Treatments – dysautonomia vs ME

Vagus Nerve Damage & Dysautonomia

By Missy M / June 5, 2021 June 9, 2022 / 1 Comment / Conditions, Dysautonomia, Fainting, Pain, Treatments, Vagus Nerve / 10 minutes of reading

Jun 5 2021June 9, 2022

My gastroenterologist, Dr. S, believes vagus nerve damage could be a contributing factor of my autonomic difficulties. If that’s true then it could be “driving” the dysautonomia.

A definition is in required: Va – gus is the Latin word for wanderer.

Here’s my laywoman’s understanding of the Wanderer: CN X, the 10th Cranial Nerve, is “the body’s superhighway,” providing data from the brain to other organs. It signals to & from the different organs it touches via the Central Nervous System. Regulating bodily reactions during restful periods CN X deals primarily with the involuntary Parasympathetic Nervous System. However, the vagus nerve does have some communication with the Sympathetic Nervous System. Because it has both sensory & motor duties it is considered a “mixed” nerve. To read the complete anatomical course taken by the Vagus nerve click here.

VAGUS NERVE EXPEDITION

Why don’t we lay people wander along briefly with the 10th & longest of the 12 cranial nerves from genesis to terminus:

- Welcome to the brainstem where our Wanderer Tour begins!
- Watch your step as we exit the cranium with two other nerves, numbers IX & XI.
- Notice the path as we head down to the neck & throat area, where CN X performs many intricate functions before branching left & right.
- Take care as we enter the thorax, where even more complex tasks are carried out with the esophagus & the heart.
- Things will get tight for a moment as we make our way into the abdomen through a tiny aperture in the diaphragm known as the hiatus.
- Our journey comes to an end in the abdomen where CN X’s root branches break up into other branches that supply data to the esophagus, stomach, small and large bowel.
- We hope you have enjoyed this Tour of the Wanderer!

SYMPTOMS OF VAGUS NERVE DAMAGE

If the wandering vagus nerve is ever damaged in, say, a car accident, you may pay a systemic price. Seconds after my accident in 1997 my voice changed. Forever. First it became weak sounding. Soon I couldn’t sing anymore. I remember my accountant told me I sounded “sad.” It’s 24 years now & my voice has never regained its former tone.

It’s clear the throat itself has been affected. For the last few years I’ve been choking for no good reason. Believe it or not the toughest thing to swallow is water & my own saliva! Sometimes the opening to the throat will close just as liquid hits & it gets thrown back up into my mouth causing me to gag & spit. Other times the water seems to get “stuck” and I start coughing. Last month there was an incident during which I coughed non-stop for five hours.

The next day Dr. S informed me I had experienced a throat spasm & should have put a medication he had previously prescribed for me (Hyoscyamine) under my tongue. I didn’t think of doing that because I didn’t know I was having a throat spasm. And I’ve only used the drug for esophageal spasms. Now I know it can be used for this too. Hoping I won’t ever need it again.

[WARNING! NOT ADVISING ANYONE ELSE ON EARTH TO TAKE THIS OR ANY OTHER DRUG! SPEAK TO YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE TAKING ANY MEDICATION!]

I wonder if the choking thing could be from borderline Chiari 1 Malformation. Regarding that “diagnosis,” my extremely accomplished always-keeping-up-with-the-latest-medical-news neurologist & the thoroughly experienced radiologist who read the MRI say I do not have Chiari and am not borderline.

The prominent Chiari surgeon I went to said it wasn’t clear that I have it or that I am borderline but he wanted more testing, which I didn’t get done.

The only one who’s positive I have it is the back surgeon who had to operate on me a second time to repair a spinal fluid leak from the first surgery he had done the previous month. Thin dura & other odd symptoms of mine are what led him to suspect Chiari. Part of his time as a resident was spent working in the Chiari Institute. I got my appointment at the Institute because of the surgeon’s clout there.

