Skip to main content

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 ...

Pain Relief

Over the last 6 months or so, my pain levels have been pretty low, and I was able to reduce my morphine dosage in December with no immediate repercussions.

However, over the last few weeks, that has changed. I hadn't used my TENS machine in months, but now I'm back to using it daily. I tend to keep the sticky pads on my legs overnight, ready to hook up to it in the morning for speed, and to stop them quickly losing their stickiness.


I have liquid morphine that I can take for any breakthrough pain, but I tend to only use this when I really need to. It's rare I use it for my M.E. pain, I try to stick to other methods of pain relief, like my TENS, but also with magnesium and Arnica gel.

Magnesium is great for pain relief, and we absorb it much more efficiently through our skin, compared to taking a supplement, so incorporating a magnesium spray into your daily routine can be really beneficial. It isn't a quick fix, it takes time to build up in your system and start to help, but most people find benefit in using it. The one that I'm currently using is from Holland & Barrett and can be found here. It is usually around £11, but there are also alternatives available on Amazon.  




Epsom salts added to a bath can work quite quickly to alleviate pain. There are also magnesium flakes which you add to a bath, but I haven't tried them yet. 

Arnica gel is also known to help with pain and muscle fatigue. It is usually in the form of a gel, and Denys and I have both found it helpful. Again, it's not always a quick fix, but it can get to work overnight to lessen any pain or stiffness. This can be purchased online from places like Amazon.




What have you found beneficial for pain?

Thanks for reading.
That ME Girl 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My appointment with an M.E. nurse specialist

Keith is the only M.E. specialist in Scotland, and I am lucky to be within his catchment area of Fife, where there are estimated to be about 300 people living with M.E., so he is severely stretched.  Denys and I met him last year as my local M.E. Facebook group are involved in promoting his service and campaigning for more specialists to join. I was referred to Keith in December 2017, and yesterday I finally saw him. It turns out my neurologist sent the referral to the wrong place so it floated around the system for a while.  The appointment was more a get to know you session, he asked whether I have suffered from illnesses like TB, glandular fever or Lyme disease, as these can sometimes trigger an intense immune response and can lead to someone developing conditions like M.E., but I don't seem to have had any to have any of these triggers. He asked about family health and whether anyone suffers from an autoimmune illness as there is evidence to suggest this co...

Posted Missing

I have backed away from social media recently because my health hasn't been great; I've been mostly bedbound since Wednesday.  You know what I miss when I'm stuck in bed... the little birds in the garden. Over the summer I started watching them and learning things about them. Since then, I have seen quite a variety of birds coming to the garden to enjoy the food and shelter we provide, we even saw little chicks playing and bugging their parents for more food.  There are about 30 house sparrows which seem to live in the bushes, they are the most vocal and demanding of food. They love chirping and cheeping and being generally noisy. When their young fledged I often saw them flapping their new little wings and squeaking wanting to be fed.  They eat from a mixture of hanging feeders and ground feeders. Different species have different preferences on how they like to be fed, for example blackbirds won't (or very rarely) use hanging feeders or anything too h...

M.E. awareness week and Millions Missing

As this years M.E. awareness week comes to a close, I feel quite sad to be taking off my 'M.E. awareness week' t-shirt. I have been proud to walk around this week trying to raise awareness: I may have been a bit shaky on my feet at times, but at least I was on my feet, which sadly not everyone with M.E. can do. Just a year ago, Denys and I were at an outdoor event and my health was very bad. I was unable to walk, I was using my walking stick to literally hold myself up until I collapsed on the grass and sobbed. I had to rest for several hours before I could eventually pull myself up and begin the slow shuffle back to the car. He said that we might need to get me a wheelchair, and although I had been thinking the same thing for a month or two, I broke down and cried.  Here I am a year later, most days I can walk without my walking stick, and for this reason, I have been proud to walk  with my M.E. t-shirt on. Last year I was unable to do anything significant for Mi...