Support groups are not really my thing. If I hadn’t kept a diary today, then I’d probably not have considered the idea of looking for one.
This morning Leo asked if I’m hurting a lot and I paused before replying to his question, but just to assemble my thoughts. I’d been visualising way more than yesterday — interrupting myself, or him, mid-sentence even, to close eyes and wrest some processing back from protesting brain regions, before jumping back into the flow of conversation, or finishing coffee extraction, or spreading my toast. But when he asked that, I was feeling pretty good.
“It’s funny. Today the pain is coming in waves, so there are these gaps where the pain stops. That means that I notice when it resurfaces and I’m like Oh! I can use this to practice some more. Yesterday, the pain was actually way worse but it was constant. I think I was visualising less. When there’s never a moment when you’re not getting a hot-knives feeling in three, five, ten body parts, you don’t get the cue to visualise. It just grinds on incessantly. I don’t want to just sit in a chair all day doing this, but it’s like, ‘Well, if I don’t do it all day, when, then?’ When the pain is constant, there’s no contour or trigger to visualise.
“I still don’t know what to do on these kinds of days.”
I wrote about this exchange in my diary after breakfast, and it has been echoing in my head all day.
If I’m to make a success of this practice then these flare-up episodes are the proving ground. If I don’t rewire the networks to the level where I can prevent all or most episodes, then it will have failed. I don’t want just another crutch like breathing techniques or restorative yoga. Wonderful as those practices may be, they do not unravel the wiring of chronic pain, they are basically just an alternative to pain medication — when stopped, the pain gradually returns. As the quote from Doidge I posted earlier says “unlike medication … the neuroplastic technique allows patients to reduce its use over time, once their networks have rewired.” [1]
Although I might be starting to find traction with the days in between the flare-ups, I still don’t have a handle on the flare-ups themselves. This realisation dawned on my gradually, almost reluctantly, over the course of the day, through writing and mulling it over in my head. Tonight as I type this entry up I have the problem staring me in the face again. So as I said at the start of this post, I’ve begun researching and tracking down a few pain forums online. One of them is even based out of NZ and may lead to me finding a local face-to-face group that I can refer to when stuck like this. More investigations to come.
This is a perfect illustration of why keeping a diary is so incredibly beneficial for me while making a lifestyle change like this. Thanks to those of you who are reading, and those of you who are not, well, up yours!
Offending those who will never read it is a victimless crime right? 🙂
[1] http://zigzagyogi.com/2016/07/quote-doidge-on-moskowitzs-neuroplastic-cure-for-persistent-pain/