Physical Health and Wellness Recovery

I started this overall blog identity 2 ½ years ago, and in spite of the presence of only 2 previous capsule postings, I have actually been writing this thing in my head all this time. The consequences and complications of this fact will hopefully be processed in other hubs at other times. During this time I have also developed my overall vision, which includes a whole bunch of new hubs, all hopefully and beautifully interrelated into one single complex web of hubs which will not only be the essential thrust of my inner and outer healing, and very likely a gigantic 4^th Step Inventory, but also a shameless and not-a-little-bit desperate attempt to earn money – establish a new source of reliable income which will support my healing and wellness goals rather than exhaust my body and further confound my nervous system as most other attempts at working have done.

You see, I have a long time chronic illness and this hub focus will be about the actual physical process of getting well again; my own personal history (trials, tribulations, obstacles and obfuscations ) with it thus far, the new stage I’m entering into now, my particular lifestyle as result and placing all this into a sociolo-anthropological viewpoint as far how the world (and my own country) has evolved with trying to relate to and assist people who have some sort ongoing aliment and disability. Mostly it will be all about me stamping, snorting and bucking over my frustrations of dealing with everyday life (the loss of quality of life)- which is MUCH harder than for healthy people in ways healthy people just can’t understand. Add extra doses of being middle aged, never married, never had kids, living at home with my retired dysfunctional senior parents… Jane Austin, here I come. Elizabeth Gilbert’s got nothing on me!

So that was a lazy version of a personal introduction and set of long-term goals for this particular hub. I suppose now is the time to tell you more about my actual condition. The deep detailed history of such I don’t really feel like going into right now. Just for today, I will give you (hopefully) a very concise version of that now and go on into my real intention for today’s capsule, which is my current ailment. I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which we believe I was born with, but got “turned on” around 1996-98 during the height of my semiprofessional modern dance “career.“ Following this, there were certain points every few years since where I crossed some sort of threshold bought on by a certain “events” in my life- each of those I would like to process later. These thresholds were shifts where I started to have new symptoms or things just got worse. Oh yeah did I mention the abyss of the economic downturn/credit card feeding frenzy that I fell into and am still trying to climb out of? Mild hypo thyroidism, chemical sensitivities, emotional labiality, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (that whole name change business is yet another capsule posting all together) and now, since my last threshold after jury duty, autoimmune thyroid. And after the blood work from the new DR., a suppressed immune system with at least 4 viral infections including EBV (Epstein Barr Virus). Thankfully this new DR. has finally and a long last traced all this back to a seriously worn out nervous system. A new huge plan to deal with that is slowly beginning to form. So we are working on the baseline now which includes clearing the system of all my old hormonal glandular supplements (naturopathic of course) and multivitamins except vitamin D, 2000mg of EPA Fish Oil PER DAY and ground flax seed. We have now added 1500mg/day of NAC, a pre-glutathione uptake – boy that was dramatic. And now I am in the midst of an anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, anti-yeast protocol for April and May 2013. This continues to be dramatic also.

When I was working on this capsule a few weeks ago, my intention was really to talk about the debilitating brain fog associated with a huge recent upset in my hypo-thyroid condition. After I got a partial draft out I realized I was writing 2 different capsules and needed to simply address an introduction for this Hub first, as I intend to do for all the other Hubs I want to add. Cool, I feel like a real writer! These things tend to happen in the creative process. Another thing I experienced was, maybe since I’ve been in a recovery and physical healing process for so long and have already been “air blogging” for a while as well, it seems my original plan of slowing circling around my core issues like a shark does its prey or a lawyer would do for the witnesses on a grand jury trial is not really happening as I thought it would. This circling would begin on the most superficial level and slowly wind its way into the deepest core wounds- and ATTACK! - clear them away once and for all. However, in this single, first capsule back in the game a great many of these deepest core wounds are surfacing unbidden and with alarming ferocity all at once- I only alluded to a few. Therefore, it appears I am going for the jugular right off the bat, whether I intend to do so or not; yet another thing to get overwhelmed about. I’m curious about how the voice, temperament and length of these blogs will change once I finally begin experiencing some actual improvement of my condition and relief from my symptoms. For now though, it occurs to me it’s more important to be content with learning to narrow the scope of the weekly capsule content and write shorter blogs. It seems that working towards staying in my limits by doing shorter blogs on a regular committed frequency is the goal of the time now. You know, it actually seems easier and much more desirable to have a topic in mind that day and just write about it until I feel complete on that idea. I’ll actually have to apply some skill on purpose for while!

Otherwise known as being “torpidly obfuscated”

But it’s the TSH=13 that I really want to deal with. That is what got turned on July 2011 after a 9 day jury duty on a federal trial. Suddenly I miss those days where those glandulars put my TSH in its precise target range of .5-1.5 which is considerably narrower than the AMA’s.3- 4.3 or whatever it is. In those days when my TSH went over 2.0, I would start getting flare-ups of insomnia, muscle pain and stiffness, huge fatigue a brain fog. For 7 years all I had to do was adjust my dose and I would feel better- well, maybe after I adjusted the b12, then adrenal, then GABA etc., etc. .- long story. But suddenly my TSH has jumped up to 8, and kept getting worse for over a year. Back in the day, the worst it ever was 10, when I had when my fibroids were so big they were causing hydronephroses all during this horrible landlord/tenant dispute that led to me moving back home with my parents and starting Al-Anon in 2003 to get a series hospital procedures and I got stuck here.(this was one of the first big event thresholds- they got more frequent and closer between after that.) but I left that alone for over a year and the level naturally settled back down to 5.5 after my last surgery in December 2004 then I started getting treatment for it, thinking things would be simple after that. NOT!! Anyway now it’s jumped up to 13 and is not settled down on its own or responded to ANY kind of change in supplements. However, there are many changes happening each month which I know from experience upset my thyroid levels. We haven’t even started dealing with the thyroid issue itself which I know is a big mystery even for the guy with DK training in non-conventional autoimmune thyroid Hashimotos’s treatment.

The thing is all those symptoms at TSH = 2-4 which I believe are really related to the sensitivities brought on by the fms are nothing to compared to what I’m dealing with now. For 9 months April 2011- January 2012 I had a part time job at a non-profit helping the IT guy, which I really enjoyed but oh god, did it make me sick. This IT guy became a kindred spirit and friend. Anyway he was really funny and had all these hilarious ways of describing IT stuff that in turn really filled my well of inordinately useful tech metaphors for my chronic illness condition, which is as much maligned and misunderstood just like all the IT folks wound up being in the layperson work place. For example, the Windows XP operating system, which was on the computers at the time, was actually pretty good, but a space hog and slow to get going. That’s because trying to get thru the operating system just to get well and truly started was like “slogging thru gelatinous goo”. Meanwhile, I am also a grateful student of astrology and enjoy discussing horoscopes esp. my own, of course. Many years ago I had a friend with Sun in Cancer who was discussing how much she identified with her own suns sign in the form of Octopi. Usually the Cancer archetype is that of the crab with the hard shell and sharp claws on the outside and soft underbelly which has to be protected at all costs, mostly by not showing emotional sensitivities which then comes out as harsh and profound mood swings and viscous cold snaps. In her case, it was the “Octopus juice” that dark substance which deludes and obfuscates the surrounding environment and confuses predators. (the invisibilty of my chronic illness and withdrawal from childhood” and intercepted 8^th Sun in Leo and Vestal Venus in Cancer)

All of this is my brain on TSH=13!