Tag: pain

Posted in Archive, July 2013

The Harsh Reality of Living with Lack of Treatment

Posted on by dystoniaandme

Days like today I wish someone could just wave a magic wand and fix all this! After spending half the night awake due to bad spasms in my feet, now my jaw and neck spasms have decided to be extreme today. The pain my Oromandibular Dystonia causes is pretty much indescribable. It feels like my jaw is dislocating and that the spasms are trying to force my jaw off my face. The pain often causes me to grab my face, as I feel like I need to try to force it to stay in place. The pain then leads to seizures, I have had many seizures today, and all of this mixed together consequently leaves me exhausted.

I have had to resort to taking my Diazepam today which adds to the tiredness and is currently leaving me feeling spaced out, which I suppose is a nice distraction from the pain. I have always said to myself that this blog will be nothing but pure honesty, and to be honest right now I would just like to cry due to the pain.

Knowing that I can have my injections done tomorrow afternoon is a calming thought . They say that you are to try to live a stress free life when you have Dystonia as stress can worsen your symptoms. How are you meant to live a stress free life when you spend weeks in agony? When your Neurologist, the person who is meant to help you, has become someone you have to battle? How are you meant to be stress free when your life is upside down and the medical profession who are meant to help you are making things harder!

I don’t have down days very often but today is a very bad one. I know there so many positives around me but it is very hard to focus on them when the pain is this bad. I have no energy whatsoever today. I am still in bed and am trying to muster the energy to get up and changed but I would so much rather roll over and go back to sleep.

I have well and truly had enough, my Neurologist is going to have to do a hell of a lot tomorrow to convince me to stay with him. 7 weeks overdue for my injections is ridiculous and I am not prepared to go through this experience ever again, it is just too much!!

 

Posted in Archive, June 2013

Troublesome Tremor & Consultant Conundrum

Posted on by dystoniaandme

On Friday my jaw developed a painful tremor (see video on previous post) that has caused me more and more issues. Since Friday I have visited the out of hours doctors, been rushed by ambulance to hospital, and had an urgent visit to the dentist as the tremor is actually dislodging my teeth! It all is beginning to get a little bit too much and I desperately want the pain to go away. Knowing that the tremor is actually dislodging some of my teeth concerns me a lot. I still have a few baby teeth with no adult ones underneath them, so to know that this tremor is dislodging them is rather alarming. The Dentist I saw was an extremely lovely chap who reassured me that everything would be done to keep my baby teeth in for as long as possible.

As I have mentioned previously we have been emailing my consultant for several weeks now asking if he could book me in for Botox injections. Today I finally got a date, for three weeks time (July 16th). This is 5 weeks later than normal. Now this may not seem like a long time, but being in agony 24/7 and struggling to eat and drink makes the situation almost unbearable, I am currently only just about coping by taking Oramorph (morphine) and Diazepam. It is also extremely debilitating. I have pain triggered non epileptic seizures, not only does this often result in me ending up in hospital but it also puts major parts of my life on hold. I normally go to my local Riding for the Disabled stable on a thursday for a riding lesson, this is an activity that is extremely important to me and one that I thoroughly enjoy, however I am unable to ride when I am having so many seizures.

There was also no mention of my week admittance into the hospital that was meant to happen over two months ago in this email. I am now sadly looking into transferring to another consultant at another hospital as I feel completely neglected by my consultant. I feel like he dangles hope in front of me and then snatches it away without warning.

On a more cheery note I got my splint for my left leg yesterday! This makes things like getting in and out of the house so much easier and has so far been a joy to wear. It is amazing how much of a difference the little things in life can make!

Posted in Archive, June 2013

A Fairly Positive Week

Posted on by dystoniaandme

I have had some really positive moments this week! On Tuesday I had a meeting with a woman who works for a service called Cross Roads. Their service provides a range of support. On a Thursday morning, starting in a few weeks time, a guy is going to come over to care for me for a few hours. This means that my mum and stepdad will get a break from caring for me, instead this guy will socialise with me and help me with my meds etc. Not only will this give my parents a much needed break but it will be great for me to socialise with someone who’s around my own age. I am really looking forward to this starting.

My Jaw and neck spasms are rather bad at the moment. I am doing my best to try to ignore them but it is a bit had to ignore the spasms when your head is completely lopsided and your jaw is pushed right across. We contacted my consultant a couple of weeks ago asking to be booked in for Botox treatment, but as has been the case for over 2 months now, he has still not replied to any of our emails. We are going to phone his secretary tomorrow to ask her to chase him, however she never sees the consultants she works for and can only email them, so I am not sure how much she can do for me.

Yesterday and today have been amazing. Yesterday I had another fantastic session with my personal trainer that left me exhausted but extremely happy! I just love my Wednesday sessions. Today I went up to the stables and had a wonderful RDA riding lesson. I rode Nelly again, she is such a beautiful horse and fantastic to ride. She is slightly more challenging to ride than Connie but I love this as it allows me to work on and develop my skills more! Being around horses and riding puts me on such a high, if I did not have to dismount at the end of the lesson I would stay on the horse for hours! Riding is pure bliss!

