Tag: Conditions and Diseases

Posted in Archive, July 2014

Dystonia: 2 Years on

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Yesterday marked two years since I became ill with Dystonia and had my whole life turned upside down. I went from first year student midwife having the time of my life to struggling to do simple tasks like putting jeans on or getting around the house. Life has not been the same. I must admit that despite my best efforts I was rather emotional yesterday and found it extremely difficult to be cheery. However I must slap myself on the wrists and wipe away the tears because despite all that life has thrown at me I have not and shall not give up. Yesterday may have been the two-year mark, but today is the day I found out I have qualified as a Reflexologist and tomorrow is full of possibilities!

I could focus on the negatives, for example the many ambulance trips to hospital, but there is simply no point in that. Where would it get me? Over the last two years I have achieved so much, met the most inspiring people and had opportunities to do things I would not have been able to do if I were not ill. I may not be exactly where I thought I would be now, yet I have achieved more than I thought I would be able to whilst living with Dystonia. Life is unpredictable and is a bag full of mixed emotions, but what you are given is what you have to deal with. I do not see the point in letting it get me down. So I’m cherishing the memories I have, riding whatever dystonic spasm that gets thrown at me, and celebrating the wonderful opportunities that I am fortunate enough to have had and to be receiving!

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Positive Week

The other day I wrote about how negative the majority of my appointments have been recently.I am thrilled to say that this trend has not continued recently. Last week I attended a physiotherapy session, I had gone prepared to do battle and expected to be discharged at the end of the appointment. I could not have been more wrong! The appointment on a whole was extremely positive and uplifting. I made such progress last week that I could not believe it, I don’t think my physiotherapists could either. I wore my splint for the entire session which enabled me to do more as my spasms are contained to a degree.  My physiotherapists have not run a full session with me wearing my splint before, and I think they were quite amazed at the difference it makes. We are hopeful that the upcoming adaptations to my splint which in theory will contain my spasms further, will enable me to walk properly as my foot should not be able to turn upside down.

I met with the Orthotics today to discuss the adaptations that are going to be done on my splint. The original plan had been to make one that would fully encase my leg, however this had several risks to it. At the moment several of the straps on my splint are slightly elasticated, this is great for comfort but when my foot spasms it means it can get into pretty much any position it feels like. Instead of going for a full on enclosing splint they are going to swap the current straps for more restrictive ones with no give to see if this makes a difference. Hopefully it will, and if it doesn’t then we go back to the original plan. I also had splints fitted to both of my knees while I was there on the request of my physiotherapists. The idea behind this is that it will prevent my knees bending back as far due to my hypermobility, and they hope that this extra support may lessen the spasms in my feet. They have no idea if it will or not but it is worth a try.

Luckily these knee splints fit under my trousers as they are rather bulky! However to show you all what I am on about I have taken a photo with them over my trousers.

 

Posted in Archive, June 2014

Mixed Appointments

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I’ve had several appointments with different professionals recently with mixed results. At the moment I feel like I am at a stalemate with my physiotherapists with them determinedly ignoring my Neurologists instructions to see me weekly and me refusing to let them ignore his instructions without putting up a fight (in a calm but firm manner). When I last saw them they gave me exercises to do at home and said they would see me again in two weeks. However if they get their way this will be the last time they see me, as they feel that until I can weight bare there is nothing more they do to help me.

Now I have to bite my tongue every time they tell me this as it was they who told me that I must absolutely not weight bare! As you can imagine this has left me very confused. To add to the confusion, only the other month they informed me the ligaments in my foot were damaged and extremely lax due to my spasms hence why I am not allowed to weight bare, yet now weight baring is all they are focused on! Whenever I ask how my foot is to heal they tell me that is up to my Neurologists plan.  The worrying thing is other than more physiotherapy there is no plan of action, when I last saw my neurologist he explained he had limited resources so treatment was limited.

One of my physios big things have been that I need to get myself a new splint made, as they have now decided they are not going to refer me for a second skin one, though it has not been explained to me as to why. I saw my local Orthotics department on Friday, he was a very lovely man and I must admit that I was slightly amused to see he shared my frustration at my physiotherapists as apparently they should have written to him if they were going to make recommendations on splints. He informed me that in his entire career he had not seen such force in spasms and he did not think that splints would be of any use to me. He was concerned that if he made a splint that contained my foot all the way round then I could end up severely hurting myself when I spasm. I can see where his concern is coming from, and he is most likely right, however after much pleading from me he agreed to get his colleague who has dealt with my spasms before to take a look at me and make the splint. Even though I know this splint could result in injury, I am willing to try it. I am willing to try anything that may contain my Dystonia and make my life easier! It holds the possibility of enabling to me to walk if it works, I would happily risk injury for the chance to walk again. He couldn’t believe that my physiotherapists were not helping me more and that my Neurologist was not injecting my foot with Botox simply because I had been told not use it.

I feel like every professional I talk to at the moment contradicts one another! To me surely everyone should be saying right so the spasms have damaged your foot, let’s look at what we can do to prevent it from deteriorating any further than it already has and what we can do improve it. Surely that cannot be that hard to agree to try to do?!

