Think!…a book offering help for chronic head pain {{giveaway}}
How did Thursday get here so fast? Every Thursday I’ll share a new book that I’m reading. I’ll also share interviews with many of the authors. I was glad to interview my guest today for a personal reason.
I have a loved one who is a strong, athletic, jump-in-life kind of guy, but migraines shut him down. That’s why I was excited to read Lisa Morrone’s new book, Overcoming Headaches and Migraines. In it she offers hope and healing with those living with chronic head pain.
She’s a physical therapist. An adjunct professor in a university Doctorate level PT program, she has taught upwards of one thousand of tomorrow’s promising physical therapists, and now shares that information with those suffering with pain, and their loved ones.and shares her method of comprehensive Do-It-Yourself treatment for chronic back and neck pain sufferers.
Lisa joins me today to talk about some of those methods, as well as how chronic pain can sideline those who want to be active. She encourages those who have been told my numerous doctors that they should “just live with it”, to search deeper.
Suzie Eller: Thanks for joining us today, Lisa. . Let’s jump right in. When someone has head pain, they often reach for medication. Can the medication they take actually cause more headaches?
Lisa Morrone, PT: Strangely enough it can! When a person regularly takes medication to keep their head pain under control—whether it is over-the counter-medication, like Excedrin or Tylenol, or doctor-prescribed meds such as Cafergot or Imitrex—their brain actually gets used to the steady diet of those brain-altering chemicals.
In fact it can become addicted to them! So what does an addicted brain do when its chemical diet is running low? It does what it knows will get it some more chemicals—it produces another headache. Very clever, huh?!
(more…)
Posted by Suzie @
6:21 am |
test results are in
I saw the 479 area code flash on my cell. I usually don’t answer calls I don’t recognize, but this one triggered something. Where had I seen that area code before?
It was the breast center calling to share the results of my BRCA1 genetic test. Melissa and I had traveled to the genetic counselor and I had made a decision to go through with it after hearing what this knowledge would mean for my girls, and my son.
If I had the gene (I was diagnosed with breast cancer and mestasis at 32, went through chemo, radiation, and two surgeries and had a 40% chance of surviving 5 years), it carried some heavy connotations for my daughters, and also for my son I discovered.
Leslie and Melissa are in their twenties, and as they approach the age I was when I was diagnosed, we knew that we needed that information.
The counselor shared that it would mean that they needed to be vigilant (which they are) about mammograms and MRI’s on a yearly basis, but also that if I was a gene carrier that all my children needed to be tested. If they carried the gene, it meant making heavy decisions such as removing breast tissue or a complete masectomy and removing ovaries after family planning was complete. For Ryan, it meant that he would need to be tested for other types of cancers, and that any daughters he might have would need to be tested.
The reality is that thousands of young adults and women are weighing these choices when presented with positive test results every day.
I held the cell in my hand tight when I heard: “We have the results,” the counselor said.
“They are negative. You do NOT have the gene.”
1000 pounds rolled of my shoulders.
If the answer had been positive, we would have faced that as a family. But it’s not, and that means that though my children still need to be vigilant since mom was diagnosed young, that there is no BRCA gene buried in their or their children’s DNA. No heavy decisions, and I’m glad we made the decision to test. We don’t have to guess anymore.
Why did I get breast cancer at the age of 32? I’ll never know. A percentage of the population is diagnosed with no family history and no gene. It was random.
I’ll never trade that part of my history, for it was a time that I learned to trust God implicitly, and so did my children because it was their momma that was sick…
That same momma is grateful beyond words today.
Posted by Suzie @
11:38 am |
Still healing
More x-rays today. My physical therapist believes that my shoulder is unstable. That image makes me think of a teetering glass vase sitting on the edge of the table, but more likely I just have a little more little healing ahead of me.
Being in pain these past few days and constrained in physical activity for the past six weeks has shown me new territory. A land of limitations I don’t like much. I don’t like illness, slowing down, not being able to do what I want to do without thinking it through.
