'Tis the season for... SAD syndrome

[Momzilla]

@Momzilla your underestimating your level of empathic ability, I found the idea of the necklace thing really sweet and there’s actually a section when you join of other choices rather than fibro or cfs, like undiagnosed. I for one hope you stay, I find you funny, interesting and pretty cool so I hope you do

I'm blushing.
Thanks Auriel

 

[srdodla123]

I got the dreaded frost warning tonight.
Is it weird to have a funeral for plants? Jk I won't.
My flowers.

Really beautiful flowers

 

[Auriel]

I agree they are super pretty

 

[Momzilla]

LET THE LIGHT IN PEOPLE!
So this morning I was thinking about having an attitude of gratitude, and how this is the prescription we all need every day!
So I'm doing a SAD/ LET THE LIGHT IN
check in.
I'm grateful that winter gives me a chance to work on my house. If it wasn't for winter nothing inside would get a deep clean/organize.
I also saw some cool landscape ideas, winter oriented. I saw ornamental grasses (which are dormant, light tan) with bushes in front that had only red berries. So pretty!
Oh and I saw some crazy light in the sky tonight that wasn't there and after doing some investigating seems I can see VENUS! How cool is that. I know this is the easiest part only in November. I'll prob need to be pulled up by my boot straps by end Feb.
Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

[Auriel]

Happy thanksgiving Andrea! I’ve been considering starting up a gratitude journal again (hoping it will help me snap out of my weird depression) I was writing some regularly a few years ago, oh your like me you notice the pretty things little things happening in nature (not many people around me seem really interested in) it is very cool if you can see Venus (I think I’d like that) ps hope your well and not struggling too much with everything

 

[JayCS]

gratitude journal

On my daily blog entry I try to find 1+ "lesson in self-care" and 1+ "reason to be cheerful" daily. Not always easy, even tho I'm pretty content...

 

[Auriel]

I’ve started my gratitude journals again @JayCS, I figured it might help during the darker months, Saying that I might do it all year round

 

[Jeans89]

Jemima,
You always seem to find the right words of comfort for everyone on here. Unfortunately this is probably not a skill I master. So apologies in advance.
I love dogs maybe more than people. (See its already starting weird)
I'm sorry for your loss. I couldn't believe when I saw your post just now, as I literally cried today about losing one of my manimals this year. I won't get into details because that won't be of any comfort to you. The timing is probably worse as we're going into SAD season. I had a really cool necklace made on Amazon for cheap. You upload a photo and they etched my little Turkeys face on the necklace and it looks just like him! I recommend that. I wear it almost every day!

Also I saw a new doctor at my family practice. I really liked her. She said she believes I definitely have an autoimmune disease. Does that mean I have to leave this forum? Is there a dump forum out there for people that don't belong in a specific one?
She did a tone of blood work. Only thing back so far is TSH which is still in normal range. She had me do ultrasound of some of my lumps.
The ultrasound doctor cant see my lumps even though he can feel them. So now I have ghost lumps! No surprise there. Just another dead end.
She said she's worried about me brain fog and wants me to see neurologist. First neurologist I called isn't accepting new patients. Thats where I left off. Under extreme stress. My change of season Symptoms are worse this fall then ever before. I really think i have some type of allergen in the fall that then gets worse because of extreme dry skin etc. I want to have basic allergy testing done. I've pinpointed it starts every fall when I start raking.
I had a "crash today" that I feel I can never articulate to doctors. I pretty much always have fatigue but certainly varying degrees from day to day. But sometimes I get this crash that is basically debilitating. I can barely talk, or move. I get dizzy, my heart stars racing. I was at my daughters pediatrician. Then anxiety kicks in like how will I get through this. How will I drive us home. The pediatrician might think I'm drunk because my words slur and I cant focus my eyes.
Excited about the new doctor though!

