Category — Irritable Bowel Syndrome

After evaluating several different ideas for kicking off Endometriosis Awareness Month, I decided to go with a simple post to start.

Therefore, I would like to refer readers to a recent post regarding endometriosis advocacy and the media because a number of endometriosis patients banded together, contacted a newspaper that had printed inaccurate information about endometriosis, and it really made a difference.

As explained in more detail in the following post, the newspaper in question printed a letter to the editor which corrected statements made in the original newspaper article (an original article that was, ironically, written by a gynecologist). I truly believe that one factor that may have helped the newspaper decide to print the correction was that the endometriosis awareness petition with nearly 500 signatures on it was sent to the editor of the newspaper. I believe, after many occasions in the past where such letter-writing campaigns were simply ignored by the media, that the petition you see linked from this very post may well have helped make it harder for the paper to dismiss our letters.

If you missed the post (or the two related posts that preceded it, which are linked from this one), here it is:

Endometriosis Advocacy and the Media

If you have already signed the petition to help spread endometriosis awareness and disseminate endometriosis facts in the media, thank you! Perhaps you have family or friends who would be willing to sign it as well?

If you have not yet signed the petition, please take a moment to do so. There is an optional field where you can leave a comment along with with your signature, if you so choose. There are many fields that are strictly optional. For example, if you do not wish to list your city, you may select the N/G or “not given” option for that field. Simply click on any of the royal blue petition logos in this post to sign. Signing the petition is a very quick, easy process.

You don’t even need a pen to sign this petition. If you’re reading this post, you’re just a click away from signing the online petition.

Anyone wishing to support the estimated 89 million women and girls worldwide who have endometriosis may sign this petition. Men and women, young and old… let’s work together to get as many signatures as possible on it.

The petition text reads as follows:

An estimated 89 MILLION women and girls worldwide have endometriosis! “This makes endometriosis more common than AIDS and more common than cancer“, as per Ohio State University Medical Center. (Source: The Ohio State University Medical Center website).

Yet for years it has remained largely “under-the-radar”. The general public has been largely unaware of it – or misunderstands just how very debilitating it can be. When endometriosis IS mentioned in the media, misleading statements may be made (causing confusion for patients and the public).

We have a duty to educate the public about this life-altering illness by spreading factual information… and by recognizing misinformation and taking steps to address that.

Endometriosis can only be diagnosed via a surgical procedure called a laparoscopy.

Endometriosis awareness is vital! It is equally vital that information disseminated about endometriosis be accurate! In spreading myths and misinformation, endometriosis patients are hurt rather than helped.

The purpose of this petition is endometriosis awareness. ANYONE who wishes to sign it may do so. Whether you are male or female, young or old… if you wish to show support for the 89 million women and girls living with endometriosis, we’d be honored if you’d sign this online petition. If you wish to do so, you may include a comment when you sign. Please spread the word about this petition to others!

* Please note that I do not endorse any organizations. Patients are encouraged to do thorough research before supporting any organization claiming to help women and girls who have endometriosis.

Thank you!

Please click above to access the petition.

Won’t you please join those of us who have already signed this petition or ask others to do the same? The more signatures we are able to gather, the better tool the petition becomes when we write in to various media outlets to make them aware of stories that contain inaccuracies. This petition is a tool for spreading endometriosis facts and pointing out endometriosis misinformation.

Since endometriosis has a long history of being portrayed in the media with extreme and persistent inaccuracy, it is vital for patients to speak up when they see such errors. Having a petition like this is very helpful because of the nearly 500 people who have signed it, many have left heart-wrenching comments that any newspaper editor or reporter would have to be touched by in some way.

Let’s keep using this petition the way we did recently with the newspaper mentioned in the link above. By speaking up together, we can make a difference in how endometriosis is portrayed in the media. This is vital for a condition so poorly understood and so riddled with myths and misinformation.