Getting back to Dr. S. He was the first person & doctor to ever mention the word dysautonomia to me back in 1999. He suspected I had it & he was proved correct. After the car accident my GI system stopped operating correctly. I could barely eat a thing, dropped to 90 lbs & nearly died from malnutrition. (I wasn’t seeing Dr. S at that time or he certainly would have helped me. I was busy going from doctor to doctor to doctor, none of whom helped in any way.) Since 2019 I’ve been in a serious dysautonomia relapse. All the madness is happening again. The few foods I’m able currently able to consume also give me trouble. Pounds are disappearing again. When the GI tract becomes disabled food becomes your enemy. Without the meds Dr. S prescribes – especially Mesalamine, I would probably be on a feeding tube. Other treatment is obviously needed.

SO WHAT’S NEXT?

With my neurologist Dr. B, Dr. S is working toward the following:

(1) Getting my rapid weight loss & severe GI symptoms to stop. (I can only eat one meal a day, with sometimes a piece of fruit or cheese or toast thrown in at some other time. I’ve lost 54 pounds in a very short period.)

(2) Attempting to get other dysautonomia symptoms under control using a different SSRI, Trintellix, than the Paxil I was on the first time around. I’m unable to take that anymore because of estrogenic effects I must avoid due to a previous estrogen-driven cancer. This new drug allegedly has less estrogenic properties. It may not exactly treat the fundamental cause of dysautonomia as Paxil did but will hopefully tamp down its most deleterious symptoms, which would include increasing inappropriate anxiety, heat attacks, all-over pain, insomnia, & too many others to name. (The commercial on TV said it could lower sodium. That’s all I need! I’ll be passing out every five minutes. According to Dr. S that only happens on high doses. Thank God!) PS-It didn’t help at all so the doctor weaned me off.

Dr. S & I once briefly spoke of a Vagus Nerve Stimulator. He explained the idea behind it & how it works. There are quite a few risks involved with the stimulator & we’re miles away from considering such a scenario. It will likely never come into play. Even if the vagus nerve was damaged in the car accident, I’m reminding myself that 20 years ago Paxil was able to overcome that to a great degree. It rebalanced my autonomic nervous system to a point where I could function. It didn’t cure me but it enabled me to function.

PERSONAL POV

With regard to my own case I agree with the doctor that there is damage to the vagus nerve. My own theory which I haven’t brought up to Dr. S or Dr. B yet is that the phrenic nerve may also be damaged. My diaphragm is always causing me breathing problems, hiccups, and tightening up on me. Last summer an Xray showed eventration of the right diaphragm; due in all likelihood to gas and/or bacteria buildup, a consequence of slowed motility plus SIBO (diagnosed 1/2020), and/or (possible) damage to the phrenic nerve. Taking extra strength gas pills & a specific antibiotic for SIBO has helped. However, once I finish the antibiotic the SIBO comes right back in all its glory. If we can just get rid of the SIBO & if the new SSRI had worked out, both the phrenic nerve (if it’s damaged) & the vagus nerve may once again be able to re-adjust themselves as they seemed to do 20 years ago, enough to let me eat, sleep & function like a normal-ish person. At this point that’s all I’m looking for.

The windup to this post is: although the symptoms of vagus nerve damage & dysautonomia are virtually identical, I can find no categorical proof that vagus nerve damage is a major factor behind dysautonomia. We can perhaps deduce that in many cases, especially cases of trauma to the body, e.g., a car accident, damage to the vagus nerve could well be the driver of dysautonomia, or at least a huge contributing factor. Do some research. Maybe you’ll be the one to find the proof. And don’t be afraid to ask your doctor some hard questions he might have to research!

Before you leave this post be sure to check out Healthline.com’s 3D interactive demo of how the vagus nerve operates in your body. And by all means, please leave a comment. I really appreciate the feedback.

Update on starting the new SSRI:

Three days at half the 10 mg dose of the newly prescribed Trintellix built up into a horrible allergic reaction (Mast Cell Activation?) that put me out of commission for four days.

The third night, about an hour before going to bed, my right leg started itching badly. I didn’t think anything of it other than that it was annoying. I hadn’t had trouble in this area for at least 7-8 months. Trying to watch a little tv I felt overwhelming exhaustion come on. As I was about to lay down a powerful migraine headache came on. As my head hit the pillow some kind of systemic bodily sensation occurred. (A mast cell dump?) I felt nervous butterflies in my stomach, then inappropriate fear launched itself, then the itching went out of control: both my legs then feet then hands then head. The headache I felt when this incident was triggered stayed with me 96 hours. (It’s still lingering as I write this.) The whole thing was very similar to bad reactions I had from allergy shots.

