Hi, I hope you’re all doing well. It has been a while since I posted on this forum. I have been diagnosed with ME/CFS. This is a condition that can be cured with Sarno’s approaches, but has some physical elements to it. It seems the way to get through ME/CFS is to adopt a mind-body approach, first and foremost, and then do other things to calm down the nervous system. The nervous system cannot be overstimulated, nore can the body. There are issues involving limited ATP production. When people push too far, they often have symptom flareups. It’s debated whether these symptom flareups are the result of pushing too hard, or one’s attitude of striving and perfectionism. One key feature of ME/CFS that differentiates it from run-of-the-mill TMS is that during periods of heightened stress, the body simply cannot put on strength. In fact, it does not matter how hard one pushes and attempts to accomplish tasks, they simply become impossible.
I’m in very bad shape this point. I am in a nursing home, and get help with many tasks related to personal care. I recently hurt my arm and hand, which has the potential to make me even more dependent. This would be horrible, considering the level of dependency I’m already at. I’m debating whether I should simply push through these things, assuming they are not real injuries.
Some background: Anxious to get as strong as possible as fast as possible, I was working out heavily, relative to my strength. With a physical therapist, I was doing arm exercises that were so intense that my arms were shaking uncontrollably. The physical therapist assured me that this was not a problem. After having left physical therapy, I felt fine. I was engaged in some manual activity about eight hours later, and felt some pain in my forearms. I stopped the activity immediately. I went to bed shortly there after. Upon waking up, my arms felt completely drained of strength. This is not uncommon with ME/CFS, and it’s called post exertional maliase. With my arms in this very weakened state, someone shook my hand. At this point, I felt a tremendous surge of pain through my right forearm. It’s taken weeks for my arms to calm down. Even though my left arm was just used heavily, it was in pretty good shape compared to my right arm. My hands were not affected. Recently, I did a physical therapy task, (hand dexterity exercises), causing me to use my hands quite a bit more than I had been the past few weeks. Interestingly, I experienced no increase in pain during these tasks. However, about 15 minutes later, I experienced quite a bit of pain in my right arm, my right hand, and pain to a lesser degree in my left arm and hand. Given that the pain did not manifest until 15 minutes after having stopped the task, I’m thinking this might be neural plastic pain, as opposed to something indicating tissue damage. What are your thoughts?
Additionally, I feel like I’m about to go out of my mind, lying down in a hospital bed in a nursing home all of the time. What I would like to do, assuming it doesn’t destroy me by straining multiple muscles throughout my body, is simply sit up as much as possible, until I am on the verge of collapse and musculature develops triggerpoints. Additionally, I would like to walk until my feet and legs are in tremendous pain. To clarify, I’m not a masochist. I simply need to get over this hurdle in my life and get back to living. I feel that by pushing myself tremendously hard, this might be realized. Also, I feel that by pushing myself into this point of pain, my nervous system might get the idea, that there’s no real problem, and the pain might subside after a few weeks.
I feel that by doing this, I might actually make some real progress in terms of strengthening myself, and cause my nervous system to realign. However, my gut feeling is by doing this, I would just make be making my situation profoundly worse. If anyone has any comments on this, please let me know. Thanks.
I’m in very bad shape this point. I am in a nursing home, and get help with many tasks related to personal care. I recently hurt my arm and hand, which has the potential to make me even more dependent. This would be horrible, considering the level of dependency I’m already at. I’m debating whether I should simply push through these things, assuming they are not real injuries.
Some background: Anxious to get as strong as possible as fast as possible, I was working out heavily, relative to my strength. With a physical therapist, I was doing arm exercises that were so intense that my arms were shaking uncontrollably. The physical therapist assured me that this was not a problem. After having left physical therapy, I felt fine. I was engaged in some manual activity about eight hours later, and felt some pain in my forearms. I stopped the activity immediately. I went to bed shortly there after. Upon waking up, my arms felt completely drained of strength. This is not uncommon with ME/CFS, and it’s called post exertional maliase. With my arms in this very weakened state, someone shook my hand. At this point, I felt a tremendous surge of pain through my right forearm. It’s taken weeks for my arms to calm down. Even though my left arm was just used heavily, it was in pretty good shape compared to my right arm. My hands were not affected. Recently, I did a physical therapy task, (hand dexterity exercises), causing me to use my hands quite a bit more than I had been the past few weeks. Interestingly, I experienced no increase in pain during these tasks. However, about 15 minutes later, I experienced quite a bit of pain in my right arm, my right hand, and pain to a lesser degree in my left arm and hand. Given that the pain did not manifest until 15 minutes after having stopped the task, I’m thinking this might be neural plastic pain, as opposed to something indicating tissue damage. What are your thoughts?
Additionally, I feel like I’m about to go out of my mind, lying down in a hospital bed in a nursing home all of the time. What I would like to do, assuming it doesn’t destroy me by straining multiple muscles throughout my body, is simply sit up as much as possible, until I am on the verge of collapse and musculature develops triggerpoints. Additionally, I would like to walk until my feet and legs are in tremendous pain. To clarify, I’m not a masochist. I simply need to get over this hurdle in my life and get back to living. I feel that by pushing myself tremendously hard, this might be realized. Also, I feel that by pushing myself into this point of pain, my nervous system might get the idea, that there’s no real problem, and the pain might subside after a few weeks.
I feel that by doing this, I might actually make some real progress in terms of strengthening myself, and cause my nervous system to realign. However, my gut feeling is by doing this, I would just make be making my situation profoundly worse. If anyone has any comments on this, please let me know. Thanks.
