Girl, you have no faith in medicine

This is a sillly song by the White Stripes that makes me smile every time. The words pretty much do describe me :)Music is often an inspiration for me. It seems that at certain times certain songs will jump out and speak to me. Right now I'm working on creating an inspirational playlist for my iPod made up of all the songs that do this. The ones that I like are uplifting, acknowledging the struggles and sharing the burdens, but giving hope.

I was not always aware of the meanings of the songs I used to listen to. Back before the "internets" I would listen to R.E.M. for example (my favorite band), and have no idea what they were singing about. It was only when I got older and was able to understand better that I started to realize the meanings. And strangely enough, all the artists I liked were giving similar messages!

I literally cannot live without music. I tried that once, and I got REALLY depressed (when my son was a baby and I thought I had no time). Well I'll never make that mistake again! I sing in the choir at church which is really fun, and I listen to music wherever I go. There have even been scientific studies showing that music does relieve pain.

The silliest example of this I can remember is: before I was diagnosed with migraines and I could not get the headaches to leave, I used to go home sick from work. Then I would sit around at home waiting and waiting for the headache to leave. It was miserable! One day my hubby played Abba's "Dancing Queen" for me and next thing I knew, I was feeling great :|

Foods that Chronic Pain Sufferers Should Avoid

From Dr. Mercola:

Foods that Chronic Pain Sufferers Should Avoid

Sounds familiar eh? Interesting what he says about the nightshade family. I've found since I added tomatoes that I like them in moderation only. Too much and I feel worse!

None the wiser. . .

I went to the ear/nose/throat doc. yesterday but unfortunately I don't know much more than I did before :( He told me everything looked good ear/nose/throat-wise but he was not the right person to evaluate thyroids; thyroids are "not his thing"! He mentioned one other surgeon in the area who might know about thyroids but he wanted my family doc/PCP to make the call. He will write a letter to my PCP explaining the situation and hopefully will be able to give me a referral. He did say the nodules weren't large, so that is good. But still, they are there and why is my thyroid so puffy? I am even more stressed out than before because I have more questions than answers. Plus all that stuff I wrote about yesterday - grrr. Now I remember why a year ago I swore to quit chasing doctors and just deal with it! Round and round we go!

Feeling the effects

My hubby does not understand how difficult road trips can be for me. He has a certain relative who lives a 3-hr. drive from us and has 2 birthday parties for his kids, 3 weeks apart. Every year. I keep trying to tell hubby how difficult this is for me, but he doesn't understand. Since I had a lovely massage with essential oils and an IonClenase on Thursday, I was feeling pretty chipper. We made it to the party and THROUGH the party with me still feeling pretty good. However on the ride home things started to go bad. I didn't have enough to eat despite packing numerous snacks, because there were only a few things I could eat at the party. My neck was cramping from being jostled around for 6 hrs. plus the stress of the party itself (I don't really fit in with these people as they are kind of shall we say. . "shallow" and do not really share my views on the world. They are all into having big showy houses, lots of kids they dress up to be cute, large vehicles and making themselves up. I usually just sit there in silence waiting for the party to get over with. I don't tan, I don't get my hair done every 3 weeks, I have a nice but small house and car, I enjoy intellectual pursuits and helping others, I am NOT about show - you get the picture.)

On the way home suddenly I started getting sleepier and sleepier. I laid my head down to doze and woke up feeling even worse. I told hubby we needed to get home ASAP so I could eat some "real food"! I felt sort of dizzy and in a haze. I managed to keep the migraine away and woke up the next morning still dizzy and hazy. After church I slept 3 hours which is really unusual for me. When I realized how long I had slept I was rather shocked, and jumped up to go get dinner started and felt so dizzy I had to lay back down. I was sooo nauseous. After dinner I went back to sleep thinking maybe I was getting the flu? But this morning I woke up feeling pretty much back to normal. I think it was just all the jostling my Chiari neck/head took from the car ride.

