Forty-five years of doing yoga and I still am not all that flexible. Your body is always your body. Yoga helps you to accept it, to do the poses with attention and forgiveness, and to relax into what your body wants to do with the practice.
A lot of what challenges us the most when living with a chronic illness is the loss of identity. Who are we, now that we are permanently sick? Who are we now that we no longer recognize ourselves? Not to mention, how do I learn to live with constant pain, insomnia, and the inability to do what I used to do routinely, like walk, or work, or play tennis?
That is what psychotherapy is all about. You can talk with a therapist to learn a particular skill, like falling asleep and staying asleep, or you can spend decades finding out who you are and what made you that way. I spent a long time in therapy, and I am very glad I did the psychological work of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
Some mentioned using oral cannabis extract, and this is as good a spot as any to discuss my adventures with cannabis and its various forms. THC does not agree with me at all, and I don’t like its effects. I do however, react very well to CBD, and have used CBD gummies for years to work with my insomnia.
Massage therapy
There is something about working with someone who has undergone extensive training to manipulate your muscles, tendons, and bones, to loosen and relax the way you’re put together, that is deeply relaxing and soothing. When I was driving a car, my neck muscles had the tensile strength of steel cables and my massage therapist used her thumbs to unclench my neck on a regular basis. One of the great pleasures of not driving anymore is not having cello strings going up the side of my neck.
Chiropractic manipulation
Once a month, I visit my chiropractor and he leans on my skeleton, and, in my favorite move, lifts my skull off its atlas, twists it slightly until it makes a loud POP! And resets it. I feel liberated! Unfortunately, given the structure, it doesn’t last long, but the adjustment is worth it.
These complementary medicines are how I manage a quiet case of MS. I have almost no exacerbations these days, but I do live with the damage that was done during the 22 years I had MS before I started using a Disease Modifying Therapy (DMT).
In the comments, let me know what complementary therapies you use to feel better! Thanks for reading!
This content was originally published here.
