translated digitally. :) The most moving part of the whole documentary for me was the story of Alice, gentle heron in SL. She is a woman from the US with MS. This makes life in the 'real' world harder and harder and movement gets harder with this disease. But she lives another life online, making friends and doing much more than that! She has actually set up a community in SL where people with disability can meet and learn how to enjoy themselves in SL. If you are interested to learn more follow this link.

This shows that even if you cannot move much or are bedridden, there is a world out there on the computer where you can make new friends and even live out some of your dreams if you are open to it!



So if you have time before monday, please go and have a look at this extraordinary documentary.

budget tips

I read an article in the local newspaper [Gouda] this morning that prompted this blog post.

I think money is a significant topic for people with chronic pain. They are sometimes hampered by not being able to work full time or not be able to work at all. So some of you are going to run into the problem of having to cut the expenses.

Debt? Doesn’t it frighten us all, to not have enough money to make it to the end of the month? More and more people get into trouble because of the current economic situation. But is that all?

I think not. Whole generations grew up in a land of plenty. For almost twenty years you could switch jobs when it suited you and employers wanted to have you. During this time the world we lived in changed drastically as well. Older generations were happy with so much less. They had a tv, a landline phone and a car, that was pretty much it. Nowadays we want and expect so much more from life. At least one computer in the house, a mobile phone for every family member[smartphone of course] I-pods, e-readers the list goes on.

At the same time many of us were not taught to really handle money well. Another difference with olden days is that we all have bank passes and credit cards. Isn’t it easy to spend that money and completely forgot we did so, only to come in for a nasty shock at the end of the month.  How many people would know what they spend each month if you ask them on the street?

There are a few key points to sticking to a budget:

• ·         Know how much you have coming in each month

• ·         Calculate how much you need to spend each month on essentials, so you know how much you have left over to indulge yourself with or maybe put it away for emergencies

• ·         Keep a record on everything you spend.

• ·         Try to use cash and not your cards when you spend money. For example give yourself a weekly budget, if the cash is gone, you know you need to stop.

• ·         Do not go over the limit on your bank cards or credit cards. Being overdrawn on those cards is one of the most expensive things there is.

• ·         Do not buy anything on a credit card if you know you will not be able to pay for it.

Another tip:

Every year at the end of the year I print out my bank statements of the previous year and go through them item for item. You would be amazed how many things creep up that you don’t really use or are not interested in any more.

I then spend some time cancelling my subscriptions to all such items earning myself a little more pocket cash each year.

Emotional shopping:

This is where it gets really hard. Some people react to hard times by rewarding themselves with goods or food. This helps for a short while but in the end it only makes matters worse when they realise how much they have spend. Money they did not have in the first place.

So helping people stick to a budget should involve more than just learning how to handle the figures. It should also involve looking at the reasons behind the spending. Helping them find healthier methods of coping with hard times besides spending the money.

 If you have any other tips on how to save money, please share them by leaving comments. I love to hear back from you.

Book review :Me and my pain

A little while ago I was looking around a website that sold cheaper e-books. A friend had given me this tip. The website is called smashwords and indeed it has lower priced and even free e-books in many categories and e-book formats. While I was filling in the keywords that interrest me, I came across the following book.
"Me and my pain - the challenges of living with chronic pain" by Abbey Strauss. As it was only 2$ and it seemed pretty interresting I decided to download it and give it a try.

I must say those were 2$ well spend. This book really focusses on one of the challenges of living with pain. And that is the challenge of making people [especially doctors] believe in our pain. With so many of us you don't see on the outside that we are almost always in pain. And medical tests can't find a reason for the pain. How often have you heard "Maybe it is more a mental problem", seen in doctor's eyes that they don't really believe you. In this book is advocated for doctors and patients to be honest to each other and to believe in one another. Pain that is not understood and not acknowledged can drive people to suicide. Patients can feel they have tried anything and nobody understands what is going on.

The sections on addiction are really strong. A lot of pain patients are wronly labeled addicts because they take a lot of painkillers to get through the day. He explains very well that this is not the case. If the pain would go away so would the painkillers. 

I found the following section of the book very striking.

These are the rules a patient must

follow:

Pain patients can’t have personality

disorders; if they do then the pain is not quite as real.

Pain patients can’t be depressed over their

stations in life; if they weren’t as depressed, then the pain would

be less.