Thank you!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

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Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

Yesterday, I watched the bipartisan meeting on health reform. The summit was fascinating to me for many reasons but there was a highlight, for me, in the form of remarks made by Rep. Louise Slaughter. She really stood up for women’s health!

Rep. Louise Slaughter

She boldly spoke up for women at the 2/25/2010 health summit

In my mind, her comments can be appreciated by all women and especially any any female patient who has lived with the effects of gender discrimination in relation to medical research (i.e. lack of research on women or lack of investigating illnesses that affect just women) or cost of healthcare that is tied to gender. I won’t even get into a discussion of how common it is for women’s symptoms to be dismissed when similar symptoms would be taken more seriously for males (i.e. heart disease). The point is that Rep. Louise Slaughter stood up for all women and I was just beyond thrilled that she took the opportunity presented by the summit to address these issues.

My thanks to Diana of the Somebody Heal Me blog for posting this video. When I clicked on the link she posted (to the video below), it took me to the Odd Time Signatures site.

Yesterday, I was so thrilled to hear what Rep. Louise Slaughter said that I resolved myself to scour the Internet today to find a video clip of her at yesterday’s summit. Again, Rep. Slaughter wasn’t just speaking up about health reform.

She was speaking up for female patients everywhere and she was shining light on the fact that medical research studies were done almost exclusively on white males up until a startlingly short time ago, relatively speaking. I believe that any patient with an illness that affects women can appreciate the way Rep. Louise Slaughter spoke up for ALL female patients.

As a patient with numerous illnesses that either affect women alone or that affect more women than men, I was absolutely ecstatic to hear Rep. Louise Slaughter articulate what too few people are aware of… and to hear her do so in such a public forum!

There IS gender discrimination not only in the area of medical research but in the very cost of health insurance itself for women vs. men. Before I had even had a chance to locate a video of Rep. Louise Slaughter at yesterday’s summit, I came across a link from Diana that led me to Odd Time Signatures site.

(Video run time 12 minutes and 59 seconds):

Did you miss the summit? I will warn you up front. It’s long. However, you can scroll through the link below and watch parts of it if you choose to. (This video was just a snippet from the summit).

The link below has the summit, in its entirety, broken down into five video parts. You can watch some or all of it at the link below:

Bipartisan Health Care Meeting

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

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Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

(Photo credit – Getty)

I have written previously regarding healthcare and wanted to take a moment here to post an update on the current situation, for those of you who may not be aware of the status of things at this time.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I will cite the following post from:

S E N A T U S: Daily Coverage of the United States Senate

See “About Senatus” (taken directly from that site):

Providing daily, non-partisan coverage of the U.S. Senate and the elections which determine its members. This is a private-citizen effort and is in no way affiliated with the federal government.

(Photo credit – Associated Press)

See the following post on the Senatus blog:

Reid Says Reconciliation Likely On Health Reform

According to various news reports, 20 senators have signed so far, calling on Majority Leader Harry Reid to pass the public health insurance option through “reconciliation,” which only needs a simple majority in the Senate. If your Senator is listed as “unknown” on the list below, please consider taking a moment to email or call him/her requesting he/she join the 20 Senators who have already called on Majority Leader Harry Reid, as per above:

Name – ST – Status:

It is too late. I already am. Late. It seems like I’m late on everything both online and in real life. It is maddening. I feel like I can’t ever catch up. It’s always just a matter of how far behind I am on things.

I won’t bore you with the long list of things I’m late on in my real life. My to-do list has reached nauseating proportions. I’m going to need to take some drastic measures to make significant progress.

As far as online matters are concerned, I’m late moderating comments. I’m late answering Facebook messages. I’m late blogging. (This is my first post since Monday. I don’t usually have gaps like that between posts). I’m really late on responding to email.

So, if you are one of the people wondering why I am so slow responding to a comment or an email… please accept this as my apology. It has been a stressful week.

Why? Why am I so stressed out?