I got hold of Dr. S the next day. He instructed me to hold the new SSRI for the weekend. Since I have allegedly had cholinergic responses to Benadryl, Zyrtec & Allegra [antihistamines have anticholinergic properties] during the allergy shot years & was told never to take them again, I couldn’t take Benadryl to stop the allergic part of the incident. (Because I always had huge reactions to my shots I was instructed to always take one of the above meds one hour before getting the shots. Three times while driving to the office my heart “went off” – I was having a “mild” arrhythmia which felt like I was going to die. I nearly fainted at the wheel. Had to pull over & was taken to the hospital. This happened with each of those medications. Most of the time it happened at the allergist’s office.)

GI genius Dr. S thought outside the box. He suggested getting dye-free children’s Benadryl to see if I could tolerate it. The next morning I took 1/2 the recommended child’s dose & it arrested uncontrollable itching on my right foot. It didn’t stop itching in the other areas & I didn’t want to take anymore Benadryl systemically. I found I am able to tolerate topical Benadryl. Although it didn’t quite do the trick for the rest of the itching I scratched & lived with it as it was only annoying & not out of control.

The new plan is to lower the dose of the SSRI to 1/4 strength (or even less as neurologist Dr. B suggests) & try again next week. To tell the truth I’m a little nervous about it. But I’m not giving up. Dr. S & Dr. B are going above & beyond to help me navigate this relapse. I trust both of them completely & will not let them down. I will find the courage to do what needs to be done.

ADDITIONAL UPDATES:

6/12/2021: Restarted TriNtellix at less than 1/4 of a 5 mg pill. We’ll see what happens. 🙏🏻
6/26/2021 : Increased to 1/3 of 5 mg pill with no untoward reactions.
9/16/2022: Increased to 7.5 mg with no untoward reactions.
1/18/2022: Increased to therapeutic dose of 10 mg with no untoward reactions.
3/8/2022: Weaned off Trintellix as it was did not help with any symptoms, especially regarding digestion.
2/22/2022: Prescribed 14 days of Neomycin (1/2 therapeutic dose) which caused a wicked Herxheimer Reaction. Had one last time on Rimaxifin, but this was much worse. Also, I just “graduated” from having simply Hydrogen to also Methane SIBO. The breath situation is so bad I can’t bear it! Also, my sister the RN believes I have chronic Lyme from that tick bite in the late 70’s tick bite in the late 70s and that’s part of the Herxing. Hate to admit it but she’s usually right.
3/9/22: Now we’re starting PEMF Therapy. You can go to my husband’s website and take a look if you want to see what it’s about. It’s a subject for another time & I’ll keep you apprised.

Featured photo by Kindel Media from Pexels | Warning photo by Christopher Farrugia from Pexels

Mast Cell Activation in Dysautonomia

By Missy M / April 19, 2021 June 9, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Dysautonomia, Mast Cell Activation, POTS, Treatments / 5 minutes of reading

Apr 19 2021June 9, 2022

So many people with dysautonomia have developed Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS). What is MCAS? It is simply when mast cells (vital parts of our immunesystems) disseminate the materials of which they are made at inappropriate times, triggering inappropriate reactions in their human hosts.

These reactions range from annoying to life-threatening. Has your throat ever started to close? Has your face turned red & swelled into monstrous proportions? Prepare yourself to click on the following link because Angioedema is not pretty. Now everybody & his brother needs an epipen! I have one. Do you?

MY EXPERIENCE

I started over-reacting to allergy shots. Had to be treated in the office several times with Benadryl, steroids & be watched for hours. It was serious & scary. When I first started out four years ago a weird thing started happening to me. Periodically during the day I would feel a strange “sensation,” followed by my face turning red, then my legs would ache terribly. Sometimes I got a headache, other times not headache. But I always got the “sensation,” red face, pain in the legs. I never associated it with allergy shots but I believe that was the cause. Even though days had passed since receiving the shots, then later weeks, this thing happened every day of my life for three years. I started the 4th year but then my father became terminally ill with heart failure & I was his caretaker. I couldn’t get my shots anymore. After Dad died I started up again but had to start going weekly again, after making it all the way to only once a month.