Pain patients can’t be angry at, or want

compensation from, those who wrongly injured them; if they do then

the pain is not as quite as real, or it is amplified just so they

can get a larger money settlement.

Pain patients can’t have insomnia; the reason

they can’t sleep is because they have not learned enough

self-hypnosis or haven’t accepted their condition.

Pain patients can’t have anxiety or phobic

disorders requiring certain medications; they aren’t allowed to

have more than one curse in life needing treatment.

Pain patients can’t have different or

individual medication tolerances; if they do not fit within the

normal dosing ranges, then they are addicts or placebo

responders.

Pain patients can’t have more pain than the

doctor allows; if they do then they are manipulative.

Pain patients can’t have good moods; they

have to be miserable and complaining all the time.

Pain patients have to always be sick; they

can’t have good days and bad days.

Pain patients can’t have a good day without

everyone thinking the patient is finally learning to live with the

pain, or that the pain is at last vanishing forever.

Pain patients can’t disappoint people by

having a bad day after a good day.

Pain patients can’t look good; if they look

good, then the pain can’t be so disabling or menacing.

Pain patients can’t respond to hope when they

get good news; their demeanor cannot improve or change because to

do so lessens the believability of the pain’s intensity, constancy,

intolerance, and presence.

Pain patients can’t be skeptical; they aren’t

allowed to question new or proposed treatment decisions based on

their real prior experiences as pain patients.

Pain patient’s can’t have other people steal

their medications; being victimized, even one time, by a theft is

too quickly considered as an indicator of the patient’s

irresponsibility, even for those who are generally very

responsible patients.

Pain patients have to be average; if they are

too smart then they are too ‘pushy’.

Pain patients can’t be normal like the rest

of us; why should they find it easier to deal with pain, or even

stop smoking cigarettes, than anyone else?

Pain patients can’t believe in alternative

life styles; if they do then they cannot be as trusted, or they

might be considered as odd or eccentric. Such eclecticism can be

initially spooky and uncomfortable for many who treat these

patients.

Pain patients can’t be diagnostic oddities;

if their illness can’t be labeled, then it’s too quickly re-painted

as psychosomatic.

Pain patients can’t be picky; they aren’t

allowed to want other than second string doctors.

Pain patients can’t take up too much of the

doctor’s time; if they do then they might become too erudite,

insistent, or burdensome, and this may frighten the doctor

away.

Pain patients can’t shop, cook and clean; if

they do then they are not in that much pain—but, by the way, who

will do these chores for them?

Pain patients have to like everyone the

insurance company sends to care for them; if they don’t like

everyone, then they are obviously non-cooperative and

thankless.

Pain patients have to be meek; if they

aren’t, then they don’t genuinely treasure all the good that others

are trying to do for them.

Pain patients can’t know their history better

than their records; they aren’t supposed to be upset when wrong or

incomplete data and inaccurate conclusions are put into their

medical records.

Pain patients can’t feel the double bind: “if

I tell him the other doctors were wrong then he’ll think I’m too

much of a smart ass, but if I don’t tell him how the other doctors

were wrong, then we may start with the wrong clinical impression

of me, which is why I am here in the first place, to have a doctor

get it right....”

Pain patients have to know magic; they are

expected to take the cash won in a lawsuit, wrap it around the

painful part of their bodies, and make the pain go away. They are

the only people for whom money can buy happiness or cure pain.

Pain patients have to get better; if they

don’t, then doctors may not continue to treat them for the parts of

the problem that don’t get better.

Pain patients have to ‘learn to get used to

it’; this must be done with the same enthusiasm, gusto and

savoir-faire of someone getting used to being poor.

Pain patients can’t answer ‘how are you?’

with ‘fine’; for to say ‘fine’ is thought to mean that they are

better.

Pain patients can’t choose to sacrifice; if

they ever do something one day because of the emotional joy of

doing it despite the pain penalty payable afterwards, then they

can’t obviously be in that much pain.

Pain patients have to perfect; I guess that

means they can’t be human.

I don't think the situation here in Europe when it comes to getting the right medication is as bad as it is in the US. But still I found this very striking.

All in all I thought the book was a bit too long and there was a bit of repetition and the examples of people in trouble about getting the right medication went on and on. But in the end it was a very usefull book. It strongly advocates the rights of pain patients to be believed and to be helped! Every person has the right to the best life they can lead. For me that means pain patients have the right to medication they truly need and help from therapists to help them get the most out of life under difficult circumstances.