Archive for Pain

Opioids – Pain relief and addiction

Posted by Admin

· August 24, 2021

Over the course of 10 years, I was prescribed an increasing amount of opioids. I started on codeine, then had Gabapentin, Pregabalin, Duloxetine, Oramorph and Fentynal added in until I was on an extremely complicated and potentially dangerous cocktail of pain relief that ultimately wasn’t relieving my pain.

With guidance and oversight from my pain consultant and GP, I came off all of these drugs and moved onto a low dose of tramadol which I’m still currently taking and which has been effective in managing my pain levels for the past two years.

Was I addicted?

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, News and opinions, Pain

Re Introduction August 2021

Posted by Admin

· August 24, 2021

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What’s been happening?

I haven’t written anything on this blog for a couple of years, and since I’ve been working on it I’m currently deliberating whether to leave on the old blogs, or just start again…I’m leaning towards leaving them on as they do show my journey with my health, and also some of them I really like and think that other people in similar situations might get some benefit from reading them.

BUT…This means that there is a huge gap in my story and anyone looking through might get confused as to where I’m at and what’s going on in my life, so I’ve decided to do an update blog to give you a quick overview of what’s been happening over the last few years, why I took a break and why I’m coming back to it now.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Mental health, News and opinions, Pain

What having a big flare up of chronic illness is really like.

Posted by Admin

· October 12, 2017

· 1 Comment

My usual life looks like this:

• 2 hour getting up routine from 8am
• go out, socialise or do adulting jobs
• home by about 3pm
• watch TV or read for a couple of hours
• have some food, watch some more TV
• bedtime routine 8pm – 10pm

My flare up life is pretty different…

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Pain

It’s often the little things that are a huge help to people with invisible illnesses

Posted by Admin

· September 8, 2017

· 1 Comment

Since my mobility has deteriorated I do very little shopping in the real world. All of my food is delivered and Amazon is my firm favourite for anything else. So when I had to go shopping for a dress 2 days before my sisters wedding I was really worried.

I can’t walk very far and I hate using my scooter in shops because it’s hard to get round displays and stresses me out in case I hit anyone. I can’t carry very much because of the pains in my arms and hands and my brain has completely melted at the minute so making decisions is really difficult. This doesn’t add up to a great time to go shopping. I was expecting it to be a bit of a nightmare and was getting myself pretty worked up about it as I’ve had quite a few really bad customer service experiences recently. I needn’t have worried, and I was amazed by how just a little bit of help made such a huge difference to my experience.

Here’s the letter that I wrote to Debenhams HO thanking them for making my trip a little easier by the staff just being kind and thoughtful.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Pain

10 reminders that you’re living with a chronic illness.

Posted by Admin

· August 14, 2017

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I’ve been thinking lately about how my life is a bit different now that I have a few chronic illnesses that make me disabled, and I’ve come up with a list of things that remind me.

(This isn’t a sad list, some things actually make me laugh)

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Mental health, Pain, Top Tips

What Fibromyalgia feels like, and how you can support me.

Posted by Admin

· May 28, 2017

· No Comments

I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia last year and although my mum has it as well, I didn’t really know much about it. The pain and fatigue parts I knew, but I had no idea how many other things are affected by it.
Now a lot of my crazy symptoms make more sense when you fit them into this condition.
Night sweats are part of my body not being able to regulate my temperature properly. Bowel and stomach problems are added into the mix…but these are just little things.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Pain, Top Tips

Why being told I should take opiates freaked me out…

Posted by Admin

· September 18, 2016

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I’m reading Jenny Lawson’s book Furiously Happy at the minute. She’s actually hysterical! I read her first book in a few hours and kept having to make notes about things I wanted to write about myself that she’d brought up. She’s a blogger who has a number of invisible illnesses and I saw her books on a list of ones to read by another chronic illness blogger and I’m so glad I found her! Just the covers of her books make me smile and some of the things she brings up inspire me to write about my own life.

So I was reading a chapter about her being prescribed antipsychotics and how that made her feel and it reminded me of when I was prescribed some more pain killers by my GP and he said that they were opiates.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, News and opinions, Pain

Adulting and being a superhero!

Posted by Admin

· September 11, 2016

· No Comments

I’ve had a fab day today! I’ve been very adulty and also a superhero, so feeling very pleased with myself!

I was struggling to get to sleep last night, I didn’t nod off until 11pm so I thought I’d be a bit off today, but I got up at my usual time of 8am, did my morning routine, added in some stretches that my amazing masseuse told me about that could help my hips, then cracked on with things on my to do list!

I rang my doctor, rang the ESA people, emailed about my website and an acupuncture appointment, spoke to my landlord, and replied to all of my emails. By 12pm I was feeling very productive and very adulty! I’d spent the weekend getting annoyed with myself for having too much to do, so yesterday I did the 4 box prioritising method (makes me feel much calmer about everything I’ve got to do) allocated all of my tasks to a day of the week and I did the Sunday ones yesterday and all of the Monday ones today! I was generally feeling as if I was winning at life! Woo hoo!

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Mental health, Pain

Why we need to educate people about invisible illnesses.

Posted by Admin

· September 5, 2016

· No Comments

I’ve been reading bits from a blog (link at the bottom of this post) where the author has some really interesting info from studies into attractiveness, and when they’re linked with a visible cue of disability like a walking stick. It then it explains peoples perception of how much pain you’re in, how severe your disability is, and how deserving of medical attention you are depending on how disabled they see you as.

She concluded, that unfortunately you should look as bad as you can when you go to the doctors to “show” them how sick you are, which I completely disagree with.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Mental health, News and opinions, Pain

Book review of Awkward Bitch by Marlo Donato Parmelee – her life with MS

Posted by Admin

· August 29, 2016

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I was looking at book recommendations by other chronic bloggers, spotted this one and the title spoke to me immediately so off I went to the library with my huge list of books that I wanted to read, books about chronic illness, positivity and just funny books to make me smile.

I had to whisper the title of this one to the librarian and still got funny looks from the pensioners around me, I seem to be the only person who is not either under 4 or over 65 who uses my local library! I have no idea why, it’s so amazing. I love my local library!

Unfortunately they didn’t have it, so I ordered it from Amazon and was very excited when it arrived. I’d just finished the first Jenny Lawson book and was in the mood for another hilarious lady telling me about her life and her health.

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Categories : Blog, Daily Life, Fatigue, Mental health, Pain

Archive for Pain

Opioids – Pain relief and addiction

Was I addicted?

Re Introduction August 2021

What’s been happening?

What having a big flare up of chronic illness is really like.

It’s often the little things that are a huge help to people with invisible illnesses

Here’s the letter that I wrote to Debenhams HO thanking them for making my trip a little easier by the staff just being kind and thoughtful.

10 reminders that you’re living with a chronic illness.

What Fibromyalgia feels like, and how you can support me.

Why being told I should take opiates freaked me out…

Adulting and being a superhero!

Why we need to educate people about invisible illnesses.

Book review of Awkward Bitch by Marlo Donato Parmelee – her life with MS

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I have several invisible illnesses including M.E/CFS, PBC, Fibromyalgia, Hypermobility, Anxiety and Depression.

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I want to share everything I’ve learnt over the years cos living with chronic illnesses is a huge challenge.

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I love to talk, and raising awareness for invisible illnesses is my favourite topic so get me booked in for your next event.

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