A few years ago my husband worked at a local factory as a planner. He walked on concrete up to 12 hours a day. He was young, but he hurt. One day he asked me if I ever hurt. And the answer was no. I couldn’t empathize with his aches. I cared, but I had never walked in his shoes.
Six weeks ago my answer was the same. I didn’t know what it was like to hurt physically for hours at a time. Now I do.
How can God redeem this time? I pray that it helps me to remember what it feels like when I encounter someone who lives with pain day in and day out. I pray that I have empathy for those who suffer, in ways much greater than I have.
I pray that I remember to thank God for good days that are pain free, and to trust Him when they are not.
I’m ready to be well again, people. That’s the bottom line, and yet I trust God through this process. I want to sing with joy instead of whine (which I have done plenty of privately). I want to be able to lift my left arm over my head again, but until then I’ll praise him with my Suzie dance or inside my heart.
I want to be physically strong again, but until then I’ll rely on His strength.
Posted by Suzie @
9:09 am |
I’m getting there!
Sling is off. I’m typing two-handed. I can move my left arm, as long as I stay in the karate-chop range. I still have my figure-8 brace. It’s been washed a few times and yet it still looks dingy, kind of the I’m-stuck-in-your-armpits-24/7 look that laundry soap won’t touch.
The bone has settled and it sticks up, though doctors promise it will one day be a nice little round bump instead of the branch-like quality it has now.
I can even sleep in a bed, which is Heaven. Unless I accidently turn over in my sleep, then it becomes that other place.
Four weeks and two days. I’m healing way faster than was first anticipated. And I’m grateful.
My mom usually says things like this when bad things happen. “We need to be thankful, Suzie, because somewhere there is someone whose face got torn off”. She’s right, I know.
But that’s not why I’m thankful. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
1:22 am |
People, I need people
I don’t want my blog to become a journal about broken collarbones, but somehow that is my life right now. The other night I couldn’t sleep and I searched the ‘net for posts about broken collarbones, wondering how long recovery might be, when I could sleep in a real bed, if that tearing feeling was good or bad…
This is where I am. Still in a chair, though I’m climbing out for longer periods of time. I love showers now, and will never take being clean for granted again. It is when I’m most vulnerable. Sling off. The crazy-8 brace off. I have to hold my left arm with my right because it’s not functional and turns red when it hangs down.
But the hot water is soothing, and when I’m back in my chair fully dressed (in pjs or sweats) and my hair is clean and I’m wearing deoderant and smell like Oil of Olay Ribbons Body Wash (yes, I will be your spokesperson), I feel like Suzie again.
Tomorrow I go back to the doc, and they’ll x-ray to see if it’s in line or close to in line. The bones shouldn’t be merging yet. Healing, according to google, should start to take place in one to two more weeks, and we should see fuzzy stuff on the X-ray and if I see a “bridge” I can dance one-armed around the office, because that means the two bones have made a love connection. (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
10:52 am |
Be Still
Be still…
Why is that simple command so hard for me? Maybe it is because I define stillness as nanoseconds of quietness, rather than 13 days of sitting, sleeping, and eating in a chair.
Being still seems to be the most difficult aspect of healing.
I want to clean my own house. I want to shower my own body. I want to walk, run, work out. Go to Lowes and look at flowering trees and annuals for my garden.
And yet here I sit. At least for five more days until the next X-ray. I tried last night to do something that may be I shouldn’t and I paid for it. So I dragged my feet and went back to the chair like a child who was walking into punishment.
Be still, Suzie. Let this thing work through and graft and heal. It will take time.
How often do we push God’s timing? We take matters in our own hands. We wrangle with it, and try to do what we cannot do at this stage, instead of allowing God to work from the inside out.
Be still. I will, God. I promise, but I need your help.
Posted by Suzie @
12:38 pm |