On a brighter note I had a fantastic appointment with Rheumatology this week. I went to have my Hypermobility Syndrome assessed. It turns out I have Hypermobility pretty much throughout my whole body. He has agreed with my Neurologist that I need referred to an inpatient rehabilitation programme due to the pain and weakness in some sections of body. I found it very reassuring to hear him talking about the same inpatient programme despite not knowing it had already been talked about with me. In this regards everything seems to be going in the right direction.

Posted in Archive, June 2014

First Yoga Session

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Today I had my first one to one session with a local Yoga teacher. I had been inspired to give this a go after hearing a number of other Dystonia sufferers saying they managed to do it and enjoyed it. The teacher was lovely, she believed in completely looking at my body as a whole and worked out what I could do, not what I couldn’t! This to me was important as it took away the feeling of being disabled. For me interestingly enough I found that my hypermobility was my main issue more than my Dystonia during the session, as I had to work on controlling my flexibility so that I did not over flex the pose.

Research has shown that the benefits of yoga for movement disorders include improved strength, flexibility, balance etc. This is something that I am working towards (minus the flexibility) as due to my muscle spasms I am aware that the strength in places like my legs will not be as good as they were before I was ill. I never had a sense of balance, so if I can gain that then I’m not going to complain!

I found the whole experience to be actually quite relaxing. The fact that my Dystonia only played up a handful of times meant that I could really enjoy the session and appreciate what I was doing. My teacher was surprised at how much she could get me to do, this pleased me as I felt like I was achieving something. She explained as we went along what each pose would help with and what muscle it would stretch. By the end of the session we had a whole routine put together that I will do for half an hour every morning. I am hoping that by doing regular Yoga my muscles will get used to being stretched often, that way when it next does one of its extremes spasms – like the one that damaged my knee ligament – I won’t do as much damage to my body and I won’t be in as much pain. As much as I hope I never have to deal with that sort of extreme spasm again I know there is a good chance I will have to. I am extremely interested to see if this will help.

Posted in Archive, June 2014

Exasperated

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This week has been a complete rollercoaster of emotions. Beginning with excitement, this quickly turned into desperation and turmoil, concluding with frustration and nervousness.  On Tuesday I attended a physiotherapy appointment, I was under the impression that this was to be the first of at least weekly appointments. I had been extremely excited for it as I was anticipating news of trialling a second skin splint which I was hopeful would make a difference to my leg spasms.

When I had seen my Neurologist last he had mentioned to me that he had spoken to my physiotherapists the week before to advise them on how best to treat me, and that he was very keen for me to start having intensive physiotherapy locally. He was also happy for me to trial the splint and did not say too much about it. So you can imagine my total shock on Tuesday when my physiotherapists told me that my Neurologist had advised her to discharge me and not to refer me for my splint! She was left with the impression after speaking to my Neurologist, that after I have my IV antibiotics for Lyme Disease and was cured of that then I could have physiotherapy. She was shocked to learn that I have been denied IV antibiotics by the NHS unless I have lumbar puncture, which my Neurologist has recommended I do not have as it puts me at risk of developing more Dystonia.

I left the appointment on Tuesday in a completely state of turmoil. Without IV antibiotics and without physiotherapy what chance of any sort of improvement do I have? I was furious with my Neurologist, how could a person have two completely different conversations within the space of one week. Then, Thursday afternoon, a follow-up letter from my last Neurology appointment arrived reiterating that he wanted me to receive intensive local physiotherapy. I could not be more frustrated, I can only presume that they must have had a rather ridiculous misunderstanding. Yet I question how that can even happen in the first place, the conversations reported are at extremes with each other.

I am seeing my Neurologist on Tuesday for my next lot of injections, so will be able to clear this matter up with him then. It took over a year and a half, with a lot of jumping through hoops just to receive physiotherapy, so to have it taken away after one session is not something I am going to let happen without putting up a fight.

 

Posted in Archive, May 2014

Little Things

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The last week and a bit I have had a bad cold, which would normally be fine but as I have mentioned before Dystonia tends not to react well with other illness even if they are just small things like colds. This has resulted in a week full of a variety of spasms and a handful of pain triggered non epileptic seizures. My jaw has tremored quite a lot, I can only presume that the pressure in my sinus area has aggravated it and this is why it has played up more than normal. This in particular has caused the most pain as often my tongue gets bitten in the process.

In spite of feeling under the weather and my Dystonia alien being more mischievous than usual I managed to sit outside the house and enjoy the sunshine. This may sound rather simple, but it involves quite a maneuvering process as our house is not very wheelchair friendly. I normally don’t try to get out the house unless I am actually going somewhere as its hard to do and rather painful.To actually have achieved this without ending up in a hospital A&E department was extremely satisfying. I love being out in the sun, even if it is just for 20 minutes, it’s a nice change from being inside. Even though it’s a very simple achievement it is one that I am celebrating.