I don’t have any big, dramatic news that explains why I am so stressed out. So, I found myself actually asking, “why am I so stressed out? I concluded that a large number of little things or moderately problematic issues have just culminated into one big pile of stress and that stress is on top of “medical stress” (meaning stress associated with all things medical, a type of stress I’ve had plenty of this week too).

So, I’ve had some significant “medical stress” this week but I can honestly say that this – what prompted this post – is other stress on top of that. Does that make sense? Anyone who is chronically ill knows that medical issues certainly cause plenty of stress. Obviously, the illnesses are probably the biggest stressor I have in general.

(Do me a favor and pretend that is a pile of stress. Oddly, I was unable to find a picture of one. I named this “stresswood”)

So, I think what I’m trying to say is that I am stressed by lots of non-medical issues that have popped up throughout the week on top of “medical stress”.

There are many reasons this week has been a stressful one. I won’t belabor the point with an exhaustive list of the many things that have stressed me out this week.

However, since this is a blog about chronic conditions, I will name the conditions that have been flaring up in some way this past week: fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity, interstitial cystitis, vulvodynia, irritable bowel syndrome, endometriosis, and Raynaud’s. I am too tired to hyperlink all of those conditions. So, if you are interested in reading about any of them, check my “categories” or “search this blog” options in the right sidebar… as most of the conditions I have mentioned have been written about on this blog before.

Needless to say, many of the above conditions trigger others listed above. So I’ve been dealing with the chain reaction syndrome I am very used to by now. So, I just wanted to surface for air long enough to let you know that I am drowning in tasks to do, I am going as fast as I can to catch up, and it may be awhile before that happens.

I have had several wonderful friends remind me in the last few days to practice what I preach and remember to make self-care a priority. So, I am going to listen to my wise, thoughtful friends (too many to list, I’m afraid, but you know who you are!) and try to remember the basics such as relaxing, breathing, and taking breaks. I also want to thank the friends who have given me special support this week. Again, there are too many to list but you know who you are.

Have a wonderful weekend. Peace out.

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

My teeth do not look like this but I wish they did:

I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago and found out I have an abscessed tooth. My dentist said he wanted me to be on an antibiotic for a good week before he works on it and that I need a root canal. Then, I went out to the front desk and the receptionist scheduled my root canal. It will be done tomorrow.

With the holidays and everything, it ended up being closer to two weeks from when I was prescribed the antibiotic to tomorrow’s root canal. The antibiotic had calmed the pain down quite a bit. However, after I had taken the 7 day supply the pain started creeping back in.

So I called the dentist’s office a few days ago and asked whether or not I needed more antibiotics. (I had a feeling, based on what my dentist had said when I last saw him, that the answer would be yes). It was. So, I am now on my second round of antibiotics.

For reasons unknown to me, my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was already acting up before the first round of antibiotics. I wasn’t able to tie my symptoms to food I’d eaten. For whatever reason, the IBS just flared up. The antibiotics did not help my IBS symptoms any. Unfortunately, this second round of antibiotics is just extending this problem. (Yes, I am taking my probiotics).

Have you ever seen those commercials on TV where they talk about oral health being a reflection of overall health? Well, they are right. In the last couple of years, my teeth have been a mess. My poor dentist can’t fill the cavities fast enough. It’s all very discouraging.

In any event, I’ll be happy to have tomorrow’s root canal behind me. I have had one before and, after all I had heard about root canals, I honestly couldn’t figure out why people complain about them so much. What I mean is… I had heard about root canals as something extraordinarily painful. While it wasn’t my favorite thing to have done, the one I had was no more painful than a lot of the chronic pain I experience daily with my various illnesses. So, when I had that one I was actually relieved that it was nowhere near as bad as I had feared.

My biggest concerns heading into tomorrow are:

1) having a multiple chemical sensitivity reaction

2) having my TMJ get aggravated

My dentist is amazingly supportive and helpful regarding my multiple chemical sensitivity. He goes to great lengths to avoid using materials he thinks I’m likely to react to. This man is a saint. He truly bends over backwards to avoid me having any sort of multiple chemical sensitivity reaction from dental work.

