Cervical instability at the core of fibromyalgia?

Exploring why it may be worth considering cervical instability as a root cause of fibromyalgia with some real food for thought on how the wide-ranging symptoms of this one single, often hard to notice, factor can really start to add up.

History of a health burnout; what the past can teach me now

Such as we are experts in anything, those of us with long term health issues also possess a rich hoard of hard-won experience and insight into what made us chronic in the first place. So, what can we take from all the years of navigating our way through the experience of chronic illness as a means to averting a delayed recovery from covid or other trigger virus, especially when we notice any similarities with what we have been through before? Can we now take the overview in order to notice and better understand the patterns, weak spots and trip-wires of chronicness before they become ingrained this time?

Covid’s effect on the vagus nerve (especially if you are susceptible)

Exploring a known link between covid-19 and certain issues relating to the vagus nerve (amongst others); how does this relate to some of the more scattered seeming symptoms of long covid and what can be done about it in the hopes of making a speedy and full recovery?

Under pressure: the EDS anxiety link

Hard science has uncovered a mechanism whereby the same collagen abnormalities in EDS that make joints especially flexible seem to affect blood vessels, making those with it prone to accumulation of blood in the veins of the legs, an effect that may lead to exaggerated cardiovascular responses to maintain the output of blood from the heart. This and other foibles, which I feel are versions of the same response, put those of us with this issue under immense pressure and strain, all the time, as our version of "normal" so just imagine how much we then react to any additional triggers, to which we tend to be hypersensitive (I share my about theory about that too...), setting off our nervous system at regular intervals in a way that has nothing inherently to do with mental health...although, no surprise, it can start to manifest as anxiety over time. Joining some dots and celebrating just how much people with hypermobility type EDS deal with as their daily benchmark...plus some practical ways of making it better.

CBD for IBS, menopause and pain

A number of articles are springing up to discuss the interest in CBD from an irritable bowel syndrome point of view and I was curious about this due to my own experiences in this regard, which I will relate below. The reason why cannabis is theorised to be a new and appropriate means for tackling … Continue reading CBD for IBS, menopause and pain

High-sensitivity, synesthesia…and hearing tones, seeing lights or other anomalous experiences

Some people, and I count myself among them, are prone to experiencing anomalous experiences; that is, experiences that lie outside the so-called "norm", from high-frequency "tones" ay and night to flashing "lights" and many more special effects. These count as some of the most disturbing and supposedly detrimental to quality of life of all experiences people are said to be encountering in their health today; alarming and even depressing them into states of hopelessness in many cases. Yet what if these sensations are not what they seem, via the rundamentory five-senses system we currently rely upon. What if, like the artist scrabbling for the right colour to express a brand new hue that seeks expression and having to draw on many pigments, textures, all kinds of materials mixed torgether just to get even close to an aproximation of this new "message" that is coming through, our bodies are forced to mix up all our sensory messages...yes, like synesthesia...to try and get through to us something that is just so very important...and its all for us to hear.

The vagus nerve: leading us back to our health

There's literally nothing to lose and everything to gain from a healthier vagus nerve. Like all the best paths, it starts out a little mysterious but that's where its adventure lies. I've certainly had cause to explore it lately as its been found to have just so many links with the most chronic, mysterious, health conditions....and here's what I found out (to my benefit, maybe yours). So, having found it and become so much more aware of it, I like to think the vagus nerve is a path worth following as, so it turns out, it may very well lead us back to ourselves in more ways than one!