The Struggles of Being a Mom with Chronic Pain Guest post by Andrea Wool of AutoImmuneStrong.com “Mommy- can you play tag with me?”“No, sweetie- I am so sorry, but my body really hurts today and I feel so tired.” “Mommy- can you play a game with me?”“In a minute, sweetie, Mommy really needs a … [Read more...]
When Your Partner is Struggling with Chronic Illness and Pushing You Away
The below came from an email sent to me by a reader. After I answered his email I realized that he's so not alone and that my response might be helpful for many other partner's of those with chronic illness, so I asked his permission to share his question. "My wife suffers from chronic illness. … [Read more...]
3 Things to Remember When Dealing with Toxic People
Toxic people are just a matter of life. No matter how hard we try to avoid them we often find ourselves surrounded by people who just suck the life out of us. These are often people who are extremely self-centered, never allowing others a word. Sometimes the toxic people in our lives are family … [Read more...]
Sometimes saying No isn’t an option
Some of us (myself included) have a bad habit of saying yes way too much. We say yes without thinking, without checking our calendar, without really considering if saying yes is really the best thing for us (or even for the person we are saying yes to). The last few months have been a real … [Read more...]
How Chronic Pain Affects Sex in New Relationships
Chronic illness affects sex in relationships. The sad truth of the matter is that sexual dysfunction is almost the norm for those of us with Fibromyalgia, and for many other chronic illnesses. There are a lot of differences, though, between chronic pain hitting existing established relationships and … [Read more...]
Talking With Your Doctor About Pain
How to Talk to Your Doctor About Pain by Jim Sliney Jr, RMA Talking about your pain is one of the most challenging conversations you will ever. You are bound to have it with your doctor, or with friends and loved ones, and each time you do it’s going to be unpleasant. Why? Because to … [Read more...]
Review: The Patient’s Playbook – How to Save Your Life and the Lives of Those You Love
It's rare that I will pick up a paper book by choice and read it anymore. But, every once in a while a book will come my way that I want to read bad enough that I will deal with the paper. That's what happened when I saw The Patient's Playbook by Leslie D. Michelson show up in my Amazon Vine queue. … [Read more...]
The Importance of Being Vulnerable
Vulnerability is difficult. Too often we associate vulnerability with weakness. Even looking at the thesaurus for synonyms that's what we find, weakness, exposed, sitting duck, naked, defenseless. But, what we don't realize is that it's the avoiding vulnerability that really makes us weak. … [Read more...]
The Pain Scale is a Chronic Pain
I hate when doctors ask me to rate my pain. It's probably my biggest pet peeve when visiting the doctor (right up there with being weighed - who needs that stress?) How am I supposed to rate my pain? They say it's on a scale of 1 to 10, but what am I comparing it to? Recently, I had a … [Read more...]
Sunday Inspiration: Dealing with Unsolicited Advice
Living with chronic illness at times feels like you are wearing a sign that reads "Please offer unsolicited advice". Everyone seems to want to give us advice on what we are doing wrong, how we can feel better, etc, and the truth is that most of the time we want to smack them for doing it. Often … [Read more...]
