If you have chronic illness, pain or fatigue - how do you cope?

[hopingforbetterdayz]

I'm just really emotionally fed up of it all today, after having a fantastic day yesterday and now some resulting pain. I have several chronic illnesses that take a lot of management, and not chronic pain per se, but rather lots of issues connected to the chronic illnesses that can flare and hurt (foot issue and frozen shoulder is today's thing) for a few hours/ days at a time. I'm always low on energy but with pain added in, it drains me completely.

I'm wondering how other people with variations of chronic illnesses manage? What helps?

My big feeling about my health today is resentment - does anyone else get mad resentment some days? I have to do some medical stuff that is going to hurt my foot, but will hopefully help ease it going forward, but I'm just so resentful I have to do the painful thing to my feet while struggling with the shoulder ache and then juggling the other stuff that takes up a lot of mental bandwidth.

I will be ok in a bit after a cup of tea! But need to offload!

The only thing that has helped me is to drastically change my expectations of what I can do.

I force myself to do stuff here and there but with the expectation that it'll cause me a lot of pain and I'll be stuck in bed for a while afterwards.

Yeah, I do resent it.

It’s not for everyone but i found guided meditation and yoga nidra made a lot of difference to me when i was very ill with long covid. Lots of them are between 5-20 minutes and it would be distracting in the very short term, in a way that then provided me some distance from my symptoms afterwards.

Wishing you space and strength and forbearance and all that stuff x

I think you'd have to be a saint to never have any resentment. Living with chronic illness is hard. It helps to connect with others having the same issues. Also, there is usually someone who is worse off, which snaps you out of any self-pity. Best wishes.

Psoriatic arthritis, EDS and associated injuries here.

It's going to hurt, whatever I do, so I might as well have something to show for it. And there's the novelty factor of what exactly is going to decide to hurt/spontaneously self destruct today/this minute.

Rolling my eyes and doing whatever it is I can do to get through the days so I still have a roof over my head and food on the table is a lot more useful practically than focusing upon the sheer unfairness of it all.

But somebody somewhere screwed up my biologics repeat prescription, so I'm a month unmedicated and the dark thoughts are returning, which is always a signal that the inflammation is increasing again. Once they pull their finger out and get them to me, I'll start feeling a bit more normal(ish) again.

M.E, fibromyalgia and JHS here. Sometimes it goes beyond resentment and I’m raging against the universe! Especially at the moment, I’m having to try and find a way to fix my stomach because it’s damaged from all the painkiller, I need another raft of blood tests, my blood pressure is dangerously high and I’ve got a mystery lump in my breast 🤦‍♀️.

@hopingforbetterdayz do you have friends or a partner to talk to? Have you invested in all the mobility aids that might help you? Accepting I need a walking stick/wheelchair, shower chair etc has helped me have more energy.

Then a strong cup of tea and some chocolate for the really depressing moments!

I hear you
I have CFS and have had a particularly hard time the last 6 months