Archive for the ‘pain’ Category
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
“Life has got to be lived-that’s all there is to it. At seventy, I would say that advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that “this,too, shall pass!”, Eleanor Roosevelt
In my book I write about the confusion in the research regarding whether or not fibromyalgia improves (or not) with aging. I now know that there is no easy answer to that question and that it may improve for some but for many the opposite is true. Aging brings about its own aches, pains and fatigue that often cannot be differentiated from those of fibromyalgia. In fact, both may be exacerbated as one ages.
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Posted in 40 year olds, 50 year olds, brain changes, brain scans, eleanor roosevelt, fatigue and aches, Fibromyalgia, highly sensitive persons, menopause, neuroplasticity, older women, pain, personality types, pessimism, responses to crises, senior citizen, surgery, thanksgiving | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
” My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves”, Socrates
Fibromyalgia does not allow for any kind of scientific tests to aid in making the diagnosis of the syndrome. It is not a disease, but a broad spectrum of ‘symptoms’ which appear to be somewhat universal, that is, primarily pain, fatigue, sleeplessness and often depression.
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Posted in American College of Rheumatologists, anxiety, autism, bio-feedback, christof koch, Dr. Fredrick Wolfe, Fibromyalgia, Gerald Grot and Allan Horwitz, highly sensitive persons, mind/body, mood rings, negative psycho-social emotions, neuro-ethicists, pain, pharmaceuticals, philosophers, positive psycho-social emotions, restless legs, science of consciousness, sleeplessness | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
“Memory, the warder of the brain”, William Shakespeare
This is it!!! In my view this is the most significant in-sight I have had about the pain of fibromyalgia. It has been a long and interesting journey beginning with my book in which I laid the foundation about why women are more prone to developing FMS and my conclusion that it is actually caused by an over-aroused nervous system. However, while this was the first step, and the primary one, more has been revealed to me and I am very excited over the unlimited hope there could be for us all. I still don’t have all the answers and it may be that I am presenting information that is not quite accurate, but it has been a steep learning curve and requires much un-learning, which is said to be more difficult than learning. It all began with my physiotherapist, Nick Matheson who brought me to a path which I had never travelled down before, that is, to explore the relationship of pain and the brain, rather than looking simply at fibromyalgia as the result of a hyper-aroused nervous system. The journey down this path is not yet complete so I welcome comments from others who are more learned in this domain than I am.
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Posted in activity diary, adrenalin and cortisol, adrenals, aleksandr luria, autonomic nervous system, body/brain/emotions, body/mind/spirit, calm the nervous system, catastrophizing, central nervous system, Craig Hassed, Daniel Amen, David Butler and Lorimer Moseley, Diane Jacobs and Nick Matheson, diaphragmatic breathing, Dr. Bud Craig, emotions, empath, Fibromyalgia, imagery, interoceptive pathway, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Kalu Rinpoche, memory, michael merzenich, mind and brain, mindfulness meditation, movement, norman doidge, overly empathetic, pain, parasympathetic nervous system, paul bach-y-rita, peripheral nervous system, peter goodman, plasticity of the brain, psychological techniques, R, reconceptualize the problem, reframing, responding rather than reacting, Richard Davidson, sandra and matthew blakeslee, sympathetic nervous system, the brain and fibromyalgia, The Wellcome Trust, training the brain, women and fibromyalgia | 6 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2008
“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours”, Mark Twain 
Well, here it is! Only ten days until it’s officially spring! One would never know it living as I do in Nova Scotia. One day it is -10C and the next day it can go up as high as +10C. Then it snows again but the next day it rains. Some days there may be sun; often it is dreary and dark. Erratic weather like this is the worst for me and results in flare-ups of fibromyalgia. I can awaken in the middle of the night knowing that a storm is approaching as my body is quivering with pain and light-headed dis-ease.
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Posted in Atlantic ocean, brain fog, calming the nervous system, changing seasons, cold, dampness, extreme heat, fatigue, Fibromyalgia, fog, humidity, keep moving, muscle inflammation, pain, physiotherapy, rain, sleeplessness, strengthening muscles, wind | 2 Comments »
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
“Sometimes questions are more important than answers” , Nancy Willard. 
One of the major challenges that many people with FMS face is depression. The question that I pose here is which of the major daily struggles of living with fibromyalgia come first? Which of the ‘Gang of Four’ symptoms: pain, sleeplessness, fatigue or depression (the four most common plagues of fibromyalgia) first precipitates the vicious cycle ?
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Posted in Arthur Frank, Arthur Kleinman, coping, Dana Jack, depression, DSM-IV, fatigue, Fibromyalgia, medications, melancholy, moodaltering medications, pain, Silencing the Self Women and Depression, sleeplessness, suffering | 3 Comments »