My husband is driving me to the appointment in case I should have any reactions to the materials used that make it unsafe for me to drive. While I don’t like to have to do this, I have learned from past experiences that there are times it is safest for me to have someone drive me to certain appointments. Wish me luck!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

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Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

This post is a partial reprint of an article I read on The Canary Report.

While the full post there was more detailed and got into specifics involving claims made by companies targeting multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) patients, for the purposes of this post I have decided to focus on the ten warning signs of a scam, as compiled by Lourdes Salvador and Linda Sepp, and as previously published HERE.

This list, in my opinion, is applicable to nearly any chronic illness patient because the tips for spotting scams listed here are so universally used. This fantastic list is far more concise than I could have written. Yet it captured something I have been wanting to blog about for some time. Longtime readers know that I have blogged about scams and false cures before. However, this list nicely sums up what you, as a chronically ill patient, can be on the lookout for.

Reprinted with permission from:

Lourdes Salvador of MCS America
AND
Linda Sepp, a contributor for The Canary Report

Ten Warning Signs of a Scam:

1. The Promise Of A Quick And Easy Cure

2. Presence Unproven Patient Testimonials & Emotional Appeals Instead Of Science

3. Claims To Cure Many Ailments Which Have No Cure In Medical Science

4. It’s Not Sold In Stores

5. It Has Undisclosed Ingredients Or Content

6. You Have To Keep At It To Get Results

7. It Doesn’t Work Because You Did It Wrong

8. Science Hasn’t Even Bothered To Discredit It (No Threat To Pharmaceutical Sales)

9. The Seller Lacks A Medical Degree Or Similar Qualification

10. It’s Too Good To Be True

Copyrighted © 2009 MCS America

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I am very grateful to Susie Collins for posting about this topic and to Linda Sepp and Lourdes Salvador for writing about this very important topic!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

As many of you have concluded by now, my twitter account has been impersonated.

Before I proceed, let me mention that the single easiest, simplest way to reach my authentic twitter page is to click on the twitter icon (small blue heart) in the right sidebar of this blog. This will route you straight to my account. If you are following any accounts that look very similar but have a differently spelled twitter name, please block them!

Please read this post carefully as the twitter account that is posing as me has caused confusion and I want to help you know which account is which so that you will not accidentally follow the hacker’s account.

Here is a picture of my twitter page:

Please note the spelling of my twitter name:

@jeanneendo

Please be aware that the impostor’s account uses a very similar twitter name spelling, uses my exact same avatar picture, uses the same twitter page background I use, etc. In other words, visually these two accounts look extremely alike!

I am not going to mention the impostor’s account name here because I don’t want to give that account any more “free publicity” than it has already gotten. If you think you may be listed as a follower to the impostor’s account and want to block it, simply skim through the list of who you’re following. If you see an account that looks like me, please look closely at the spelling of the twitter account name. If it is anything other than my account listed above, PLEASE block it.

Some of my twitter followers have already accidentally followed the hacker account thinking it was me. If you have followed any twitter account other than what I list above, thinking that you were following me… please block that account. Obviously, it’s important that my twitter followers not also be following the account of the impostor posing as me.

The impostor has sent out messages aimed at hurting not just me but my twitter friends. I ask that anyone who is accidentally following the impostor’s account as well as mine or in place of mine (you see, the impostor is doing an impostor’s job and confusing people as to which account is which and there have been people who have followed me for years and stopped following me/started following the impostor, thinking that my real account is the impostor)… simply block the impostor’s account.

If you are unsure of whether you are following the impostor, I ask you to please check who you are following to make sure that you are not following the “look-alike” account.

I have one and only one twitter account. It is the same one I have been using since 2007.

