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Hii!
I am doing pretty well Sometimes I will still have flares (Christmas Day for some reason) and it will make me question how it is possible for symptoms to sometimes come back with such an intensity. It truly is a fascinating process. But I remind myself that I must stay resilient because overtime I have gotten sooo much better. It has been almost two years of myself doing this work, and at times during flares I still find myself wishing my symptoms could go down and hyper focusing on them. At times, I recognize that my immense fear of my symptoms at the beginning is my default response to them when they come on, and I am still working at changing my brain! But there's less pressure now When my symptoms get really bad, there is so much pressure in this one part of my neck and my left eye will swell pretty bad only on one side. This is hard, because not only will I feel bad but I will also hate the way it makes me look. Although I notice probably more than other people, feeding into this definitely contributes to keeping the symptoms alive.

Something else to note- I used to always have a plan for my symptoms to go away. I always said and told myself they had to go away before I started grad school. Now I am going on my second semester of grad school, still occasionally have symptoms but occasionally do not I highly recommend looking at the 'curable' Facebook page and instagram page because their posts have helped me immensely. Trying to heal on a schedule puts the brain on even more alert, and shows the brain that this symptom is dangerous (fear being the thing keeping the symptoms alive). Also, something else that really helped me was a podcast I was listening to called "Why do we pay attention" on Spotify. It was based on neuroscience and talked about how our brains auto default to the thing we consistently think about. Meaning the more we think about something, the more our brain keeps creating that signal. This is so true for chronic pain/symptoms. I know this so well. Sometimes even though I am aware my symptoms are safe, my brain is just so fixated on them and what the symptoms will do next. To simply sit with my symptoms, breathe, and move on has been extremely CHALLENGING but also extremely rewarding because my improvement is something that has occurred over time. It has taken so many times being uncomfortable to finally feel a little more comfortable with the sensations. I think because I also eliminated the timeline to heal, I appreciate my body a lot more I look at the sensations as reminders to prevent me from going at 100% and an association that I can ultimately unlearn.

Something else that got me thinking the other day that is extremely relevant. When I used to not have symptoms, my thoughts were so different. I used to be more in the moment, daydream more, and think more about my past interactions with others and events. I noticed with chronic symptoms, it makes me a lot less present because I am so fixated on this sensation that my whole thought process is different. This got me extremely interested and I started looking up chronic pain associated with lower memory retention and to my surprise there was a lot of articles on this. So another REALLY good tactic- is to actually force yourself to recall an event that is important to you and remember what it looked like, who you talked to, how you felt. And notice how your mind will wander to your symptoms. But keep pressing and think about this event in detail. Or if you go on a walk in nature, really notice the environment around you and fixate your attention on objects to where you are able to describe them. This technique really grounds me. It pulls me into the moment where my symptoms will try to pull me out of the moment. You have to live as you are symptom free BEFORE you are symptom free, and a huge way of this is to live like you used to before you had these symptoms. And it all starts with your thoughts and beliefs on pain.

I have so much to say about this topic because it so important to me ) I could literally talk about it all day because it has been the biggest learning experience I could ever have. Also when I began grad school and moved to a different state, I noticed my symptoms in my face were not horrible like they used to be, but other symptoms have popped up. I get random bouts of tingling in my arms, my legs, reoccurring chest pain at times, and blurry vision. My old self would honestly be so scared by these symptoms because they are quiet frightening. But I tend to look at these new symptoms and it's easier for me to laugh it off more (they always go away almost immediately) so it shows how my nervous system is changing overtime. The key to overcoming your symptoms is RESILIENCE. Your body is working to protect you and I can promise you it gets better and it can sometimes take longer than you may like or want but you have to believe in your body's innate ability to heal because it WILL I wish you the best of luck, feel free to keep messaging me because I will always be able to answer questions if you have any! Also just read the last part of your question. All my tests were normal. CT scan of neck and brain. MRI of neck and brain. EKG of arm was abnormal high up where I have muscle tension (this is expected because in myofascial pain syndrome there is abnormal readings of trigger points found on EKG). But ya every test was always normal, despite the intense muscle tension in my upper neck.