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Who am I?

Hey there, welcome to my blog. My name is Sian, I’m 28, I live in Scotland and I have a chronic illness called M.E.  What is M.E.? M.E stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).  How long have I had ME?  I developed M.E 2 years ago at the start of September. I was about to start college to study beauty therapy and the day before I had a headache. Ok, no big deal, everyone has headaches. By the evening it had developed into a migraine (you know, when you can’t stand the light, or sounds, and you feel like you’re going to throw up). I didn’t think too much of it and hoped it would be gone by the morning. Well, it didn’t go. In fact, I had that same migraine constantly for 6 months straight.  What did you do?  I got on with it. I started college the next day, and I attended every day I was supposed to until I couldn’t handle it anymore, which was Christmas 2016.  What ...
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Lots of pain

I’m having a bad pain day.

I had a really bad sleep so my tolerance to pain is low, but I’m having a lot of pain today. 

Years ago, I damaged my right knee when my eating disorder was active, I was working out at home too much and not warming my joints up and was diagnosed with pes anserine bursitis of the knee. It was pretty painful, I spent two weeks slowly shuffling at work until my manager finally got me to see my GP. There’s nothing they can do for it, but I had to rest it at home for a week. Since then, every now and again, that knee hurts for no obvious reason. 

For the last few weeks both of my knees have been stiff and sore, but today they’re very painful. I think the cold, damp weather that we’re having here in Scotland has brought it on. I have tried using arnica gel and CBD balm on them with not much relief, so I will be trying my TENS next (I’ll talk more about my TENS in another post soon). 

With my M.E. I’m in pain everyday, my legs generally hurt, it is a mixture of muscle, joint and bone pain that is always there in the background. Some days are worse than others. I have been on several different pain medications for it including codeine, Tramadol and now Oxycodone (tablet form and I have liquid morphine for breakthrough pain which I don’t like to use unless I really need to). I’m also on Amitriptyline, but I don’t think that it is doing anything for me. 

I also get a lot of weakness in my legs, where they will visibly shake when I use the stairs in my house, or walk up and down hills and inclines. On those days, I use a walking stick. I don’t like using it, I don’t like the looks I get when I use it, which can be a mixture of judgement and sympathy. The first time I used it in my local high street, some of the sad looks I got broke my heart more than using it, having a visual aid for strangers to see my disability made me feel incredibly vulnerable and fragile. My brother in law kindly vinyl wrapped it for me so it is now purple instead of the usual hospital grey. 

Hopefully my pain will be less tomorrow, it is affecting my mood in a negative way. It tends to make me withdrawn and quiet which worries Denys. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. 

Thanks for reading.
That ME Girl 



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