Tag: osteoarthritis

Can “mental muscle” help us recuperate?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Dr. Amy Morin described her early career as a psychotherapist who“intended  to help others build mental strength”. She could never have imagined, however,  that she would soon need what she calls “mental muscle” to help herself. When Amy was just 23, her mother died of a brain aneurysm. Three years later, a heart attack killed Amy’s young husband, Lincoln – a tragedy that was followed by her father-in-law’s sudden death.

This is what she wrote about surviving the pain of those losses:

“I was a 26-year old widow with no Mom. Losing the most important people in my life sent me on a quest to learn how I could stay mentally strong.”  

Continue reading “Can “mental muscle” help us recuperate?” →

“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on. . .”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

“You must go on.   I can’t go on.   I’ll go on!”   These words are from Irish author Samuel Beckett’s 1953 novel, The Unnamable”. The late Nobel Prize winner was describing a reaction that many patients may find familiar, especially when facing the shock of a new medical diagnosis on top of your existing condition.

I wrote here about how overwhelmed I felt as a heart patient (“I can’t go on!”)  with distressing new joint pain, and a diagnosis of osteoarthritis. It was too much! I simply couldn’t bear yet another painful diagnosis piled onto my already debilitating daily symptoms of a coronary microvascular disease diagnosis!

But an amazing thing happened. Continue reading ““You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on. . .”” →

Habituation: “Give me a pain that I’m used to!”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

When I first read about a pain study called “Give Me a Pain That I Am Used To”, it made perfect sense to me.1  Published in the journal Nature: Science Reports, this came out about the same time I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis a couple of years ago – which I did NOT see coming.  Ironically, breathtakingly painful arthritis symptoms (starting in my left knee and right hand at that time) felt far more debilitating to me than the daily chest pain of refractory angina I’d been living with since my 2008 heart attack.

This may seem counter-intuitive. We know that chest pain can be a dangerous and even deadly symptom. Knee and wrist pain is rarely if ever fatal! It occurred to me that maybe I was feeling extremely distressed by my new arthritis symptoms because I’d simply not yet become habituated to the new pain in the way I’d already become habituated to my longstanding cardiac pain. Continue reading “Habituation: “Give me a pain that I’m used to!”” →

When heart disease isn’t your biggest problem

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  

I did not see this coming.   I’d always thought that it would be heart disease that would do me in.  A year ago, when I noticed a deep pain at the base of each thumb, I figured I must have somehow injured (both) hands at the same time. When the pain got so bad I could no longer push-and-twist open the child-proof caps on the bottles of my cardiac meds, I asked my pharmacist to use easy-open caps for my drug prescriptions from now on. It took a while before the gnarled finger joints of both hands began to swell until mine now resemble those of the Wicked Witch of the West.

I remember looking at my outstretched fingers one morning and wondering, “Whose hands ARE these?”       .    Continue reading “When heart disease isn’t your biggest problem” →