Winning at Fibromyalgia

Episode 40: You experience an acute jolt of pain – now what?

Welcome to episode 40 of WAF Podcast!

I am recording this episode exactly on my podcast first anniversary! I launched The Winning at Fibromyalgia podcast exactly a year ago, October 15th 2021. It is now October 15th 2022. This is the 40th episode.

I could choose to be upset over not giving you 52 episodes – one per week.

But instead I am choosing to be grateful and excited. Grateful for all of you who listen and have found some form of helpful information, in one shape or another. I get excited when I get feedback that something I talked about or mention was helpful. I am also excited because a year ago I did not think I would do this, that I would be able to produce 40 episodes. It means putting my thoughts into words, on paper/computer screen, then recording it. It means picking and inviting guests on my podcast, recording the interview. Then listening to it and helping to edit. Hours and hours of work.

So, I am celebrating. This entire weekend. One of the questions I have for you – what are you celebrating when you look at the past year? I don’t think we should only reflect on the past year at the end of the year. I feel we can reflect any time of the year, especially if there is an anniversary.

It was also recently an anniversary of 8th year of my Mom passing. And I am not quite ready to talk about that on my podcast.

 I am so excited to be back. I have shared with you I have been going through a rather difficult time of accepting a dissolution of a romantic relationship. I am doing better and deeply appreciate all the messages of support and encouragement and love from you. It feels like I am almost over the hump 

Today, in addition to this being a celebratory podcast of one year anniversary  I am choosing to share another personal experience, intimately related to my story of fibromyalgia. Before I get to it, I do want to say one thing – aimed at all of you, my lovely women who suffer with pain every day, who wonder whether it can ever change, whether YOU can ever change it. I am here to tell you – YES YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN!

It is within your power to reduce your pain and turn the entire course of your fibromyalgia story around! I see it on myself, I see it in my patients, rewiring of the pain pathways, the pain neural circuits CAN be rewired, NEW neural connections can be created! Every minute. Every hour of every day, we have an opportunity create these new neuronal connections! That will translate in less pain and more enjoyment, and you doing things that you cannot imagine right now because you cannot see beyond the current moment 

My fibromyalgia back pain has been flaring through this break up time (and coming and going anniversary of my Mom’s passing). I have been doing somatic tracking every day and it is really good in the evening when I am relaxing and definitely flares up during the day when I am at work. But it has been tolerable. Now I decided a break up would be a good time to go to my old crossfit gym here on the cape. I was a member for several months last year but quit last September and joined more of a regular globo gym. I felt I was too destroyed after each workout back then, and my joints were sore after – I do have rheumatoid arthritis and I just did not feel it was right. 

So with this break up I decided to return to the crossfit. And there the second day I went, we were doing push press and split jerks. That’s a movement when you push the bar above your head while you catch it below – with your legs slightly apart, as if in a lounging position. And I overdid it, too enthusiastic, I put on too much weight. ON the way down, as I was receiving the bar with weights, I felt a pop/sharp pain in my R shoulder, followed by a temporary weakness, to the point of not being able to lift the arm for a few moments.

My first though was “no! I hurt my shoulder again!”, I do have a history of R shoulder injury/partial rotator cuff tear, from 10 years ago, that responded to PT but would flare every time I overdid things in Crossfit – lifting things above my head. And my first thought went to – OMG, I MUST HAVE NOW COMPLETELY TORN it, that’s why I have weakness and sharp pain, why else would the pain be there so sharp???

I was in a pure panic mode.

And this is where something magic happened and the reason I am sharing this episode with you. I WAS ABLE TO PAUSE. I was able to put a pause, a break between the trigger (the movement that I believed re-injured my shoulder) and my spiraling out of control, the dooms spiral. I already put the bar back on the rack.

 I went to the coach. I told her what happened/that I was worried about re-injury.

Then I tried and succeeded in calming myself down.

Two main things happened:

But right now you DON”T KNOW FOR SURE that you torn it. You just know that it is hurting.

Can you TRY to calm your breathing and mind down, and see whether it helps?

The coach came by in the meantime seeing I am trying to stretch and gave me a ball that they refer to as “Chinese torture” in my gym  She said I could try to use that to loosen up my muslces.

 Guys

That’s what did the trick – I was leaning against the ball against the wall on the SOREST spot on my R shoulderblade, to the point it was taking my breath away, that’s how sharp the pain was. YET I was successfully releasing the tension in my shoulders, I let the shoulders drop down, while staying calm and telling myself to stay calm, with my breath, with the pain, and applying the pressure.

I did NOT go to push press that gym session.