Posted in Archive, May 2014

Alternative Coping Methods

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Today is the last day of Dystonia Awareness weeks, which is most likely a relief to all the lovely people who are signed up to receive email alerts when I post a new blog as I’ll be going back to posting a couple of times a week. It has been amazing seeing how many people have joined in with Dystonia Awareness week, Thunderclap was seen by over 6 million people which is incredible!

In many of my blog posts this week I have mentioned treatments such as Botox injections, muscle relaxants and Deep Brain Stimulation, however none of these treatments can guarantee relief and are not always accessible, so I wanted to discuss some alternative ways of coping with symptoms. Heat is great for relieving muscular aches and pains that can result from spasms, wheat packs, back wraps and microwaveable slippers are all great products and I use at least one of these three several times a week. TENS machines are also great, I don’t know what I’d do without these. I never go anywhere without one in my handbag and towards my Botox dates they often help keep my neck spasms bearable.

If you can afford alternative therapies I would highly recommend trying Reflexology. I found before having regular treatments that I could not sleep well at night as the spasms would keep me up. This turned into a vicious cycle as I was then too tired to handle my spasms well in the day. Now I find having regular Reflexology treatments enables me to have several good nights of sleep a week which does me the world of good as it means I can handle whatever my body throws at me in the day better. I also find burning scented candles or essential oils helps me relax (and after putting them out) get to sleep easier.

Everyone finds something different that will help them, for some people touching certain pressure points will relieve spasms to a certain extent, in others hot or cold therapy does. For me as I mentioned above heat, TENS and Reflexology are what keeps me ticking along in between Botox appointments. Its worth experimenting and trying to work out if anything particular helps you.

Posted in Archive, May 2014

Dress for Dystonia

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As I mentioned the other day I did some fundraising and campaigning at my college this week to raise awareness of Dystonia. On the Dystonia Society’s website they have a list of fundraising ideas one of them being Dress for Dystonia. This title inspired me. I encouraged both students and staff members of the college to get involved with my awareness raising campaign by putting on a Dystonia Society top. This ticked off two awareness ideas at once as the tops are green and it was twist on the Dress for Dystonia idea. Everyone who put on a top posed for a photo which I put into an awareness photo collage. Lots more people were willing to get involved than I expected which was great! The college have even done a news article on it and put it up on their website which is amazing as this too provides more awareness of Dystonia. Image

Posted in Archive, May 2014

Generalised Dystonia

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Generalised Dystonia usually occurs in late childhood/early teens, it is unusual for it to start after the mid twenties have been reached. In the majority of cases symptoms will progress for about five years before stabilising. I was 19 when my Generalised Dystonia started, it started in my Jaw and then spread rather quickly. Though I had an episode of Oromandibular Dystonia back when I was 17.

There are several possible reasons why someone may develop Generalised Dystonia. In some cases it is referred to as Primary, this is when there is no identifiable cause other than genetic factors such as a mutation in the DYT1 gene. Secondary Dystonia is when there is an underlying cause for example another medical condition, stroke etc.  Dystonia can be inherited, there is a 30% chance of developing the condition if a person has the mutated gene. There are several other genes which can cause Primary Generalised Dystonia.

Treatment of Generalised Dystonia normally involves a combination of Botox injections and medication. I find a combination of muscle relaxants and six weekly injections, extremely helpful. Levodopa is usually trialled for around two months to see if the Dystonia is Dopamine responsive. Deep Brain Stimulation is also used to treat the condition and can make a huge impact to the sufferers quality of life. Selection for this however is done very carefully to make sure that the patient is likely to benefit from the treatment as the surgery obviously carries many risks.

Below is an image of one of full body spasms.

Posted in Archive, May 2014

Raising Awareness

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Raising awareness of Dystonia is vital. The Dystonia Society’s website says that an estimated 70,000 people in the United Kingdom have the condition. Considering just how many people this is, it is still such an unknown condition to both the public and the medical society. By raising awareness and funds more research can be done. Dystonia may not be life ending but it is life limiting. Without research there is no improvement in treatments for the condition and there is no cure.

When I became ill with the condition I had never heard of it, I had lived my life blissfully ignorant. Now it’s fast approaching the two-year mark of my being ill. Dystonia may have taken away many things from me but it has also inspired me. The only way change will happen is if we bring it around. We can sit and moan about Doctors not understanding the condition all we like, but what difference will that make? By actually having the condition and experiencing it we can choose to empower ourselves with knowledge and spread awareness.

I spent yesterday sat in my College canteen raising money and awareness for Dystonia. The age range of students at the college is from 16 to mature, yet all no matter how old or young were prepared to listen to what I had to say and asked lots of questions. I went with lots of leaflets that The Dystonia Society had provided me with and every single one of them got taken by people wanting to go away and read more.

Awareness is key to a cure being found and weeks like this one are the perfect time to do it. Tea parties, joining in with campaigns like the Go Green for Dystonia  one or getting involved with Thunderclap, are all so easy but so effective!! Dystonia Awareness Week is not over until the 11th May, so if you’ve not joined in yet, why not now, every voice counts! https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/9777-dystonia-awareness-week