I would have to say that living with chronic pain is not fun. It is one of the reasons I have depression, because who wants to be in pain all the time right! NOT ME but unfortunately I am. I don’t let the pain steal my joy, well not anymore anyway. There was a time…

When I was first diagnosed with my thyroid disease it was first Grave’s Disease just after having my son in 2008. Then a couple years later it became Hashimoto’s Disease. That was my first autoimmune disease I was diagnosed with. When they say once you get one autoimmune disease you are most likely to get more they are right.

Shortly after my first autoimmune disease, I started to have these terrible migraines. Now talk about chronic pain for over 15 years! They eventually turned into cluster headaches just after my husband got sick because my stress levels increased by 10 fold. You know when those real life moments happen and they slap you in the face so hard that your head snaps back…Yeah that was me.

My husband in the hospital, taking care of the kids with my brother’s help I was so thankful for him. Working a full time job, staying with my husband in the evenings so he wasn’t alone at the hospital. Getting the girls ready for school and myself for work the next day you can guess it was a stressful time. It was quite the busy schedule. It was also quite damaging to my body although I didn’t know it at the time.

Did you know that your body can keep and hold onto stress and trama for years? The Body Keeps the Score an amazing book that I’m in the process of reading at the moment. Trama reshapes your body and brain so when you are completely hurt and broken you not crazy. All the events from my childhood trama, to adulthood trama, I never went to therapy for because in my parents generation it was so NOT a THING to have your children in therapy. Like they were embarrassed by it! WTF?

I would do anything for my child if they needed help from ANY kind of doctor including MENTAL HEALTH! Times are different now. I am so open with my children about Mental Health! Because of my depression and the pain I’m in constantly my children can see that it’s hard for me to do more. I push my body to its MAX every week to where I usually sleep all weekend.

So, after 10 years of working with small animals then large animals as a vet tech, I now have spinal issues. The majority of my spine is decompressed. I have a teeter chair I use to help with that. When I was a child I fell off the jungle gym when I was 6 and nobody did anything about it so I have a feeling I had an injury then and because the nurse didn’t call my parents and my parents didn’t think it was urgent then is why I have migraines. It’s that C2 that causes that pain and boy is it PAINFUL and OVERWHELMING!

Then I can’t forget the Fibromyalgia when I was going through all my testing the doctor looked at me and said you have Fibromyalgia I was like what the HELL is that? He said…Well it’s the condition that most doctors give when they can’t figure out when what’s wrong with you. But in all honesty he was conducting a nerve test and I was highly sensitive EVERYWHERE! He advised me to look up what it was and see if I had any of the symptoms and lo and behold I did.

Then came the high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, all that fun stuff mixed together! So, I have a mixture of medications that treat multiple diagnosis from my Neurological team. My migraine, depression, and anxiety meds also treat my Fibromyalgia! BOUNUS! Physical therapy, chiropractic care, medications, and changing my eating habits has been a lot but I have learned to LOVE ME and treat myself with respect!

Here is my suggestion take care of YOU no matter what! Don’t let life slow you down! Don’t be afraid to be who you are meant to be in this world! If you are like me and live in pain don’t let it take over your life, let it be apart of who you are. Learn about it as much as you possibly can and pray about it. God will always be there for you to show you the way of healing. I definitely have NOT done all this work on my own. I have amazing children, family, friends, and last but not least my Lord who has shown me the grace, love, support along the way. YOU BE YOU!

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”