Distraction therapy is a time-honoured, doctor-endorsed way to cope with pain of all kinds, chronic illness, lifelong injuries, basically 24/7 health problems that drive you bonkers if you don’t find some way to separate your mind from them even if it’s only doable for a minute. Judy Taylor, the woman who couldn’t eat and suffered…
Category: Health
Writings on health and nutrition, the health care system, doctors and therapists, heck, anything to do with health.
Seek, Ask, Bug, Nag, and You May Get Mental Health Help
Awhile ago, I was informed that I lived in the Mecca of mental health services: Toronto. There are 700 psychiatrists at the University of Toronto alone plus community psychiatrists, too few OHIP-covered psychologists and social workers, and a plethora of private-pay therapists in this city. These are in number completely inadequate to meeting the mental…
PTSD, Getting Real, and the Fakery of Being Positive
Your smile and laugh have changed, my brain biofeedback trainer told me today. They’re real, she said. It’s true, I’m not faking emotions nearly as much or using my intellect to boost them to normal levels like I used to have to. She’s known me since 2005, and I’ve gradually been able to laugh more…
I am Discharged From Physiotherapy
I am discharged. From physiotherapy. Wow. I can’t believe it. Still sinking in to the old brain that I’m discharged, for real this time. I’ve been discharged before from physio, that was in the year or so after the crash in 2000 and from a different physiotherapist. Those times the insurance company cut me off…
Disconnection Ended Too Soon; PTSD Hell Continues
Well . . . I needed more than a week, technically 10 days, of disconnection. My muscle tension is down, way on down, but I’m still feeling on edge, still being totally overwhelmed by the stupidest thing to the point that my brain goes: nope, not dealing with that now, I’m turning the body around…
Time to Reconnect with Disconnection
I used to disconnect completely from the online world and computers for a week a couple times a year. I unplugged on Sundays for a long time before that and still do. But year in, year out, I used to push myself so hard I’d end up crashing and would also have to take a…
Looking Good After Brain Injury
There’s this thing that I call the ugliness of brain injury. I thought of this today after meeting my Aunt for coffee, whom I hadn’t seen since the ice storm. She was exclaiming over the physical change in me, and all I could say was thank you, I was so overcome. Let’s be honest. After…
The Body Follows the Emotions Into Pain
This week was supposed to be physiotherapy discharge week. But my body made other plans. It thought: why should the emotions have all the fun, why can’t the muscles get in on the pain? Really, body? First the left shoulder knotted up, then the midback (thoracic spine) fired off trigger points like some little boy…
Could Someone Pass the Smelling Salts?
Another regular brain biofeedback session at C4 location (on right side of head, just above and in front of my ear). But not a regular week. My heart rate is slightly elevated from my norm, but it and my HRV (heart rate variability) have stabilized. So even a flip flop doesn’t seem to result in…