idobelieveincommas

I'm sorry to hear that :(

Unfortunately, Tumblr wiped out a bunch of the chronic pain tags when they did their NSFW purge, but I learned how to advocate for myself from other chronic illness bloggers, and also by working with a physical therapist (his tag on here is #magic physio man) who helped me to distinguish between different types of pain (sharp vs dull, acute vs chronic, radiating vs localized) and also how to rate them appropriately on those chronic pain chart doctor's have, taking into account that my baseline tolerance is much higher than the average person who doesn't live daily with chronic pain.

So say my baseline is a 5 daily, a new pain might push me to an overall 8, which is what I should relate to my doctor, not that the new pain is only a 3. If that makes sense. He got me to use the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale to describe my pain, which is actually one of the more helpful pain scales out there:

Link to download PDF here (x)

Not every physician will be familiar with this scale, and you don't even need to tell them which scale you're using (I don't. Some doctors get surly over patients bringing this sort of thing to their own appointment, so I wait to see how they handle my care first before I bring my own resources to them), but it gives you the language to better convey your pain in terms the physician will relate to, and also what number you are realistically at.

From what you're describing to me just now, you're in the severe zone where your ability to focus is impeded. If I were telling a physician this, I would let them know my pain is around a 7-8, making it hard to focus, and prevents my ability to do daily tasks.

I would then describe what kind of pain it is, i.e.

Radiating: not in one place, possibly body-wide

Localized: restricted to a certain area, e.g. a toothache

Acute: sudden onset, usually from an illness or injury or surgery

Chronic: has lasted over 12 weeks, possibly a result of injury/illness or an unknown cause. (migraines fall into this category) Followed by a descriptor like:

Achy

Stiff

Burning

Stabbing or piercing

Raw

Cramping

Throbbing

Tiring

Heavy

Tender (sensitive to touch)

Shooting

Sickening

Other things they will ask include:

I don’t usually share a whole lot but THIS IS INCREDIBLE 

now that most of us are at home, i thought this infographic could be useful to the ones who aren't that used to learning material on their own and aren’t sure where to start, or which order of steps to follow. happy studying! 💗

- draw something

- read a book or magazine

- find a new recipe and cook a meal

- go to a café or library

- go somewhere fun like the beach, shopping mall, movie theatre or ice skating rink

- catch up with friends

- go on a walk to de-stress

- take a nap

- tidy your room

- write in your journal

- go outside and explore your city

- find a new thing to learn and commit yourself

The hand cramps were totally worth the outcome! I’m so happy with how this turned out. Kind of wondering if people would want to buy one...😅

I was looking at methods of keeping notebooks organised and I came across a really interesting blog post (source) that I want to share with you all. All of the pictures in this post come directly from the original blog post.

Make your entry into your notebook. In the example photographs, they have recorded a Chinese recipe.

Go to the back of the notebook and add a tag or title, e.g. “Chinese” on the left edge of the page.

Go back to the first page where the entry was, and on the same line number as you wrote “Chinese” make a black mark on the edge. You make this mark so that even when the notebook is closed, the mark is visible. After repeating this for various recipes, you now have various tags visible on the notebooks edge.

If you ever wanted to find a Chinese recipe, you simply look at the index, locate the label, and look along the visible edge which has been tagged as Chinese. Then just flick to each marked page.

1. A description of what happened.

2. How it left you feeling.

3. Who was there and what they said and did.

4. What you wish had happened instead.

5. The reasons why you find it hard to let go.