Tag: chronic illness

A Little Bit of Magnesium Goes a Long Way!

Bones

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I have been feeling, as a general rule, more achy and grizzly these past few weeks.  I’d put it all down to the stress – both mental, emotional, and physical – of moving and getting set up in a new place, unpacking, and the terror of finding out my exam is this week, not next week as I had thought.

I asked my flatmate if I could borrow some of his epsom salts for a bath on one particularly painful day, and we got to discussing how the primary benefit of the epsom salts is the high magnesium content, and the absorption of it across the skin.  Well I hopped out of that bath feeling a million bucks!  The lovely non-achy feeling continued until the next day, but by the one after that I was a little bundle of aches again.

I finally got my hands back on some magnesium supplements.  Magnesium was something I was taking, along with numerous other supplements, a few months ago, but stopped due to the expense of maintaining the high level of supplementation and the need to spend that money on other things.  Stopping magnesium turned out to be a stupid move.

I’ve started back up with my relatively high dose of magnesium (I think it was 1000mg or something like that) and I think I’m feeling a difference already.  I may do another epsom salt bath in celebration after this exam just to really kick things off.

It just reiterated the importance of appropriate supplementation, especially of magnesium, when you have chronic pain.  So magnesium is a pretty awesome mineral.  It has an essential role in regulating muscle contraction, blood pressure, and insulin metabolism, among other things.  It helps with nerve transmission and neuromuscular coordination.  It also plays a protective role in preventing over excitation of the nerves, thus preventing neuronal death.

There was a study testing the administration of magnesium (300mg) and amitriptyline (10mg) or just magnesium across a small number of women with fibromyalgia, and all noted a reduction in tender points and reduction in pain.

Because of its wide ranging positive influences on the nervous system, magnesium is really something I should have kept on with, and it’s probably something you should try, as well.  It’s a good thing to have at night, as it also helps with sleep.  I always notice a reduced time between head hitting pillow and unconsciousness when I’m on magnesium.

Stepping Down on Tegretol SUCKS

Bones

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It’s been almost a week since I reduced my dose of Tegretol from twice a day to once a day, and my body is still acclimatising.

The first day was excruciating.  I couldn’t think, had no balance, everything hurt (including my face).  My skin was overly sensitive and every sensation was unpleasant or painful.  My team took one look at me and said go home.  I sat down and did some work, but then gratefully took them up on their suggestion and went home to curl up on the couch and watch my latest high value distraction: Mind Hunter.

The second day was a bit better.  I no longer felt like every part of my body was on fire with fever aches.  I didn’t have much balance, and in fact I sat back from interacting directly with the horses during our practical session due to this, but I was more alive than day one.

I’m now almost a week in.  I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with a minor cold or something of that ilk, as I’ve got the heavy duty fever aches, extreme lethargy, and overall fogginess.  While this is a symptom of my fibromyalgia, it’s usually reserved for ‘coming down with something’ rather than ‘you’ve done too much’.

I will not be getting acupuncture this week, as my acupuncturist has had a family emergency.  I’ll see if I can get two acupuncture treatments in next week or the week after, whenever he’s back, to hit the trigeminal neuralgia hard.  It’s been acting up a bit on one tegretol, and I’d like to settle it back down.

As you may be able to see, my thoughts are still sluggish and somewhat disjointed.  I’m going to blame that on the plague rather than the tegretol, and have a nap.

Acupuncture as an Adjunct Treatment for Trigeminal Neuralgia

Bones

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Since being diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, it went from bad to worse.  Even with the maximum dosage of Pregabalin and a thrice-a-day dose of Tegretol, the pain in my face was an almost constant 8-9 out of 10.  I like the following pain scale, because it also shows my mental state.

15 Pain Scales (And How To Find The Best One For You) | PainDoctor.com

Not only was I reeling from the Tegretol, but I was almost incapacitated with facial pain, which somehow is so much worse than pain in something further away.  I was taking huge quantities of medications designed to control this pain and it just wasn’t working.

So I put all my hopes on a blood vessel touching my trigeminal nerve somewhere so they could perform microvascular decompression, which is this really cool brain surgery where they stick a little sponge between the blood vessel and the trigeminal nerve and voila, around about 7 years of no pain!

The MRI showed up nothing.  Everything was fine.  Nothing was even vaguely touching the trigeminal nerve.  There was no explanation for why I had trigeminal neuralgia.

I had a complete meltdown.  I was really banking on the MRI showing something, and it didn’t.

The next day I booked in for acupuncture.  I have now had three acupuncture sessions, and I’m just about to go to my fourth.