I told hubby these trips are too hard on me, and it is silly to expect me to turn around and do this again in 3 weeks :( He started running the guilt trip about how we SHOULD go, blah blah blah. I said I AM NOT GOING. It's not worth it! It would be different if I got along with these people but frankly I don't think they'll miss me one bit! For all the trouble, it is totally not worth it. They don't even attend our child's birthday parties.

Polarity Therapy

Yesterday I got my first taste of "Polarity Therapy." I'd heard of it but didn't really know what it was.

The following is from polaritytherapy.org

"Energy fields and currents exist everywhere in nature. Polarity Therapy asserts that the flow and balance of energy in the human body is the foundation of good health.

In the Polarity model, health is experienced when:

1.Energy systems function in their natural state, and

2.Energy flows smoothly without significant blockage or fixation.

When energy is unbalanced, blocked or fixed due to stress or other factors, pain and disease arise.

Blockages generally manifest in sequence from the subtle to the dense levels of the field. Polarity Therapy seeks to find the blockages and release energy to normal flow patterns, and to maintain the Energy Field in an open, flexible condition.

A blend of modern science and complementary medicine, Polarity Therapy is a comprehensive health system involving energy-based bodywork, diet, exercise and self-awareness. Scientifically, it works with the Human Energy Field, electromagnetic patterns expressed in mental, emotional and physical experience. In Polarity Therapy, health is viewed as a reflection of the condition of the energy field, and therapeutic methods are designed to balance the field for health benefit. There are 3 types of energy fields in the human body: Long line currents that run north to south on the body; Transverse currents that run east-west in the body; and spiral currents that start at the navel and expand outward."

The massage therapist didn't explain all this to me at the time - he just said he would finish my session with some polarity therapy and I was all, "OK sure!" :) He said it would take 5 minutes. I could feel the energy coursing through and going down out my legs as it usually does with energy treatments. Then after only a few seconds he said he was done. He seemed a little perplexed by this.

He said usually it takes much longer to achieve energy balance - mine connected within seconds! I told him that is probably due to the Reiki treatments I give myself pretty much all day. I try to do a full-body Reiki treatment on myself at least once a week (usually on the weekends when I'm relaxing). Maybe the "energy balance" is what I have been working on; I felt energy was not flowing out through my feet enough and I've been focusing on that.

My conclusion on this is my energy fields are pretty balanced. So that is obviously not the cause of my pain...

He did another IonCleanse because I was pretty excited about flushing out the toxins last time. A bunch of brown-ish stuff came out which he said was from my liver. He said my toxin levels were really not bad and I would only need 2 more treatments!!

Hips

Another odd problem lately - I feel like my hips are put together with pop beads. If you grew up in the 80s you'll remember those plastic beads that you could snap together and pull apart again. Once in their sockets they would wobble all around. That's EXACTLY how my lower body feels these days. I think it is mostly from my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Things pop that aren't supposed to. When I try to tell someone about it they look at me strange and say "Your (tailbone, ribcage, skull, fill in the blank) isn't SUPPOSED TO POP."

Well, welcome to the wonderful world of ME. I do all kinds of unusual things.

What has been driving me batty is it feels like my "hip flexors" are tight and no matter how much I stretch, they tighten up again. My hips will pop, my tailbone will pop, things I didn't know I had will pop - but still no relief! My cranio-sacral therapist had me do some rocking motion exercises with my pelvis. She has good ideas but she has no idea how crazy my body can be. My legs and hips feel tight, burn-y, prickly and strange.

I'm starting to see a pattern of relatedness in my body. My neck hurts, but it's coming from the shoulders. The shoulders hurt but maybe it's originating in the hips? Even my ankles bend in when I'm not wearing shoes. So, while my neck is the end result (the most pain), it may actually start all the way down at my ankles!

