Persisting Pain

Sometimes buying gifts for your chronically ill friend or family member can be difficult; and as a chronically ill person, I often receive a lot of gifts that I cannot use. Here are some ideas of what they might like, but keep in mind that every person and every illness is different and so not every gift will be suitable for everyone. 1. A blanket (fleecy/weighted/heated) Spending a lot of time in bed or on the couch, a blanket always helps you get comfortable and relax. A lot of us with chronic illnesses have issues with regulating our body temperature and so a blanket helps with this. Getting them a heated or weighted blanket could also help alleviate some of their symptoms, such as pain. 2. A hot water bottle  Most chronic illnesses cause pain in some form or another, and a hot water bottle is an easy and reusable way to reduce this pain, even slightly, and it is great to cuddle up with during the colder months. 3. An eye mask An eye mask is a great gift fo...

My entire life, my mum has always thrown a big Christmas dinner. My grandparents would come round and we would eat her delicious food that she had been preparing for days and watch Christmas TV in our pyjamas. However, both my mum and I have multiple chronic illnesses and so this got more difficult to manage every year. A few years ago we had to make some changes that we had never planned to do, but it has turned out so much easier. We decided to start going out for Christmas dinner, at first to a local restaurant and this year we are booked into a carvery. We had always thought of Christmas as a stay-at-home, family day and thought that going out for it would take away something that made Christmas day what it was. If anything, however, it has made our Christmas day so much better! Instead of spending all of our time and energy making a massive meal that involves days of prep, pulling out and setting a table big enough for everyone, and then clearing it all up afterwards, we can...

The festive season is a time that almost everyone looks forward to. However, when you have a chronic illness, the holidays can be a difficult time for many reasons. Everyone’s illnesses affect them differently, so here are a couple of the ways that my health can taint Christmas for me: As you may know from previous posts, I have a stomach condition called gastroparesis. This means that my stomach is partially paralysed and this can cause issues including sickness, fatigue, loss of appetite, and food intolerances. Almost every holiday is focused around food, and this can make it difficult for me. A lot of the time I cannot eat without throwing up everywhere and when I can eat I am limited to small amount of specific foods in the hopes that it doesn’t make me sick. I can also be sure that if I eat I will be plagued with abdominal pains for hours afterwards. As a big foodie, this causes me enough problems on a normal day; at the holidays, this is downright awful. All of my illne...