After the first acupuncture session my pain went down to a 2-3.  I stopped taking my midday Tegretol, so I was down to twice-a-day Tegretol.  After my second acupuncture session, my pain went down to a 1-2.  I was moving that week, so every once in a while I would have a flare up to a 7.  The CBD Living Freeze (they don’t pay me for this shout out) has been a godsend for these flareups.  I roll it all over my face, fan the eucalyptus and menthol fumes away from my eyeballs (it buuuuuurns), and my face feels normal again!

I have a mild worming pain across my zygomatic arch right now, and a bit of a bone eating sensation in my jaw, but the consistent pain rarely gets above a 3.  As I said before, I am just about to go to my fourth acupuncture session, and once my nerves have settled down from that I shall drop my Tegretol down to once a day.

My goal is to completely come off Tegretol and regain my brain and my waistline!

How The *Bleep* Do You Exercise With Fibromyalgia?

Bones

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The short answer is:  very slowly and very carefully.

The long answer is:  well…

I don’t really have all of the answers, I only have the answers that have worked for me, and I have a slightly higher than normal baseline fitness, so I’ll tone it down a bit more.

On a side note, I don’t think I’ve ever looked that happy to be exercising.  Or that good while doing it.  I’ve never enjoyed exercise, especially running, because it causes so much pain.  But these days, alarmingly, I’ve been running.  It still causes so much pain but I balance it by doing a day of running and a day or two of non-impact leg exercises.

So here’s how I have found exercising works:

Do Some Sit-Ups

Park your butt, shove your feet under a sofa or a chair or something, and lower your back a little bit.  Don’t let your back hit the floor!  It’s so much harder to do a sit up from there than it is from just above it!

Lower your back to the point you’re capable of, even if it’s only to a 45 degree angle with the ground, stick your arms across your chest like you’re imitating Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus, and haul yourself back up to your knees.  Do that … twice.  Maybe three times.  It’s your first day, you’re gonna do other stuff.

You’re also allowed to cheat if you’re having difficulty.  Use the fact that your feet are under a weighted object to leverage yourself back up.  You’re still using your muscles!

Don’t Do Push-Ups

I’ve found these just too much, personally.  Even though I’m lifting weights (hahaha look at me, ‘lifting weights’, I’m lifting a 6kg dumbbell 10-20 times a day), and even cheating, the I can do maybe three.

If you can do them, good on you, but honestly I’d skip these ones.

Lift Weights

Yes, you too can get the rippling muscles of a body builder!

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Although I’d maybe hold off on quite so many weights.

Get yourself a set of 0.5 or 1kg weights.  The cheap ones that are all hard plastic and such.  If you’re feeling like splashing out, get yourself a set of light dumbbells, too!

Hold those weights in your hand, stand with feet shoulder-width apart and your knees bent for support, and slowly lift one of your arms directly out from your side … without counter-balancing!  Tighten those stomach muscles!  Lift it until it’s in line with your shoulder if you can and hold it there for a few seconds, then slowly drop your arm back to your side.  Do it with the other arm.

Do your typical bicep curls.  Do just enough that you can feel the start of muscle burn or fatigue, and stop.

Then do this one:alora-griffiths-LOnMc8Rp1Qs-unsplash

I don’t know what it’s called.  I actually half climb onto my sofa or my arm chair to do this.  I have one knee braced on the sofa cushions and the corresponding arm on the sofa arm, my other foot on the floor, and I swap around with each side.  It takes all the strain off my hips and legs and allows me to just focus on my arm.

Lift Those Legs

I did pilates a long, long time ago.  Whenever I can’t run, whether that’s because I’m having a bit of a painful day, or it’s peeing it down with rain, I lift my legs.

I lie on my side with my spine straight and my hips straight up from the floor – if you’re doing this, spend time feeling, with your hand, where your hips are in relation to the floor.  You want those hip bones stacked on top of one another.

I bend my leg on the floor a bit for stability and use my free arm to brace.  I then slowly raise my other leg up, sometimes as high as I can take it, other times just a little bit, and then let it slowly back down.  When I started, I could barely lift my leg, and that’s okay.

If I’m feeling really game I’ll even do circles with my leg, but I’ll do them really slowly so my body doesn’t rock around.  The aim of the game is for your body to remain completely stable while you’re doing all these things with your legs, so only do what you can do!

Stretch

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This is probably the most important think you can do with fibromyalgia.  A lot of the pain is from stiff muscles, because when we’re sore, we don’t want to do anything.  In particular, a considerable amount of pain is from our stiff backs.  I physically roll out of bed each morning because I cannot ‘get up’ like a normal person.  I’m lucky enough that my bed is almost waist-height, so when I roll out of bed, I can just stand up.

