Skip to main content

Pain, it's good?

Pain is good, right?  It alarms us when something is wrong and we need to take action.  So, it is good, right?

Well, something has been going wrong in my body for the last almost 15 years now I and I still have not figured out that cause.  Leaving me deemed, a chronic pain patient, lost between doctors.

In the last 6 months I have made more progress than I have in years.  I have poured money, time, energy, visited lots of doctors, had many tests done, had surgeries and procedures, and heard lots of opinions.  That didn't seem to bring me further than around the block, so I decided to look at what goes into my body- food, supplements, etc.

So far I have taken out and discover that the following triggers pain (headaches, facial pain, jaw pain, neck pain, anxiety or depression): gluten, diary, sugar, caffeine, soybeans, Brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts, sesame seeds, any artificial sweetener, Melatonin, and additives.

This process has been difficult (to be kind and gentle on my word usage) as I have had to eliminate things and re-introduce them, triggering pain.  As of late I have had a headache for 3 weeks that has not budged, luckily, I believe I have found this cause and the headache is dissipating.

But, pain is good, right?

It is.

Pain is my indicator, my gauge.  My guide.  My bodies way of telling me- yes or no.

But seriously, pain.  Is there no other way?

This is the main reason why I have taken up such a passion in mental health.  How can someone not be driven nuts with pain for some many years?   It motivated me to become a licensed Recreational Therapist, seek out many therapist to learn from, and eventually I'll go back to gain more initials behind my name in more schooling I desire.

Sometimes I am sad, overwhelmed, angry, confused.... but, I am happy now, despite my chronic pain. I have learned invaluable tools to choose happiness and to work through the emotions pain brings.

So, in those moments I have pain, I need to remember it is my gauge, my internal message board letting me know yes or no.  Eventually, I'll work through my chronic pain causes and in the mean time I can say thank you to pain.  As difficult as it is, it is needed to get me the answers I need.

Thank you,

Progress

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To: A World Within

When I pick up my son from the child watch at the gym, I enjoy watching him play before I interrupt his flow.  Sometimes I get lucky and get welcomed into his world that he is envisioning and experiencing. As we grow older the ability to jump from our present world into a made up one in our mind diminishes and we are "stuck" here.  Perhaps can I say we jump into a worried future (anxiety) or into an unpleasant past (depression), much more often than diving into a playful imaginative world. We still have that ability.  Children have a wonderful way about them keeping harmony within themselves.  Not only are they playing, but wonderful physiological changes occur within their body as they are lost conquering pirates or being the finest of princesses. When you are physically laying upon the beaches of the Caribbean your body is able to absorb from its senses and by doing so, your equilibrium is balanced.  Smelling the fresh air, feeling the warm sand, tasting...

To: In the Minds Eye

My mom and I went to a meditation class and the instructor used the phrase, "in the minds eye" about a million times during the class. For my mom it made her feel like she wanted to squirm out of her seat.  She    r e a l l y   needed a new phrase.  But for me, it really made me ponder what was in my "mind's eye".  "Mind's eye" refers to the human ability to visualize, i.e., to experience visual imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things with the mind. A few posts ago I wrote about sleep training babies. What is in our mind's eye, or another word, what is our focus when sleep training our babies? Our minds eye changes according to the priority we have in any given problem we are trying to overcome.  A friend asked me my advice on how to help her children sleep.  After discussing the problems we concluded quickly it was not the children's problem, it was a parenting problem.  Many times our children's prob...