Hi, Momzilla. I'm so sorry you're also on this "what's going on with me?" journey. I'm there, too. I'm finally going to have an MRI of head and neck on 12/6. I'm nervous but need answers for these crazy symptoms. May I inquire about your "lumps"? I also have brain fog, anxiety, allergies. I want allergy testing, too, but the internist actually put that off, saying I should concentrate on finding answers to the major stuff first. I don't really understand that. Why can't I do both at the same time? It would help to start avoiding anything that could be exacerbating this, I'd think. What's been so frustrating to me is that the providers all seem to want to write my symptoms off to anxiety, and that's just not the case. I do have anxiety, but I'd say the symptoms are exacerbating it. I don't think my anxiety is creating symptoms. And they're so bizarre and change all the time, so I probably do sound kinda crazy when I try to describe it. sigh. Hang in there!

 

[JayCS]

the internist actually put that off, saying I should concentrate on finding answers to the major stuff first. I don't really understand that. Why can't I do both at the same time? It would help to start avoiding anything that could be exacerbating this, I'd think. What's been so frustrating to me is that the providers all seem to want to write my symptoms off to anxiety, and that's just not the case. I do have anxiety, but I'd say the symptoms are exacerbating it.

That's exactly my way of seeing & doing things to a T - I got most things checked pretty parallel or occasionally repeatedly when docs weren't understanding me (46 docs in 1.5y), I just watched for my time/energy-balance. However in my case my allergy problems weren't that pressing, so I did put allergies, uro, skin and then kidneys off till last (5-7 months after FM-dx) and concentrated on bones etc., muscles, nerves, hormones, sleep lab etc., parallel to the rheums & GI, then a centre for rare diseases which spawned ENT and last of all a rheum/fibro clinic just to be sure (harmed rather than helped, like most docs, but interesting). Still agree about allergies, e.g. IBS, however it was just a case of perfecting my elimination diet. If I had anxiety and/or depression (that's what some thought first) whether cause or effect, I'd've started with CBT earlier than I now have, just using it as coping help, comfort and just to make sure now there's nothing I can't improve.

 

[sunkacola]

What's been so frustrating to me is that the providers all seem to want to write my symptoms off to anxiety, and that's just not the case. I do have anxiety, but I'd say the symptoms are exacerbating it. I don't think my anxiety is creating symptoms. And they're so bizarre and change all the time, so I probably do sound kinda crazy when I try to describe it. sigh. Hang in there!

This is very common, for doctors to tell you that your physical symptoms are all caused in your mind.
It is true and not true, both.

If you have FM or some other combination of physical syndromes that include pain you are not causing all this is your head. On the other hand, anxiety definitely can cause symptoms to appear and will definitely make existing symptoms worse.

The mind and body are of course not separate from one another. Any thing that goes on in your mind is going to affect your body one way or another. a person can actually worry or anxiety themselves into illness they wouldn't have had without that mental condition. I think this only happens in cases of extreme and untreated anxiety, but it does happen.

for the vast majority of us, this is not the case. We didn't create fibromyalgia. On the other hand, if we spend out energy worrying or being anxious we will definitely cause ourselves stress thereby and that stress is one of the very worst things for our condition. Stress will make the pain and other symptoms worse every time, and can cause new ones to emerge.

Which doesn't mean we can just switch off the anxiety, unfortunately.
We can work with it, though, and I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do that.

I have serious depression and have had serious anxiety as well. So far nothing helps with the depression, but I have found something that helps me tremendously with anxiety. It is a form of biofeedback, actually, although I didn't know that when i started doing it.

I have a fingertip pulse/oximeter, and when I feel an anxiety attack coming on I grab it and put it on my finger. My heartrate is, of course, very high and I simply stare at that number and tell it to go down. "Go down, go down, that's good, down you go." Sure enough, the number starts going down. I concentrate 100% on this and in a few minutes I can get my heart rate normal again, and the anxiety attack is gone.

I don't think this would necessarily work for everyone (nothing works for everyone) but it works so well for me that I think it is worth a try. The pulse/ox costs less than $20 online.

 

[JayCS]

biofeedback

Seems to me it's also a way of confronting the fear by concentrating on the body symptoms,
and at the same time turning focus away from the fear of the fear... similar to a major motto that helped me get out of my social phobia:
Face - Accept - Float - Let time pass (Used this for decades, just looked up it's by a Claire Weekes (AUS)).
When I face it by "feeling into it" it disappears fairly fast (10'-60'), whilst if I distract myself by doing something different, it hurts for hours, something like 4-8h. The pain I get from social phobia btw I described as feeling run over by a rhino (jolted like after an accident).
"Funny" that this is also how the fibro Ache feels, just without any fear/anxiety/panic....

