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...

Although I have been following the Slimming World diet for 18 weeks now, I have unfortunately not managed to post an update since the first month due to a series of personal issues (and some holidays, of course – it is summer). During this time, I have stuck to the diet on and off, with some weeks going better than others. I have faced a number of issues during this time – some diet related, some not – which unfortunately means that I am currently slightly heavier than when I first started in May. When I first started the diet, it took my body time to adjust. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Metamorphosis , I have always had weight issues due to a medical condition called gastroparesis. My gastroparesis also means that my body cannot handle certain foods, most of which are what is recommended for most diets. However, after a few weeks my body began to lose weight very gradually. This was interrupted by my multiple travels (check my travel blog, Alex Alfresco ) and so here...

So I’ve just completed my first month on the Slimming World diet, which has been great fun although difficult as I love desserts! I’ve found some amazing low syn or even syn free recipes though which I’m planning on posting in the coming weeks, but this post is more of an introduction. Between my fast metabolism and my stomach condition (gastroparesis), I spend the first 18 years of my life underweight and struggling to gain and body mass. Then my medication changed and I started gaining weight FAST. Currently I am three stone heavier than I’d like to be. Maybe that’s not as much as some other people would like to lose – I am a fairly average body size and don’t look very overweight – but to me that is a big change. I can’t stop the tablets that are making me put on weight so I am trying to lose it healthily, which is why I turned to the Slimming World diet. Slimming World is more of a lifestyle change than a diet. It’s all about managing food, having the right food most of th...

The end of a new year and the start of the next is always marked by people looking back and deciding what they want to change about their lives. Almost everyone makes a New Years’ resolution but very few keep them. Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of things that I would like to achieve this year, but I would instead like to use the New Year to be thankful for those good things in my life that I hope will stay for 2019. I am lucky to live with some amazing people who keep my spirits up when things are rough. I live with my mum, who has spent almost twenty years driving me to different hospitals and doctors, picking up medication, driving me about because I’m too ill to use public transport, and picking me up when I am out and need to go home because I become too ill. Don’t get me wrong, we fight just like any other mother and daughter, maybe even more because of how much time we spend together. But she is also one of my best, and at times one of my only, friends. She understands...

I am careful in my everyday life to plan meticulously enough that I have time to rest in between activities. During holidays and big events I take this so seriously that I have been known amongst friends and family for my rigorous itineraries. But no matter how much I plan, my illnesses will not stick to a schedule, even one specifically planned around them. And that’s when I hear those dreaded three words: “you’re too sick”. I heard these words yesterday from my boyfriend. We were supposed to be visiting the Christmas markets, and this was our last chance as they closed today. We had planned to go two weeks ago, but had ended up rearranging because I was ill. It is a tradition of mine’s to visit the Christmas markets in Glasgow every year, and has been for as long as I can remember. It was an even bigger deal this year because there was a specific stall that I was desperate to visit. It was so important to me that I planned a day before to rest and two days after to rest. Whe...