Again it’s:

@jeanneendo

As of the writing of this post, I have 8,514 tweets listed on my authentic account. However, the important part to pay attention to for differentiating my twitter account from any impostor is to pay close attention to the spelling of my twitter name:

@jeanneendo

Again, the screen shot above shows my REAL account. Again, the impostor’s twitter page looks very similar.

Unlike the impostor, I do not use profanity in tweets. I have seen tweets sent by the impostor which contain profanity and hurtful attacks on individuals.

For anyone reading this who is confused about who @jeanneendo is, I would encourage you to look through this blog and get a better understanding of what I write about and do. With the confusion caused by the impostor, the best way to get a handle on what @jeanneendo is about might be to take a bit of time to read this blog… and see what I have written in my own words, see what topics I write about, etc.

Last but not least, I would obviously like to get this message out to as many people as possible. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate and Stumbles you could do. I would also be grateful for any “Tweet Me” updates you can do. There are many people confused about what’s happening. I am only one person and answering everyone’s questions in a timely fashion is quite impossible with the number of questions I’m getting. My hope is that this post covers the #1 question people have been asking me… Which account is real and which account is the impostor?

Thank you for your patience and understanding in getting through the challenges posed by this unfortunate incident!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

Hey, I can squeak in another invisible illness post for awareness week.

It’s not September 20th yet! This post was inspired by today’s events.

I have posted this video in the past but I am posting it again because it’s brief, to the point, and helpful:

This will be fairly quick. I am very tired and sore from multiple illnesses flaring up at once but I just had to share some positive news!

The past couple of days, my interstitial cystitis (IC) has been flaring. It is not unusual for my period to trigger bladder pain. To be clear, I have never had endometriosis removed from my bladder. Essentially what happens is that my IC is easily set off by my period.

In any event, I have blogged on previous occasions about interstitial cystitis and how it is a commonly co-existing condition with other illnesses such as endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome for some patients. (I have all of the above).

After 12 years undiagnosed with IC and having had three urologists tell me I didn’t have it… my pelvic pain specialist diagnosed me with IC during my 4th cystoscopy with hydrodistention.

Since getting my long-awaited diagnosis of IC and beginning proper treatment for it, I have had a huge improvement of symptoms with a combination of oral medication and bladder instillations. I do the bladder instillations at home. This involves self-catheterization to instill the medication(s) into the bladder.

IT’S NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS.

Anyway, I was really hurting earlier and decided it was time to do a bladder instillation, period or not. The good news is that I got SIGNIFICANT relief within minutes.

(Please note: there are a variety of different treatment methods in use by doctors for treating IC. Treatment decisions need to be discussed with your doctor. I purposely choose not to name the medications I take online as a general rule. I am not comfortable naming brands of medications in posts).

So, if you’d like to learn more about bladder instillations and interstitial cystitis, please see “interstitial cystitis” under categories in the right sidebar. (This will pull up IC posts and chronic illness posts. So you may need to sort through a bit to find posts just on IC. I’m still fine-tuning the sorting of the posts from when I switched over to this blog). Alternatively, you could search on “interstitial cystitis” in the search box (also in right sidebar).

One last note… Due to my vulvodynia, my pelvic pain specialist wisely prescribed me PEDIATRIC catheters, which are narrower than adult catheters. I have never self-catheterized with an adult catheter and don’t ever wish to. So, if you have IC or suspect that you might… this might be something to keep in the back of your mind the next time you talk with your doctor. (Obviously, I am not giving medical advice. I am simply sharing something that has been enormously helpful for me).

Last but not least, I always like to mention this organization when I blog about IC because they are fantastic!

—–> Interstitial Cystitis Association

I AM VERY GRATEFUL FOR THE RELIEF TODAY’S BLADDER INSTILLATION HAS GIVEN ME!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

I have a notion some of you are going to be able to relate to the topic of being overwhelmed…

One word sums up this week for me… overwhelmed! I’ll just focus on my overwhelmed state online. I won’t take the space or energy to delve into the “in real life” aspects. Here goes…

I had grand plans for all of the posts I was going to do about various chronic conditions this week in honor of Invisible Illness Awareness Week. There are so many invisible illnesses that I have myself and have written about in the past (endometriosis, fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity, and interstitial cystitis… just to name a few) and that I was planning on focusing on this week.

