Hi Roberta

You have such a beautiful relationship with your father. I can’t help but admire it. I’m sorry to hear that your fitness and flexibility dipped over winter and with caring for your father. I’ve found qigong very helpful for chronic pain too! I wish you lots of luck with it.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏❤️

Hi Everyone

Today I’m going to talk about the nervous system and the role in chronic pain. This can also be helpful for anxiety too. Some of you might already be well versed in this.

So main parts I’ll be discussing today are the sympathetic nervous system (related to fight or flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (related to relaxation).

Stress, exercise, some regularly consumed medicines or intoxicants wearing off and lack of sleep are the main things that trigger the sympathetic nervous system and increase pain sensitivity.

The parasympathetic nervous system which decreases pain sensitivity can be activated by a few different things. Stimulating the vagus nerve can be helpful. Things that can be helpful include massaging the base of the skull and neck, yawning repeatedly, shaking your whole body for a couple of minutes, singing, laughter, splashing cold water on your face. There is a ton of information out there for anyone interested.

Breathing exercises are really helpful too, specifically diaphragm breathing. Also, an important factor in breathing exercises is to have a prolonged exhale for maximum effect.

Everything has a balance and whilst exercise stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, after exercise, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. So, it can be helpful to exercise regularly to allow your body to practise this balancing effect.

Wishing everyone all the best! ❤️🙏

Hi Everyone

It took me a long time to get to grips with the idea that anxiety had an impact on my health and pain levels. Now, I suspect that many people with severe anxiety disorders live with pain that they may or may not be aware of (especially younger people).

The amount of muscle tension that severe anxiety creates is huge and there are muscles everywhere including the spine which helps us to sense pain. Muscles tensed for prolonged periods become painful. Reduced blood flow to tense areas can cause pain.

Anxiety and anger have the unfortunate side effect of increasing pain sensitivity. Conversely, pain has the effect of increasing anxiety and anger. It’s a bit of a chicken or the egg conundrum. When I start getting upset, I have to ask myself how much pain am I in right now? Are my pain levels increasing my anxiety? Is there anything that I can do to reduce my anxiety or pain level to help calm myself down?

I realise that I haven’t discussed aids that help reduce pain yet.

I would encourage any other health conditions to be well managed. Even seemingly innocuous conditions can have an impact on pain and anxiety.

Medication is clearly a factor. I had some bad experiences with mental health medication. So I stayed away from painkillers that might cause addiction issues or alter my brain chemistry. l had to learn the hard way that medicines especially when taken regularly may have side effects. So managing side effects is important too. I do try and stick to the least amount of medication possible. There is evidence to show that painkillers not only reduce pain, they improve mood too.

Heat therapy is a favourite of mine for managing pain. Heat relaxes muscles and increases circulation. I love my electric blanket, I try and use it at least once a day. Warm showers or baths can be helpful. I really find Epsom salt to be helpful. I’m really sensitive to cold in the environment so I use thermals for half of the year, even indoors. There are also heat packs which are quite good for painful areas.

Ice can be helpful for injury and to reduce inflammation. When my back is inflamed and heat doesn’t work, it helps to throw an ice pack on it.

TENS it’s an inexpensive nifty little machine that is worth trying. The idea is that it provides additional stimulation that confuses interpretation of pain signals. It’s easy to get used to it though so varying the settings is important. It’s recommended to use it during activity but it’s also worth trying while relaxing too. I found that getting TENS done during acupuncture much stronger than my machine at home.

Massage can be very helpful. Self-massage is something that can be done at home every day. There are massage rollers for doing your back. My acupuncturist encourages massaging painful areas until medium sore (not too sore) to improve circulation.

Braces. Useful for supporting weak painful areas. Best when used for short periods of time during the painful activity. Prolonged use can cause muscle weakness and increase pain.

Cupping. I’m a fan of cupping. It reduces the massage time and effort.

I’m going to have to come back to this list later.

Wishing ya’ll all the best! ❤️🙏