My pillow was stopping me sleeping
In today’s post I want to talk about how my pillow was stopping me sleeping and how I think I have finally found the answer! Ever since I first got sick, I have been struggling with neck and shoulder pain which is a symptom of Fibromyalgia. I also have a lot of joint pain and spine pain thanks to Ehlers Danlos, so I need to do all I can to support those areas of my body. For years now I have been trying different pillows, buying whatever other chronic illness bloggers suggest and trying to find the magic formula. I have tried soft pillows, hard pillows, memory foam, and feathers,…
The importance of symptom tracking
Today I thought we would talk about the importance of symptom tracking and how it can help you manage your chronic illnesses. I never used to track my symptoms, and I mean for decades, I would just notice something new and try to remember when that appeared. But I started to notice that it was difficult to see and understand what made my illnesses worse or better. Monitoring your symptoms, along with what you are eating and doing, is a really effective way to see what your body is doing and when. It allows you to see if bread, or too much sugar, or if you go out for too…
EDS, ME, and Mental health awareness month
It is currently EDS, ME, and Mental health awareness month, and as I have all of these illnesses, lets shed some light on them. Chronic illnesses are never easy, they rarely make sense to doctors and people tend to spend years looking for answers to their symptoms. I know I did, and I was wrongly diagnosed a few times before I got the right answers. This is one of the reasons why awareness days, weeks and months are so important, they allow people to see people with those illnesses. It also gives us an opportunity to talk more about them and this gives people struggling more information. Once we have…
Mental health and chronic fatigue
It is currently both myalgic encephalomyelitis and mental health awareness month, so let’s have a chat about mental health and chronic fatigue. I have spoken in the past about the importance of awareness months, as they help us to spread knowledge and experiences around the conditions in the spotlight. I have also spoken about how all my illnesses have their awareness months in May… so I am doing my best! For me though, as my fatigue has worsened since also contracting long covid, I have noticed how my illnesses all affect one another. Especially how they seem to gang up together and affect my mental health, and I figure if…
meet our new puppy, Twig
This week has been a big one, meet our new puppy, Twig! I am so excited to share everything about him so grab a cup of tea let’s get to it. You all know my dog Gizmo, my heart dog who was beside me for sixteen years, and who passed away at the end of February. Losing him broke my heart and I don’t think I will ever get over losing him. Gizmo was in a lot of my YouTube videos, and I spoke a lot about how much dogs help our mental health. Pets in general, help so many of us and not just service dogs, any pets can…
Disability is not a choice
Disability is not a choice; our government seems to think otherwise as if we didn’t just come through a deathly worldwide virus! Grab your tea let’s unpack this! Rishi Sunak, a multi-millionaire, stood at a podium and declared an end to sicknote culture, he talked about an increase in people needing time off work or claiming benefits. He seems to have forgotten the fact that Covid is still happening, or that it happened at all. The government also seems to have blotted out the fact that for decades now the NHS has been starved of money and we have been losing staff because of how badly they are paid. It…
living well when you have chronic illnesses
Today I thought it would be nice to share some secrets on living well when you have chronic illnesses. So, grab a cup of tea and settle in. When I first became sick, I fell into a deep depression, I had lost my health, my independence, my income, and my career. I wondered if I would ever enjoy my life again, and for a long time I didn’t. But I can honestly say, that though my health has slowly declined, and I have more pain and fatigue; I am so happy now. I have hobbies, a very positive and loved witchcraft practice, this blog, my YouTube channel and a wonderful…
How my thoughts on chronic illness have changed
In this week’s blog post, I thought we would chat about how my thoughts on chronic illness have changed. So, grab a cup of tea lets chat. If you are new to my blog, I should mention that I was a nurse before I became too sick and so my attitudes were very different. As medical professionals, you are conditioned to want to heal and I often got the impression that, especially doctors, wanted to be in surgery or work with illness that they could make better. Chronic illness to me felt like something that rarely occurred because I generally saw people who had been in accidents or were recovering…
Day in my life as a disabled carer
This week I thought I’d share a day in my life as a disabled carer, I hope this helps everyone see that disabled doesn’t mean lazy! I am disabled I have several chronic illnesses; I became sick in my early twenties and spent a lot of my married life alone while my husband worked full time. He was my carer when he could be home and I rarely left the house due to chronic fatigue, and generalised anxiety disorder. My mother has Multiple Sclerosis and lived alone in the home I grew up in, until a fall at the very start of covid made it clear she needed help. We…
Neurodiversity celebration week
It is Neurodiversity celebration week, so I thought I would talk about my experiences as I am still undiagnosed. Now, I do not want to be someone who looks up symptoms and says I have an illness, I have never been that or done that. However, watching people who are advocates for illnesses you think you might have can help you to know for sure. For me, it was when I was scrolling TikTok and saw a creator talking about their childhood and how they struggled. I started to think back to my own and it opened my eyes a lot to how difficult I found it to connect with…