My reactions in the area of the shots were getting bigger & bigger all the time. Then the oddest thing of all: my face stopped turning red. I still felt the sensation, especially laying down in bed at night, but all through the day as well, along with the terrible leg pains. After a while I realized I felt less awful when my face had been turning red. Whatever was happening was sort of coming out. Now it was going in & that was worse.

Within a few months I started reacting to more than just the allergy shots. It was everything, including food. In my opinion, getting three years of allergy shots while I was already relapsing with dysautonomia, not having a treating doctor for dysautonomia because he\’d moved more than halfway across the country, and being off dysautonomia meds for years because I had been maintaining without them, was too much for my body to handle. I ended up in the hospital a few times – always on allergy shot day. Strangely enough, not from the shots. The allergist realized I was having cholinergic reactions to the very antihistamines that are supposed to STOP allergic reactions.

LUCKIER THAN MOST PEOPLE

Because I had such huge swelling (my entire upper arms were grossly swollen & itchy for weeks) at the injection sites I was instructed to take Allegra an hour before shot time. After three or four times I had my first anti antihistamine reaction. The doctor said I was taking a drug meant to stop an allergy attack when no allergy attack was yet happening – but that’s what I had been instructed to do. He told me to stop taking Allegra & switch to Benadryl instead because it was shorter acting. Same thing happened about the third or fourth time. At that point the doctor said I could no longer take antihistamines – except for Xyzal, which I took at night with no problem. Soon had to stop that as well. Zyrtec was tried. Same thing. My whole body would vibrate, my heart would race, I felt faint – and worse. I’m still luckier than most people. One of my girlfriends since childhood, out of the blue, started experiencing horrific disfiguring facial swelling (angioedema). She went to all kinds of doctors. She’s better now after finding the right doctor to prevent the reaction.

Epinephrine is injected in the upper thigh using an auto-injector syringe as an emergency treatment for an acute allergic reaction to food or insect stings.

This part of my journey began in May 2019. I haven’t been the same since. It has affected my health in other ways. Had to temporarily stop certain medications I needed. Prolia, for example. I missed one shot & now my bone turnover is literally off the charts. I’ve gone from osteopenia to -porosis. Trying to get that straightened out as I write this. [UPDATE 11/2021 – not straightened out yet.] I did well allergic-reaction wise for many months without any untoward situations arising. Then suddenly my body totally over-reacted to a new pill to treat dysautonomia, which sent me back into the “over reaction” cycle again. I have to get that Prolia but I don’t want to go into anaphylaxis. On the other hand, I don’t exactly want to disintegrate from the inside out either! What lovely choices dysautonomiacs have. Prayer & faith are my best hopes & my best friends.

THANK GOD FOR DR. S

My GI guru & actual real-life life-saver, Dr. S, is working out a plan. He\’s cautious but not unduly so. After seeing my latest bloodwork however, my endocrinologist wants me to just get the shot already & be done with it. But she hasn’t lived through what I’ve lived through this past year, while Dr. S has lived it with me. Within a week or so we should know how to proceed. Prayers going I can get the shot, have no reaction, & therefore stop structurally disintegrating. [UPDATE 11/2021: Nope. Still can’t do it. It’s OK. Faith is sustaining me & my bones. UPDATE 3/2022: Still a no. I’m exercising in whatever way my body will allow, mostly stretching, isometrics & a little weight-lifting.]

I’m also going to stop saying things like: “structurally disintegrating.” Thought are things. What we focus on expands. I know better and will do better. [That phrase deserves a paper clip. Every time I slip up & think unhealthy thoughts I put a paper clip into a little container. It was astounding to see how many wrong thoughts I allowed into my mind & how many wrong words I permitted to leave my lips. Try the paper clip challenge. Eventually less & less start going into the container.]

Here’s an enlightening article by Dr. Tania Dempsey, well-known auto-immune & chronic disease specialist: What Is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MACS)?

