Feeling electric!

It's been a pretty intense year. After spending 2010 working mostly on this blog and my book, this year I have been in worse shape physically - and have had time for reflection. After I got the grant to start a Norwegian blog about the health care system  I've been getting more involved in politics concerning chronic disease, patients rights and freedom of choice. With more pain, there is less energy, and I've also had to rethink many of my viewpoints on chronic disease and the biomedical paradigm (which I used to criticize abundantly). Things are changing, and I guess I'm learning and developing.

Today is a great day, because I've just received a new shipment of TENS electrodes from my sister in Austin. My last TENS electrodes were wearing thin already in May, and with a new cold season approaching and rapidly increasing pain levels I've been trying to get new ones, but they are hard to come by and ridiculously expensive here in Scandinavia. But with some help from my globetrotting family I have now received 48 new electrodes, which should keep me supplied for atleast a year:

These things aren't easy to find where I live...
but they work wonders for my chronic pain!

So for the next few months I'll be wired and electrified daily. I wear the TENS unit while working, driving, reading, resting... whatever I need to do - and it immediately diminishes my pain and helps me keep intake of medication low. I'm training a lot these days, following a pretty strict physical regime with ashtanga yoga and physiotherapy and I hope that will help me manage to stay on my legs through the winter!

With the TENS on my belt I am fully mobile 

omg SPRING!!!

I walked underneath these cherry tree blossoms on my way to the office this morning... huge fluffy pink clouds of flowers... woooow :) reminds me that watching beautiful nature can provide pain relief. Now that summer is coming, I'm expecting - or hoping for - a significant decrease in muscle pain. 

As this has been a pretty bad winter pain-wise, I've been taking measures to take care of myself and get control of the pain spiral. Needing more rest, I've had to spend most of my energy on exercise, mental training and pain relief efforts. Apart from the cardio-workouts, frequent hot baths and cold showers, physical distraction, meditation, spiky rest on my endorphin producing accupressure mat, I've taken up morning yoga, and gone to some rather drastic measures when it comes to dietary changes (more about that later). 

Besides Kristine, my super-awesome PT who's helping me get in shape with a specialized training program, I have a new physiotherapist who is bullying me around these days. He's been zapping me for my posture and getting me started with the TENS unit again.

*phew* Living with a chronic ailment is pretty time consuming... and with three? Sometimes it seems like I hardly have time for anything else!

#328 Relieve back pain

About 80% of us have low back pain at some point in our life, and in 75% of the cases doctors can't find any specific reason for the pain, so there is no specific surgical or medical treatment. Meaning most of the time, we just have to learn to live with it.

Back pain has perhaps been my strongest and most recurring pain, and after undergoing three major operations to stabilize my crushed lower vertebrae it just is what it is. Sometimes it hurts like @%&#. Sometimes it's better.

Two weeks ago I wrote about preventing and reducing recurring back pain, and here are my best tips for relieving chronic back pain when it's there.

NB: These are only tips based on my personal experience in treating chronic recurring pack pain that has been properly examined by a doctor. This is not medical advice. Always check with your doctor if you have new pain or before you make any changes to your treatment.

1. Start with your mind. Tell yourself its not dangerous, repeat that everyone has back pain once in a while. Force yourself to smile,  calm your mind and repeat affirmations like "I'm safe. My back is stable. Everything is ok. This is going to go away really soon". Then do some deep breathing while you focus on relaxing all the muscles you can.

2. Heat works well if it a muscular pain that has no active inflammation (if you have recurring pain you know yourself which is right, ice pack or heat). Try a heat pack, hot bath or shower and wear wool close to your skin.

3. A good ointment or pain relieving balm plus whatever painkillers the doctor recommends you are essential to get the acute pain under control. If you have a TENS device now is the time to use it, if not consider getting one if you have recurring pain. Lying one one of those bed of nails mats also releases a lot of dopamine and endorphins which provide instant natural pain relief.

4. Try to keep moving if possible, gently patting your body to stimulate circulation, also stroking the skin to activate other nerves and trick your sensory system to block the pain. I have herniated discs and pinched nerves, so gentle traction therapy always helps temporarily. I do a rolling back massage and some gentle stretches as soon as I possibly can, and try working on my balance to not compensate in a way that will add increased strain on the back later. A good friend of mine completely cured her debilitating chronic back pain through yoga, though it may not be first on your to do list, consider it for prevention!

5. I've found that activating the nerves in my feet seem to distract and immediately reduce the back pain quite a bit, I don't know why. So foot treatment, foot massage, or wearing those painful spiky sandals can help relieve back pain too.

I hope some of these tips can help you next time the back pain strikes, or maybe just remind you of things you already know? As soon as the flare is over, go back to back pain prevention,  support your spine and try to build strong and balanced core muscles, that way you may avert future pain flares.

#154 Use the Action Circle

This is a model for implementing a successful proactive approach that I have learned from Stefan & Marcus at Universe Imagine.

Basically it boils down to four steps:

1: Focus on what you WANT
2: Start DOING stuff that brings you closer to what you want
3: LEARN from the reactions and feedback you encounter as you start doing stuff
4: CHANGE your approach according to the feedback...

... and then you're back at 1 again, but with new insight and experience... so it continues:

1: You focus on what you WANT, (for example being able to make it through a whole day without your pain getting above level 7)
2: You DO stuff that can help you attain your goal, fx moderate movement, setting boundaries, pacing yourself, TENS treatment, meditation etc etc
3: If the pain still gets out of hand you review what you've done and LEARN from your experience and...
4: CHANGE your plans the next day to see if a slightly different approach will help you get closer to your goal.

That way you are working with CANI, constant and never-ending improvement, making gradual progress to meet your goals. It means you take action, learn from what happens, adjust your approach and gradually improving your current situation.

PS: now that my year as manager and coach at the creative project management school in Arvika is over, I've planned a week of project management related healing tips:) I've found this action oriented way of thinking really helpful when it comes to healing, and I want to share it with you!

#54 TENS your body

You know what they say: "It's never too late to learn how to electrocute yourself!" or... wait a minute, maybe that's not what they say... or, who are "they" anyway, and what are they doing in my blog?

Well.

This is a TENS machine, and TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation, which might explain why I'm quite happy using the abbreviation.

A TENS unit is a small batterypowered thingy that lets you electrocute yourself, or give yourself mild electric shocks through sticky electrodes placed on the skin. Now why would anyone want to do do this, you might ask? Well my friend, turns out that zapping yourself with high frequency electricity at low voltage blocks the pain signals to the brain and stimulates the production of endorphins.

Simply speaking: Zapping yourself with a TENS unit 20 minutes a day can relieve your pain.

It doesn't work for everybody all the time, and some people prefer opioids and other narcotics, but if you're looking for safe, non-addictive pain relief, TENS is definitely worth a try. Most health insurances will cover the purchase of the unit.

There are different places you can zap for different effects, and most units have different programs, that combine high and low frequencies for best effect. Safety rules: Never use TENS around your heart or neck, never use it if you have a pacemaker and always always always consult your doctor before trying TENS or any other new treatment.