As many of you know I took part in several fund-raising activities to raise money for the Dystonia Society and ended up raising more than £800!! Last week I had an email from the Dystonia Society saying that I was their fund-raiser of the month. If you would like to check out my interview please click on the following link http://www.dystonia.org.uk/index.php/component/content/article/5-get-involved/370-fundraiser-of-the-month

 

Posted in Archive, June 2013

Stimulant Experiment Results

Posted on by dystoniaandme

As many of you will know, around a month ago I attempted to cut all stimulants out of my diet to see if it would have any impact on my tremors. Over the last week I have slowly introduced stimulants in low quantity’s back into my diet to see if there would be a noticeable difference in my body.

The results from my little experiment were extremely interesting. Whilst cutting out the stimulants did not stop my tremors it reduced them greatly, I would say it almost halved the number of tremors I have in a day. When I reintroduced the stimulants back into my diet this week, the number of tremors I have been having shot back up! I was careful to only consume a small quantity of stimulants just in-case it caused an increase, I did not expect this small amount to have such a big impact!

It is interesting to know that stimulants do actually have a physical impact on my Dystonia. Now that I know just how much of an impact it has on my symptoms I am going to make sure that I avoid stimulants as much as possible.

I find knowing that it impacts me to be a comforting thought, as it means that by avoiding consuming stimulants as much as possible, then to a degree, I have control over the severity and frequency of my tremors. It gives me hope that there are natural ways to control and treat this condition along side medication.

I am going to do more research into foods that can impact Dystonia to see if I can find anything else that I may benefit from cutting out of my diet.

 

Posted in Archive, June 2013

Rare Conditions, Doctors and Reflexology

Posted on by dystoniaandme

Since I posted my blog post about Lyme Disease and Dystonia I have heard from a variety of people who have Dystonia caused by Lyme Disease or have both Dystonia and Lyme Disease. It has been extremely interesting reading people experiences of the two conditions. What has shocked me is how common this ‘rare’ disease seems to be!

I was doing some research on the two conditions earlier today when I stumbled across a blog written by a Lyme sufferer. She, like so may Dystonia sufferers do, has had to fight and battle against the NHS for treatment. Again she unfortunately has had the same experience that many Dystonia sufferers do in that a neurologist misdiagnosed her as having a ‘Functional Movement Disorder’. The more I read about these supposedly rare conditions the more it seems that the moment a doctor feels a little bit out of their depth they slap the label Functional on to their patient without listening and without further testing. From what I have read this often causes sufferers to question themselves! Whilst I understand that some people must have Functional disorders, many people don’t and are wrongly labelled as so, which causes problems when it comes to receiving correct treatment. It is frankly disgusting.

I came across an article earlier today which listed the neurological symptoms of late stage Lyme Disease and I ticked all but one box. Which has raised my hopes just that little bit more, that I may have found the cause to my Dystonia. It even offers a bit of hope that one day with treatment I may be lucky enough to have some improvement.

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Today I have felt rather under the weather, with my spasms being completely out of control. This has left me feeling exhausted and craving sleep. I have unwillingly refused to let myself sleep all day in the hope that I will manage to get a decent nights sleep tonight.

Yesterday I had my second reflexology session which was once again heavenly. It left me extremely relaxed and sleepy. I managed to get 12 hours sleep which was very much-needed. I am arranging for my next session to be done in the evening so that afterwards I can snuggle straight into bed and go to sleep. My reflexologist was hopefully that if we did an evening session so I could go to sleep afterwards then the benefits of the session may last a few days longer, which would be fantastic!

I cannot wait for my next session.

 

Posted in Archive, May 2013

Oromandibular Dystonia is Back

Posted on by dystoniaandme

Today has been one of those days where I wish I could have slept through it. My jaw has been trying to spasm for about a week and today I woke up with it in a full-blown crazily painful spasm. I manage to deal with most of my other spasms fairly well, however due to the amount of pain my jaw causes I find these spasms very difficult and exhausting.

I always try to carry on with my day as normal when my jaw spasms as I do not like to give in to the pain, however today has felt like a real struggle. On top of this my body in general has acted up today, with my eyes being the worst resulting in several prolonged periods of functional blindness due to either my eyelids clamping shut or my eyes spasming upwards in their sockets. Despite this however, I still did all my workouts which I am very happy about!

I saw this quote earlier and it made me realise that on days when the pain is too much and I am exhausted, it is ok to get upset/cross or sleep through it because you don’t have to be strong 100% of the time, you just have to pick yourself up and brush yourself off afterwards.

Even though it is still several more weeks until I can have any more Botox treatment done to my jaw and neck, I am still going to let my consultant know so that he can book me in for my next lot of treatment. I am hoping that tomorrow my body gives me a little bit of a break, so that I can feel a bit more alive than I have felt today.