Featured photo by Chris Tempfe | Mechanism of Allergy Illustration by Designua | Epipen Photo by David Smart

In the Darkness of Dysautonomia

By Missy M / April 16, 2021 June 9, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Dysautonomia, POTS, Treatments / 4 minutes of reading

Apr 16 2021June 9, 2022

I can no longer cope with dysautonomia: the bleakness, the pain, the feeling of hopelessness. ALL OF IT.

I finally said it. Publicly. The secret I’ve been keeping from myself & everyone else since 2011, after two back surgeries in a row, one in April, one in May, the year that put the R in RELAPSE. Compared to 2021 however, 2011 was a walk in the park. Let’s not even talk about 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019. If you’d like to know the details about how I’ve lived life in the darkness of dysautonomia, and to hear about some parts of my life that were as bright and happy as could be, you’ll find them in my story, Journeying Through Hell & Back – AGAIN!

In the midst of this latest relapse, my ability to deal with the devastation of this condition is virtually non-existent. Twenty years ago when it almost killed me by malnutrition I was much better equipped to negotiate the situation. Spiritually I was resigned to whatever would be. Now I’m in a different place. Cancer surgery in 2015 took away all my hormones which I firmly believe helped me cope in the past.

As a very private person, one who has tremendous inner strength, I am admitting I can’t cope with this condition anymore. This is one of the hardest admissions I’ve ever made. I have done so in an attempt to connect with reserved people like me who tend to go inward when fighting invisible enemies. It’s not a premeditated path, just the coping method of least resistance. I’ve since found out the method may have inadvertently hurt family & friends. I pray they understand my being incommunicado a lot is not to shut them out, it’s to shut me in.

AM I A WIMP OR AM I GETTING WISE?

It’s become painfully obvious pretending to myself that I’m coping is not working anymore. The one person I have burdened with symptom after symptom, day after day, year after year, is my husband. I realized I’ve crossed a line. He is not a therapist & he too is in pain over my condition. I might be in the midst of another frightening symptomatic crisis, nearing syncope or experiencing mast cell overload with its weird systemic sensations, crying about what it’s doing to me physically & mentally, while he’s trying to work from home handling conference calls, dealing with clients, colleagues, investment people, or whoever else he speaks to, even the head of the firm. It’s not fair. My husband can’t always pick up the pieces, If I had to go to the hospital, of course he would drop everything. But if what’s happening is not at that level, it’s time I connected with a someone who works with people fighting chronic illness. Someone who can give me better tools than I currently have because my toolbox is empty.

SHAME IS SOMETIMES SHAMEFUL

I can’t believe I’m saying these words. They feel foreign, weird, wrong & somehow . . . shameful. I feel feeble & incompetent because I got through it gracefully 20 years ago – so what’s the problem now? I know the lack of hormones is the major culprit. By the way, I do NOT think it’s wrong or shameful for others to seek help. But when it comes to me seeking assistance do I feel a slight sense of shame. My amazing parents went through the Great Depression, WWII & tons of difficulties over their lifetimes, including life-threatening illnesses, and they never needed any help. My parents are my heroes & I’d like to be at least as strong as they were. Feeling like a weakling makes me feel bad. But I have to turn that around. I’m gonna get over this self-imposed ridiculousness & do what I need to do to acquire better tools for dealing with the darkness of dysautonomia.

It’s taken me 6 years to admit this to myself. So if it takes you a little while to come to the same conclusion, don’t be hard on yourself. Every individual is different & in a different place & therefore requires different remedies at different times. Praying all of you find the resolution that’s right for you at the right moment.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

My advice is no matter what’s happening don’t be overly afraid of the darkness of dysautonomia – first, because you are not really alone, even if you’re by yourself – second, because even in the dark there is light just beyond. Those of us with DYS have to work a little harder to see it.

Please leave a comment if you can. I appreciate the feedback. You might want to head over to The Forum to start a conversation topic or just read what others have written – that may be all you need to get through the next difficult hour.

If you’re not feeling up to going out & finding someone to help you cope right now, try Zocdoc, Doctor on Demand, or other medical apps available online. Don’t give up my fellow dysautonomiacs!