I found this interesting article about hips:
"To see healthy hips in action, watch a toddler move. As the child plays, his legs move freely. His body never appears to be fighting itself: He squats, bends and sits upright with ease.

Healthy adult hip joints should have the same easy range of motion — albeit with rather more control — allowing you to step in any direction without pain or limitation. A simple test for hip problems is a full, deep squat: Take a shoulder-width stance, toes pointed straight ahead, and drop to a point where your thighs are well past parallel to the floor. The hip joint should flex 120 to 130 degrees, and the knees should remain over or outside the feet as you descend. (Not great with angles? Estimate it by squatting onto a 12-inch box.) Squatting in this manner shouldn’t be a strain, but rather feel easy and natural. Unfortunately, that’s not often the case.

We lose the perfect hip joints we all had as children because we’re no longer exposed to a broad range of different movement patterns, which means our hips essentially become frozen in the flexed-forward position and unable to effectively communicate with the brain. Over time, the hips can become both immobile (unable to move freely) and functionally unstable (unable to balance the body quickly and effectively)."

- from http://www.experiencelifemag.com/issues/july-august-2009/fit-body/hip-check.html This site also has some interesting hip exercises

Yep this is pretty much the case with me. I feel better if I'm up and moving about. When I sit at my desk all day is when the tightness gets worse and my joints get popping. I've been experimenting with new ways to position my legs while I'm at my desk. It may look strange - maybe I'll say I'm doing desk yoga.

It's that craptacular time of the year (sing)

"Craptacular" may be a term of my own invention. . .I just seem to notice that Jan./Feb./March seems to be one of my worst times of year. April and May aren't so hot either. OK, the entire seasons of winter and spring pretty much suck for me :) I do wonder if it may be the lack of sunlight/vitamin D. Or, it might be the weather fluctuations and storms. I generally look pale, washed out and sickly during these months. Some days I do feel good but overall there are many days I feel bad. I just started taking Carlson's vit. D3 drops. I hope that helps 'cause I'm tired of always being sick around my birthday in February.

My parents took us to an "unconventional" church when we were growing up. Kind of along the lines of Pentecostal. When I first started with my heart symptoms around age 12-13, my mom asked them to pray for me. One lady prayed to God about it and reported to my mother that my health problems were linked to the weather. At the time I thought she was nuts because I didn't see any correlation to the weather and my heart spells. But now, I think maybe she was right after all!

My thyroid in all its bloated glory

This is a view of my neck when my head is tipped back, you can see the enlarged thyroid and how it is really puffed out on the right side.

Say yes to tomatoes!

Sometimes I just have to celebrate the small victories. I've been on my new diet over 7 weeks now. I wish I could say I was feeling BETTER than I was, but things have sort of plateaued once again. I avoid all foods on my food no-no list meticulously and still I'm having one migraine a week. (Compared to 2-3 migraines a week this is pretty good (what I was having a couple years ago)). It seems like tension just sort of builds up over the week until it turns into a migraine; the migraine itself disperses the tension and then I start all over again!

This week I decided to add tomatoes back into my diet. I just couldn't fathom the idea of never having spaghetti or pizza sauce ever again. When I tried adding them back I didn't notice anything strange. Just the normal once a week migraine. Tomatoes do have lots of vit. C and vit. A. Also I found this nifty little tidbit:

Tomato products found to have anti-inflammatory properties

I do feel inflammation is part of the problem. Not only is my thyroid swollen but my skin appears to be breaking out in rashes and itchiness lately. I've been having trouble with pain in my bladder area again and I wonder if this is from my thryoid as well. Just seems like I am forming allergies to other things than the food I was previously allergic to.

Thyroid nodules

Well the doctor finally called me back and said I have thyroid nodules.

I don't know how many or what kind they are - they just referred me to an ear, nose and throat doctor. He'll be able to give more information I hope! I'm not sure why they didn't refer me to an endocrinologist. The last one I went to didn't really give me any info. to go on. So we shall see, 2 weeks from today.