This takes a lot of time to un-stiffen, and doing exercise or stretches with a stiff back is painful, so wait for your body to wake up before you do any of this.

But make up your own stretches.  Stretch your arms out in front of you and arch your back.  Stretch your arms out to the side of you and really open up your chest.  Wiggle your hips!  As you’re sitting on the couch, push your leg out to the side and flex and extend your foot.  Or just straighten your legs and flex and extend your foot.  Rotate your foot around the ankle axis.  Bend your leg and open and close it to work your hip.

Stand up, bend your knees, and slowly (very very slowly, and only after you’ve been awake and moving for quite some time!) reach for the floor.  If you don’t have that much balance, do it while you’re sitting!  Park your butt near the edge of the couch, straighten your legs out, and slowly reach for your toes.  Keep your head down as you are stretching down – your neck is part of your spine!  You want to keep that spine in line!

Walk

Even if it’s pottering about at home, or in the garden, get up and walk.  Even on your worst days, spend a few minutes on your feet.  Yes, going to the bathroom counts as walking!

Cheat

Can’t fully do an exercise?  Cheat!  Make it easier!  Half-arse it!  Change the exercise to suit where you’re at!

If you’re struggling with the weight lifting, just hold the weights!  Spend a few minutes each day tightening your arm muscles and loosening them again (I’d suggest doing this with your elbows bent).

Can’t lift your leg?  That’s totally okay!  Bend both of your legs and stack your feet on top of one another and open your legs like a clamshell like that.  Can’t do that?  Sweet as!  Make something up.

Having a bad day?  Just stretch!

Got a spot that always hurts?  Do exercises around that spot.  For me it’s my hips – they always burn.  So I do exercises that stretch my hips, but don’t involve me putting much strain on them.

Yes, it’s going to hurt

Start off only doing one or two things a day.  Do that for a few days, and if you’re not hurting more than usual, do a bit more.  Build up from there.  If you go in whole hog you’re gonna hurt like nothing on earth and you’re not going to exercise.  But if you do one or two things a day, and build up from there, you’ll find that within a few weeks you’re able to do more.

And the way I see it, I’m going to hurt anyway, a little bit more pain isn’t going to make much difference.

Three Days Post Acupuncture

Bones

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Last weekend I had been suffering greatly, and even that is an understatement.  All three branches of my trigeminal nerve on my right face were aching constantly.  My nose was set to a permanent state of burning cold.  My zygomatic arch and brow just ached so much my eyelids were significantly more closed than usual.  There’s a continuation of the first branch that I didn’t know about until it shot up from my eyebrow straight up my forehead.  Ouch, right?

Then there was my third branch, the one that goes down my mandible.  The usual hole was being eaten into my jaw, and then I had burning aches in my chin, up my jaw, the works.

The pre-branched part of my trigeminal nerve wasn’t letting the branches one up it either, it was screaming pain, making it very difficult to put my glasses on, and woe betide me should anything graze the side of my face!

Because of all this, my fibromyalgia was up.  I was incredibly stiff in the morning, and very painful to move around, all the way up until the early afternoon.  Everything was giving me hell.

I had acupuncture.

For the rest of that day, my right trigeminal nerve was deeply confused, sending waves of peace, followed by crawling burning ache, then stabbing pain.  But I was getting peace.  I myself was pretty out of it so I spent the day doing not much at all and went to sleep early.

Day one after acupuncture was bliss.  My third branch wasn’t doing anything.  This is the one that’s been eating away my jaw almost since my trigeminal neuralgia kicked up a notch in June.  It was gone.  My first branch across my brow ridge was aching, but nothing like before.  I could actually think again!  I had no shooting pains, nothing.

Day two after acupuncture was also pretty rad.  A little bit more pain was coming through, but not much.  The pre-branching trigeminal nerve was aching a bit, my brow was still aching, but that was about it.

Day three after acupuncture things are sadly getting back to almost normal.  The pre-branching trigeminal nerve is hurting a lot, my brow is aching up to the middle of it, my jaw is being eaten away, and my nose is starting to turn to ice.  I don’t think it’s as bad as it was before, pain wise, but it’s still debilitating enough that I’m just wanting to go back to sleep (instead I’m just about to quaff my third coffee in 1.5 hours – STUDY STOPS FOR NO ONE).

Still, this was a fantastic experiment.  It shows to me that acupuncture can have a serious positive affect on my trigeminal neuralgia.  I’ll report all of this to my acupuncturist on Monday when I see him next and we shall try something else.  We’re just going to keep going to see what sticks!