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

Building Bridges to Health

By Missy M / April 14, 2021 June 9, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Bridges, Treatments / 8 minutes of reading

Apr 14 2021June 9, 2022

Finding your bridge back to health isn’t always a straight, steady path. You’ll encounter twists, turns & sharp angles along the way. You’ll hear scary squeaks from weak footings underneath you. It will feel wrong, frightening & disorienting. You may even lose True North for a bit & have to wander backwards & around to reset your health compass. Whatever happens don’t let yourself freeze up. Standing still is losing ground. Treading onward is the only bridge there is back to health. That all sounds so trite. But it’s all so true. And it’s all I have to offer right now. Honestly, the way I feel today I could have written this post with one punctuation mark & it would have told the truth. (?)

WHERE TO START

Living near & being treated by GOOD Dysautonomia | POTS | Mast Cell | Lyme | Gastroparesis | Ehler-Danlos | Chiari specialists, and staying on the meds they prescribe is a start. I’m building my bridge as I write. Every word is a step forward. This website is a quasi, hand-crafted overpass between where I was 20 years ago: unable to move or eat, needing a toilet next to my bed; & being able to walk around the neighborhood like I see so many others doing with such ease. I was able do a little of that. Walked a mile and a half (!) at Point Lookout Beach in July on a coolish day. Then the heat of summer hit me hard. I’m on a temporary pause now due to BP drop/tachycardia symptoms, and back on Gatorade. I can also tell you doing this blog is sometimes injurious to my health, due to the amount of work needed – especially since I don’t really know what I’m doing technically with this blog & all that goes into maintaining it.

But I\’m not giving up. I owe it to my husband & my sister who have supported me through so much. I owe my parents too. When they were alive they were always there for me. And I owe it to God who put me here to DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. At this precise moment in time I would categorize myself as cautiously optimistic my bridge to health will be completed – if I keep going. I choose to believe making this website was taking the first step.

I JUST CHANGED MY MIND

I have not written any of these posts in Word & copied & pasted them here. I write in WordPress as I go. Something came over me as I read the previous paragraph back regarding the phrase “cautiously optimistic the bridge will be built.” I’m not going to delete it because I want you to see what I was thinking & feeling a moment ago & what I’m choosing to think & feel now.

Change can take place spontaneously, if your mind is oriented with what you really want. Cautiously optimistic suddenly sounds to me like a set-up for failure. Because I know how things went in the past I’m presuming they will go that way again. Yes, I still feel lousy, very low, weak, upset about my situation & haven’t gotten to the right dose of the right medication yet. Even so, I have decided to change my thoughts about what’s occurring.

For thousands of years may wise men have tried to warn us thoughts have consequences. Our Lord said “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.” (Gal. 6:8) He wasn’t talking about planting crops. What you sow in your mind is brought into reality after a certain amount of time. When it finally shows up in our lives we have forgotten our past ruminations & therefore don’t recognize out past thoughts have come to fruition. Why should I keep bringing into reality the same physiological nightmare that almost killed me? NO! I’m going to think the opposite & trust the opposite will bloom into reality. I have nothing to lose & everything to gain. Therefore, I now categorize myself as ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN MY BRIDGE TO HEALTH WILL BE COMPLETED AND I WILL WALK OVER IT TO A NEW LIFE.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop medication or do stupid things like vacuuming the house when I don’t feel well (I did that last Sunday & almost passed out), or walking in the hot sun, or going up & down the stairs repeatedly. That will bring on fainting & tachycardia. I have to tattle on myself lest you think I always practice what I preach. The other day before getting in the shower I had tachycardia & could feel my BP drop. I decided I would tough it out. Like an idiot, I took the shower. In my mind I was being heroic. Far from it. It was wrong thinking accompanied by dangerous exertion. I’m lucky I didn’t pass out, hit my head & die. I was doing what I wanted against my better judgment – because I hadn’t been able to take a shower for five 5 days for exactly the same reasons. I just wanted what I wanted. I was being selfish actually & acted with pure stupidity. Where was my regard for my husband? If something untoward had happened to me how would he have felt? He’s been through enough. The rest of the day I was physically ruined & spent hours recovering from my mistake. Don’t be foolish is what I learned from that episode. How many times must I re-learn what I already know? I’m better than that. And so are you.

MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

As I wrote the words above my feelings started changing. My thoughts changed. They’ve taken a turn & are moving me into a different place. (The trick is to sustain them.) I’ve been praying for health for so long, waiting for God to heal me miraculously, in a split second, the way He raised Lazarus from the dead & commanded him to come forth from his tomb. If that was God’s will He could certainly make it happen for me. But even Lazarus had to do his part: he had to sit up on his burial slab, pull off his burial wrappings, and start walking his way back into life again. Maybe it’s time for me to do the same.

Perhaps there’s a method Christ was trying to convey to us in the instruction: “Ask and ye shall receive.” (St. Matthew, 7: 7). What if we changed the first word from Ask to ACT?

YOU CAN DO MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU CAN – SO LONG AS YOU THINK PROPERLY

When dysautonomia or any of its associated conditions turn you into a prisoner of your bed there’s not much you can do. Even thinking is a luxury. But you can:

Talk to God though prayer. Ask for health.
Express gratitude even though you’re not well, because you’re still here & have the opportunity to build a bridge to health.
Now comes the really hard part. You must literally see the bridge in your imagination. Nothing in this world has ever been built without someone first imagining it & seeing it in his mind’s eye. But it’s not just imagining it that builds it.
In order to turn a thought in the mind into objective physical reality one must believe not just in the possibility of it becoming real, but in the SURETY of it coming into being. Put yourself in the place of wellness and FEEL THE WELLNESS. One must also take action to make it happen. A cake won’t bake itself no matter how much you think about it. Ya gotta mix the stuff & put it in the oven. THEN the cake you imagined first in your mind becomes a delicious treat for the whole family to enjoy.

HOW TO HELP YOURSELF

Envision yourself, via your imagination, having crossed the bridge to health that YOU built with YOUR imagination. You must try to do the imagining every single day. (I know how hard that can be. And on some days it will be downright impossible. But at least make the effort every day to picture a few seconds of you in a better place.) And here’s the most important thing, you must BELIEVE that not only will it happen but that it already HAS happened – despite all appearances to the contrary (as per Wallace D. Wattles). That’s how you’ll create for yourself a different future than would have occurred without you imagining it. It’s not mumbo jumbo; it’s God’s law: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.”

I don’t have Instagram but I saw a meme from it somewhere. It was a woman holding up a sign. Only her hand was visible, along with the sign, and the vast ocean behind it. The words on the sign read: YOUR FOCUS DETERMINES YOUR REALITY. To a great degree that is true. Plus if Instagram says so that makes it true, right?

THE METHOD

God gave us imagination as a tool. Like any tool we have to first learn how to use it then use it. So imagining is the FIRST ELEMENT & must be done daily. BELIEVING THE BRIDGE WILL BE BUILT before you see it built is the FAITH part of the equation. “Be not faithless but believing.” (St. John, Chapter 20). Without Faith the bridge will NEVER be constructed. Imagining & Faith are intertwined necessary components. You have to ignore what you see & feel currently & become expert at seeing yourself in the future healthy & well.

PRAY (Ask.)
IMAGINE (See the vision of your future healthy self.)
BELIEVE it has already happened. (Because it has. You just haven\’t reached that point yet. Have faith that you will.)
ACT (Take some kind of step toward rebuilding your health. Depending where you are in your journey it may simply be taking your medication is the only step you can take. And that’s fine. If the medication is the right medication & you start feeling better, then you can start thinking of new ways to help you health along to wonderful.

YOU ONLY HAVE TO CROSS THE BRIDGE TO GET THERE!

What does building a bridge back to health look like for YOU? Please tell me and everyone else reading this post, how are you building your bridge back to health?

Photo by Jacob Colvin from Pexels

Getting Back to Life

By Missy M / April 13, 2021 May 26, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Treatments / 2 minutes of reading

Apr 13 2021May 26, 2022

How does one get back to life?

One second at a time. One sip of Gatorade at a time. For me, typing one word at a time is getting back to life. I’ve always loved to write. I have a fair amount of material written for a sequel (of sorts) to a classic sci-fi movie. It’s pretty darn good if I say so myself. I’ve had half a darn good novel sitting unfinished for 20 years.

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Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. from Pexels