Posted in Archive, May 2013

Reflexology Session

Posted on by dystoniaandme

Yesterday I had my first reflexology session with a lovely woman. She was able to come to my house and do it, which was perfect for me as it meant if my body reacted badly to it then I was in the best place, with easy access to the necessary medication. I was hoping that by having reflexology I would be more relaxed and would be able to sleep better.

It was a fantastic session, that left me feeling extremely relaxed. I was so happy that my body did not react to the reflexology, which enabled me to relax and actually enjoy it. During the session she concentrated on areas that related to pain, my liver and my kidneys. The reason for this is that the amount of medication I am taking will not be doing my kidneys and liver any good, so by concentrating on them it should help to detox them.

I did not do much for the rest of the day as I was extremely tired from the session. In the end I went to bed around 8pm because I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Normally I would have read a book before I go to sleep to help relax my body, but I did not even have the energy to read. Most nights I do not get to sleep till the early hours of the morning and even then I will carry on to wake up 4 or 5 times due to painful spasm. Last nights sleep was amazing! I slept for a total of 13 hours and did not wake up once! I was even full of energy today which was fantastic.

I am so happy that I was able to get a good nights sleep, it made a real difference to my energy levels today. As the reflexology session appears to have had such a fantastic effect on me, I am planning to book more and see if these improvements carry on. I am extremely hopeful that these sessions will continue to have a beneficial effect.

 

Posted in Archive, May 2013

Sleep & Dystonia

Posted on by dystoniaandme

One of the things I am struggling with lately is getting to sleep and staying asleep. When I am tired my spasms tend to get worse, which makes getting into a comfortable position to go to sleep in is rather hard. Previously when going to sleep I would lie down in bed fully stretched out, however I can’t do this any more and this is proving to be an issue.

One of the symptoms I am struggling with at the moment is in my legs. I have a constant tugging sensation along with pain in my knees and thighs, which I seem to only be able to relieve by pulling my legs up. Although this does get rid of the painful sensations it certainly lessons it, however I then find it extremely hard to then straighten my legs back out again. Some nights I have had to go to sleep with my legs crossed. The pain in my legs along with the current pain in my neck caused by my new neck spasms is really impacting on my sleep.

Sleep is an important part of dealing with Dystonia. Having your muscles spasm constantly on and off through-out the day is an extremely tiring experience, which leaves you exhausted. I have often taken naps in the day just so that I have some energy to carry on fighting against the Dystonia with. Dystonia normally disappears whilst you are in a deep sleep, however when in a light sleep the spasms can appear. At the moment due to pain I am finding it extremely difficult to get into a deep sleep, therefore I am constantly woken up in the night due to spasms. This leaves me feeling exhausted still when I wake up and starts a vicious cycle.

At the moment I have taken to going to sleep with a hot water bottle under either my feet or knees to try to relax my legs, and a heated lavender wheat bag around my neck. The combination of the two is thankfully providing me with enough temporary relief to enable me to drift off to sleep. I have debated taking sleeping tablets however I am unable to do so with the medication I am currently taking.

I am hoping that by increasing the number of times I meditate a day and by starting to have reflexology done that I may start being able to sleep better. Only time will tell if this combination will help. So I shall keep my fingers crossed.

 

Posted in Archive, May 2013

Simple Lessons

Posted on by dystoniaandme

Every day I have plenty of spasms. Some are short and not to bad, others last hours and cause agony, and some simply make me laugh due to the positions I find myself in, for example I once ended up doing the splits! Thankfully the muscle relaxant that my GP put me on has helped and has slightly reduced the frequency and intensity of these spasms.

Earlier this afternoon my whole body decided to spasm, it was slightly painful and was not the most comfortable position to be in, but despite that I managed to laugh through it with my mum. Knowing that the spasm would eventually release was a big comfort and made it more bearable. I have included some pictures of the spasm below, in them you can see that my eyes, neck, arms, stomach and leg are all in spasm.

In today’s culture people often seem to want to focus on what we cannot do rather than celebrate what we are able to do. Even the term Disabled focuses on it. I don’t like being labelled  but if I have to be then I would rather be termed as Differently Able, as I am capable of doing the same things as any body else, it might just take me longer, I may even do it slightly differently but at the end of the day I can still do it!

One of my symptoms causes me to go blind. My eyes go into spasm and my eyeballs roll upwards in their sockets. Being blind on and off has taught me to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me in daily life. I previously took my sight for granted, the day I went blind for the first time terrified me, I was having a big panic that I would not be able to read again. Now when I am able to read I appreciate the ability more than ever before. Control of our bodies and good health is such a precious but fragile gift that people tend to abuse. We need to open our eyes to the world and learn to appreciate what we have. Society needs to understand the gifts that senses such as sight brings us and learn to focus on the positive side of things.

I could easily allow myself to drown in a pool of negativity but by focusing on the little things in life like being able to see, and by pushing myself to achieve what ever I set my mind to, I am able lead a positive life. I have my moments of being down, just like everyone does but I wont ever let having Dystonia beat me.