Monday 3 December 2012

unhappy feet

Another curious new symptom....for the last week or two I've had unhappy feet! Not the whole appendages, just the tips of my toes (after the first little knuckle)! Weird and not very nice. They range from feeling slightly bruised like I've stubbed them, right through to being woken in the middle of the night with severe pain, though that intensity seems to only last for 5 minutes or so before it calms down to something more manageable.
The best I've been able to describe this intense feeling is "toothache in my toes"!...it brought to mind that scene from "Shrek" where the princess turns from human to ogre, and she has light bursting from every appendage. I know that sound a bit odd, but that's how it felt, except I was radiating toothy toe ache rather than golden light!
You gotta love this crazy-arsed disease for its' sheer novelty value! It still does me in if I dwell on the fact that the pain I feel is not real, but a construct of my knackered CNS. I sometimes find myself telling my brain off for sending me garbled messages, but I guess you can't kill the messenger and all that!
I was laying in bed last night pondering if you can, with a strong enough will, instruct your brain to bypass the dodgy pain signals. So I lay there, and focussed on my toes, which weren't hurting at the time. I really focussed on what the pain sensation actually felt like and imagined my toes really throbbing. I don't know if it was connected or coincidence, but my toes did start to twinge whilst I was focussing on them....then I stopped trying cos I really don't want to induce toothy toe ache! But it was intriguing, and supports the notion that pain and other body sensations can, to a certain degree, be controlled by the power of our own thinking. A friend was saying that there is an established technique of focussing on a part of the body which doesn't hurt and really thinking about how it feels, to detract from the painful bit. This sounds like a very similar technique to what I was trying, albeit a more sensible approach (reducing not inducing pain)! Next time, if there is a next time, I have a Shrek princess moment, then I will put my brain to work thinking about my happy hands and how good they feel...

Just a small aside...I came across an interesting website - I've not fully delved into it yet, but it looks like some practical stuff about diet and exercise specifically for women with MS...

http://www.msdietforwomen.com


x



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