However, whatever the date on the calendar may be and whatever I may try to plan, I have learned that I have to listen to my body. This was a tiring week. I did the best I could. I managed to do an Invisible Illness Awareness Week post on kickoff day and since then I have written posts about chronically ill blogger friends of mine who were in need of support:

… for Allison HERE and for Melissa HERE

Most of my time online this week was on twitter. I promoted Invisible Illness Week there and I did my best to rally support for my friends. With twitter I can use short bursts of energy. Even when I spend a more extended period on twitter, I don’t have as much trouble concentrating on what I’m writing as I do for a post. So sometimes when I’m really struggling (like this week), I’m actually on twitter more.

Is there a 50% complete post sitting in my draft folder on Invisible Illness Week? Yes. Do I have enough energy to finish it? No. It’s not getting finished, unfortunately. This post I am writing right now and some brief time on twitter will probably be about all I can handle today, especially considering I just got back from seeing my primary care physician (almost an hour drive each way) and I saw my dentist earlier in the week (also an hour each way).

Bottom line… I am exhausted. My email is the most backed up it’s ever been (which is saying a lot!), my comments moderation is currently backlogged (which I try not to let happen), I feel guilty because there are so many blogs I’m long overdue to visit and/or comment on, and right now I just can’t stress about it.

So, if you’d like to read about the topics I mentioned or other chronic conditions I have blogged about, please check out the “categories” section or search box in my blog’s right sidebar.

If I had the energy I’d finish that post where I was going to generate all the hyperlinks and sort them by illness. However, I have to listen to my body and right now it is telling me to SLOW DOWN.

Oh, I should make note that I also have blogged extensively about infertility. There are so many women with endometriosis who have infertility and this is a topic near and dear to my heart. So I just wanted to be sure to point that out too!

I wish I could write more but I’m about to drop. This has been an emotional, tiring, busy, draining, stressful, exhausting week. It did not help one bit that my period came early again and that it is zapping my energy like there’s no tomorrow. Endometriosis has a tendency to sometimes do such lovely things. (At least in my 27 years living with it I have found that to be true).

So, if you are chronically ill and/or in chronic pain and you feel tired or guilty for what you didn’t get done today… cut yourself some slack and get some rest. We can only do our best (i.e. our best without pushing ourselves TOO hard in unhealthy ways). After that, we just need to step back and accept that “it is what it is”. So, take a deep breath and go engage in some form of self care.

Whether it’s a cup of tea or popping in your favorite CD, do something to make yourself feel good and try to distract yourself from your symptoms and just relax your muscles. Your body will thank you.

How about you? Are you overwhelmed? How do you calm down or cope when you get overwhelmed? Please leave comments on this topic. When we share our coping skills, we help ourselves and help others simultaneously.

Let’s help each other. Please share your ideas.

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for supporting this blog by shopping Amazon via my ads & spreading the word to others! So many of you have done so in these last couple of months; I greatly appreciate your support!!

Thank you for your blog comments!

New to blog commenting? Just click “comments” below the post. If you grab a Gravatar, your picture will show with your comment.

>> Stumbling & tweeting my blog posts is greatly appreciated! <<

The Invisible Illness Awareness Week conference starts this morning. There will be radio seminars where you can dial in to ask questions if you wish. A variety of topics are scheduled to be covered. Interested in checking it out? No need to leave home for this conference.

Just click for seminars:

CLICK HERE FOR INVISIBLE ILLNESS WEEK SEMINAR INFORMATION

Enjoy!

This post was written by Jeanne at http://chronichealing.com. Copyright © Jeanne — chronichealing.com. All rights reserved.

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” ~~ Robert Fulghum

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