cousin

A cousin who is a few years younger than me has been struggling with migraines and fibromyalgia. A number of people on my dad's side of the family are struggling with muscle-related health issues now, and I had really wanted to tell my cousin about some of the things that have worked for me, especially CranioSacral Therapy. But I was worried about talking to her out of the blue when she wasn't ready to receive the info. (I was also worried that she thinks of me as that crunchy liberal cousin out there in crazy California!) So for the last 6 months she's really been on my mind and I've been praying for her and even wrote a song about her.

And then this week, she sent me this long e-mail pouring her heart out about how discouraged she is and how abandoned by God she feels, and how she wants to find a cause for her migraines but the doctors are just trying to mask the symptoms, etc. etc. I was so excited for the opportunity to share with her finally! Also, it really helped me to put into words where I am right now since I've been having a return of some of my symptoms. Here's is what I wrote to her. It is really long, but heck- there's only about 6 of your reading this, and this blog is more like a journal anyways. . .

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Hey ____- I am feeling for you. I truly am. I don’t know what exactly you’re going through, but it does sound similar to what I went and am going through still. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what information will be relevant to your situation and what is only relevant to mine, but I want to share a little about my health situation and you can discern from there what rings true for you.

I had a huge body crash in 2009, and was very angry and felt abandoned by God. Eventually some of my symptoms got diagnosed as migraines, but it took a long time to get to that diagnosis because most of the time they were acephalgic (painless) migraines. I had all the other migraine symptoms like oversensitivity to sound, movement, and light, but often didn’t have the pain. I also was having weird muscle issues like extreme weakness, but never got diagnosed with fibromyalgia because I didn’t have those pain symptoms either. And then I had other random symptoms, like dizziness and fatigue. And from there, the anxiety and depression from not being able to work just made everything way worse. I remember crying a lot even though it made my head worse too. That’s the worse.

I did eventually feel better and was able to get back to functioning. But in the last few weeks, I’ve had some of the symptoms return. I’m still able to work my part-time job, but am having to take it REAL easy when I’m not working and again try to put this extremely complicated healing puzzle together. So I’m not coming to you as a person who has all the answers even for my own life. But I definitely feel your pain because I am also scared I will spiral down like I did before. And I am holding on to what I learned the first time and wanted to tell you what those things were just in case any of them are relevant to your situation. . . .

I learned how extremely, extremely complicated our bodies are. Once one thing is a little off, then it’s like a domino effect, which makes it very difficult to try to isolate the cause. So the only thing that worked for me that year was, piece by piece, trying out different things that I thought would help. Figuring out what things to try was sometimes overwhelming, of course, especially with friends and family that care and want to “fix” it, plus all the different practitioners in the Bay Area, western and holistic, were all telling me different things. So when I was at a point when I was able to think straight and wasn’t totally depressed and anxious, I would pray about it, use my intuition and knowledge about my own body, and then, I tried to pay attention to the things that were mentioned to me several times by different people before trying them out. I guess I sort of took that as a sign. And looking back, those were indeed the things that helped the most.

Because of how sensitive my body is, the non-western medicine worked much better for me. Not to say that western meds don’t work for some people (or even me in certain situations), but you are right that they often give up on trying to find the cause and just try to mask the symptoms. And for me, the medicine is so strong, it often caused other things to get off balance in my body. And it sounds like it might be doing that for you too since you said “I know they’re not good for me.”

I also believe that God can heal on the spot and I was super pissed that he did not do that for me either. I don’t know why he chooses to heal like that sometimes, but not other times. But the only good thing about not being healed on the spot was that I learned so much about my body because of the step by step healing.

Some of the things that helped and help me are:

-Quitting my social work job and doing something less stressful (currently nannying a baby part-time and going to school to become a body worker)

Nutrition:
-Keeping up with hydration and electrolytes like Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, a little Sodium (having an electrolyte imbalance effects muscles functioning)
-Keeping up with protein throughout the day (I’m now a pescatarian who occasionally eats beef when I’m desperate.)
-Keeping up with multivitamins, especially iron and VITAMIN D (vitamin D is even more important if you’re not in a sunny climate- you probably already know this)
-Lots of veggies
-Staying away from sugar and caffeine- when I crash from either one of these, it is not pretty!

-Lots and lots of sleep, sometimes a nap when I can squeeze it in.
-Chiropractor- I actually go weekly! And just made it a priority and budgeted it in
-And then I go to an awesome CranioSacral Therapist who works on my head when my muscles get too tight. . . . If you ever have the feeling that the migraines or headaches could be caused from a structural issue in the head, a good craniosacral therapist can manipulate the bones, tissues, sutures, etc. It’s been such a blessing to me after all the old trauma of breaking my nose, getting a “palette expander,” braces etc, that I’m going to school to become a craniosacral therapist. . .
-Getting a small amount of sunshine a day or using my light box.

Blahblahblah . . . there’s more, but that’s enough for now. I definitely feel high maintenance. But I am accepting the fact that I am a sensitive person and may need to take care of myself more than other people may have to. I also am hoping that I will get to use my sensitivity to help others when I become a body worker.

And then the thing that I’m working on right now, that I FOR SURE don’t have mastered yet, is trying not to fear! I’m trying to learn to surrender to the moment with the knowledge that this feeling will pass. Deep breaths help me.

It’s so easy for me to be like, “oh- it’s happening again! Why do I feel like this? It’s going to be like before. I’ll have to quit my job! “ But that is, of course, not helpful and makes things worse, even body-wise . . . My adrenaline and cortisol levels go up, I tense my muscles, I stop breathing deeply, etc.

It is very hard to rein in the negative self-talk and say positive things to myself. Especially when I’m already not feeling good! But that’s what I’m trying to do right now.


It’s kind of a weird balance of surrendering but also not giving up. . . .
-I try to surrender to the moment- like okay- I accept that I feel this way now. I need to get in bed with the earplugs (which I also have to do sometimes). And then fighting the fearful thoughts while I lie there- that’s a hard one!
-But then I would also encourage you to not give up looking for the complicated mess of causes. Or maybe cause is not the right word. To not give up looking for things that make you feel better. Like on the days when I do feel better, I try to be open to God showing what the next step toward healing is. And it’s really annoying that he usually gives only one step at a time, but that’s how he does it with me.

Whoa- this is really long. Let me know if you have any questions about anything I was talking about. It kind of just came out too. So hopefully it’s clear.

I am definitely praying for you,____. I have been the last few months.

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She wrote me back telling me how much this means to her, and asking how she can find a CranioSacral Therapist in her area!

Here's to healing and breaking cycles in my family!

marathon

it's a fucking marathon to keep this body functioning sometimes. i'm exhausted and frustrated.