 

[sunkacola]

Seems to me it's also a way of confronting the fear by concentrating on the body symptoms,
and at the same time turning focus away from the fear of the fear... similar to a major motto that helped me get out of my social phobia:
Face - Accept - Float - Let time pass (Used this for decades, just looked up it's by a Claire Weekes (AUS)).
When I face it by "feeling into it" it disappears fairly fast (10'-60'), whilst if I distract myself by doing something different, it hurts for hours, something like 4-8h. The pain I get from social phobia btw I described as feeling run over by a rhino (jolted like after an accident).
"Funny" that this is also how the fibro Ache feels, just without any fear/anxiety/panic....

Well, sort of.....but for me, at least, those anxiety attacks have nothing to do with fear as such. If you were to ask me what I was afraid of when I have an anxiety attack I would say "Nothing!" and it would be true. Mine are not about worry or thinking. they just happen. I am just going along in my day, nothing has happened, not thinking about anything in particular, and Whammo there it is. So there is really no fear to focus on or not, or face or not in my case the majority of the time.

Not saying I never get actual anxiety that is about something, but that is different from the usual attacks I get.

Occasionally I have had anxiety attacks that were specific to an actual fear. At the start of the Pandemic I had one every time I had to go to town. The pulse/ox helped with those as well, but did not remove the anxiety since it was specific to something that actually was potentially dangerous, but I had to do it anyway.

 

[Rainbow]

I try to be grateful & thankful every day
& being a Trustee of an African Children's Charity, even more so...

ie I have a roof over my head, clean water in the taps, food in the kitchen, my own space in my bedroom, a comfy bed,
painkillers & meds when I need them & free health care
-yes the NHS is a tad shambolic at the moment but it's still there
and all this puts me in front of hundreds of millions of people, who would swap places with me in a breath
& think they'd landed in paradise.

I try to be thankful even for Fibro, as it's taught me so much...

It's stopped me in my tracks as regards my previous crazy gadding-about & at times even being quite self-destructive
eg late nights, binge drinking etc etc, thinking I can handle it (Now I can't!),
given me empathy for all those with invisible illnesses,
taught me patience
self-awareness & self-care
& to pace myself - even though I occasionally ignore that being prepared to pay the price for it.
Brought me to discover treasures such as mindfulness,
the joy & helpful distraction of music
and how strong I am capable of being when I have to be & believe me, with a son with serious health issues sharing my space,
I often have to be
& this was a revelation to me as I had no idea I had it in me!

It's proven the saying - 'You don't know how strong you are till you have to be.'

I am truly thankful that however challenging my struggle with this is, what I have is not terminal,
which so many other poor souls in pain are facing.

I could go on with this list but you get the jist.

Suffice to say, I consider myself very blessed.

 

[JayCS]

but for me, at least, those anxiety attacks have nothing to do with fear as such.

That's just made me realize that what I learnt to "face" was not my initial fear of doing or having done something wrong either, it was the resulting physical pain; maybe indirectly the fear concerned too, not sure of that, have to think about it. I think it's brings it down to earth more, the past & future into the present. Similar to the way I conquered my severe fear of heights as well as other fears by concentrating on the Here & Now, which is "automatically" more physical, whilst the fears of past & future are more mental. Why does that remind me of Scrooge? The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come... But the Present doesn't really have to be a ghost, whilst the Past & Future are more mental, films in our heads. The Present can be a ghost, if we aren't connected to our body & looking properly, we can turn everything into films... But the "physicality" can be "reality"....
And that's drawing it nearer to your biofeedback explanation a little more than I thought.

 

[Momzilla]

Happy thanksgiving Andrea! I’ve been considering starting up a gratitude journal again (hoping it will help me snap out of my weird depression) I was writing some regularly a few years ago, oh your like me you notice the pretty things little things happening in nature (not many people around me seem really interested in) it is very cool if you can see Venus (I think I’d like that) ps hope your well and not struggling too much with everything

Thanks Auriel! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Yup yup, if we lived in the same town we'd be friends for sure!