Thank
Hello
@gennepher
Thanks for your post
I forgot to say that I have purchased some Coleman’s English mustard applied to both feet it’s still early days I can’t see any difference just yet.
Yes it’s so weird how you can accept it, psychiatrist has given me a weekly planner to do tasks each day to try to take my focus away from the pain
So I am doing some short walks with the dog, playing with the dog, going out for a coffee, doing a little bit of gardening, listening to relaxation sounds, visiting garden centres, watching Carlisle United (that’s another kind of pain lol lol)
She’s also suggested to try alter my thoughts and swear words to something along the lines of still acknowledging the pain but to distract myself into thinking about trying to do a task, so I am using relaxation a lot when this happens.
Can I ask if you struggle to walk?
I am having some falls at home and out and about, Occy Therapist has given me a walking stick to use to steady me because when I walk it’s like walking on a bouncy castle filled with stinging nettles.
I have also struggled to cut my toe nails and accidentally punctured one of my toes with the tip of the scissors, never felt it and only noticed when I saw the blood
What a state, and when the stabbing pain starts OMG.
Let’s hope we both don’t suffer to much
Tek care
Hi
@Cumberland
Maybe the Coleman's mustard will work, maybe it won't. We are all different. I hope it does.
I can understand the psychiatrist suggesting tasks each day to try and take you focus away from the pain. I also have non-stop invasive intrusive tinnitus, and for years I was trying to divert my brain away from that.
In the 1990's I read every self help book going, thought the majority were rubbish. Someone suggested 'Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi around 1995. I couldn't get into the book.
It is an interesting readable book, but I couldn't read it at that time. I realise now I was mentally fighting with myself, and resisting, there was this wall. I always said I was positive, but in reality there was an abundance of negative thoughts (and the naughty words) on a very frequent daily basis.
I am now much better with positive thoughts, but they are my choice of words for the positive thoughts, not what some guru or famous person says we should repeat daily.
That kind of thing is an anathema to me, reading someone else's positive words. I instinctively rebel and fight against it.
Anyway there are précis online on the book, it gives you enough of an idea, and he has done ted talks which you can find on you tube.
The point is you get totally absorbed in something that nothing else matters, the pain goes (it is possible), and you (at least I do), go away into a land somewhere that is total absorption of what you (I) am doing. With me it is my painting. And this is why I need to paint every day first thing. My tinnitus is screaming full blast at me now, my toes are having a firework party. But a couple of hours ago while I was painting, my toes behaved and had a quiet rest, and my tinnitus was nowhere to be heard.
But as soon as I finish that painting, the tinnitus creeps back in, and the toes say, hey how about a burning sparking candle party...
I am guessing, I may be wrong, that you have been told to pace yourself (I was with my fibromyalgia), but pacing myself doesn't work for me, I cannot get totally into my painting, and get totally into this Flow state if I have to stop every 20 minutes and change activity, as I was advised to do so, to help the fibromyalgia. I was demented following that advice I was given by a professional. I am an artist, a creative person (whatever that creativity is, it might be writing), and I need to totally absorb into it, for a couple of hours or a lot longer, and I am not aware of the world around me, and the pain has gone and the tinnitus has gone and the toes are having a nice little sleep. The good effect will last a little after the end of the activity but it all comes back, as it has done now.
Distracting yourself by doing a task, like the psychiatrist suggested, is I think the very best thing you can do.
Yes, I think acknowledging the pain helps.
You asked if I struggle to walk. Yes I do. I walk with one or two crutches, a walker, or use my mobility scooter. I can't walk far. I don't have good balance so I need to use them. In the bungalow the door frame attacks my toes. Or chair legs go out of their way to have a meeting with my toes. I cannot stand shoes on, it makes the pain in my toes worse. So I do walk about barefoot at home. But I have no idea my toes are damaged and bleeding. I don't feel it. I look down later in the day and see a smashed toe nail, and drying blood. I didn't feel a thing. It is my big toes that suffer the most and my little toes which look sort of a funny shape now. But I do not feel the pain. I have problems with steps too (hence me moving to a bungalow). Yes I can understand the bouncy castle feeling, but I describe it as the floor having dropped a level and it's not level any more, it is like walking on uneven ground which is sort of rolling.
A stick helps, but with me I need two, and then then floor behaves itself (and no I don't drink!!!!)
I have the same problem with cutting toe nails, and filing them. I have a strong nail file, and I was filing away, when suddenly I realised it was sticky. I couldn't see what I was filing because of manoeuvrability. Blood everywhere. I didn't feel I had filed too far. It took weeks to heal.
You know something Cumbs, we are doing well!!!
You take care as well