Over the next 48 hours, my pain went down from 9/10 down to 2-3/10. The pain was really severe that evening and I had trouble even just doing dishes – any motion with my right hand INCLUDING brushing teeth was flaring the pain. But I continued to breathe through all of it, and did not lose the sight of the fact that I would know what to do if the pain was not getting better.

The pain was better the next morning.

I went back to the gym the next day but did NOT do any overhead activity. I did stretching at home and in the gym for the next few days.

Then over the next several days the pain went almost back to baseline.

SO why am I talking about it?

For the following 3 reasons:

The second thing I did was I BELIEVED I COULD HANDLE things EVEN IF I HAD TRAUMA IN FORM OF TEAR> I never for a moment steered away from that though. And you can too – even if you are not a physician, you can have faith that you are able to seek help if the pain does not get better after the initial steps outlined above, or if it is getting worse in the first 48 hrs after injury.

Episode 39: The pain of a break up is both emotional and physical

Hi! Welcome to episode #39!

Today I am going to talk about the pain of a break up! It is something I first heard about a year ago when I was taking pain reprocessing courses and at that time I found it fascinating. I was recently dating and it did not occur to me I would be “testing” on myself 

Break ups hurt. NO matter how many times you have thought about breaking up with the person or questioned whether your relationship was going to last – when it actually happens, and you like, loved them, it hurts.

So first, I met a great man, after not dating for almost 6 years, and he swept me off my feet and now we are broken up.  That’s the short story.

There is a study, believe it or not, that explored what happens when people are shown pictures of someone they loved/someone who broke up with them. Brain MRIs were done at the same time. They recruited 40 people for this, all of them had experienced a recent unwanted break up. The other part of the experiment was stimulation of the left forearm with a hot probe. Auch. And what they found is that the signal that is picked up at the time of looking at a picture of your ex overlaps significantly/almost identically with area in the brain that processes physical pain! Isnt’ this fascinating?

These findings give a new meaning to the sentence “break up hurts”. Because it does. And you can even prove it on the functional brain MRI!

But joking aside, these findings basically shed new insight into how emotional experiences lead to development of physical pain. They are consistent with the research on “embodiment” which means that emotional experiences are closely intricately and intimately connected to the physical sensation and processing of pain.

This explains why people may experience an uptick in pain after a breakup or whenever they are going through a difficult time that is accompanied by some kind of social rejection.

So the next question is what to do, can you make it better?

First of all, heart break is always hard and I am not here to tell you will make the pain go away. Break up means a loss of a relationship and no matter how bad it was, you still have to mourn the good and beautiful and wonderful things that you had experienced together. However, I do claim that what I am about to say will make YOU feel better about the whole situation and in turn, may improve the pain.

The pain can be all consuming and excruciating. If you are anyone like me, who falls hard and experiences everything intensely, you will feel the pain intensely. trying to run away from it does not help. Acknowledge It is there and that it is ok.

You may cry, and feel intense sorrow, that may make it hard to function – let yourself feel it is ok. Love on yourself. Try to think of what gives you sense of love and reassurance. Then feel it, imagine it. I have been imagining a picture of me being a small girl, feeling sad and lost, and giving that little girl a huge loving warm and reassuring hug. Telling her it is going to be ok.

Remember many other people have gone through this and you will get through this too. Almost anything we experience in life, and especially a break up, other humans have overcome. So can you. So can I.

Episode 37: Weaving the threads (of Winning at fibromyalgia philosophy) together

Hello friends.

In the past few episodes I discussed individual pieces of the Core Winning at Fibromyalgia program. Today I am coming on here for a sweet short episode to recap, and emphasize the most important pieces and what I am doing about it.

I do strongly recommend listening to prior episodes to learn more about the individual steps.

In summary, they include:

The most important pieces, in my opinion and the common denominator in all success stories are the belief in one’s ability to get better, to heal, to be pain free or with significantly less pain AND fierce self -love.

I have found on my own journey and from listening to the many women who got better – they believe and they love on themselves. Self-love can be hard to recognize as self love because the societal norms tell us what we “should” and should not do. And we put that pressure on ourselves. Some of the examples of the opposite of self love is:

We only have ONE precious life. We have to treat it like gift, we have to treat our health and our bodies as gifts.

What we feel, what we are going through matter. We should not be miserable at work or in life every day.

So here is what my team and I are doing.

Starting at the end of September,

I will be hosting weekly calls,

For women interested in supportive community and more knowledge about fibromyalgia and what to do about it.

We meet and talk about a topic each week

I share ways to assess your fibromyalgia and then

Prompts to do the tools

Or simply answer your questions

Being part of the supportive group where everyone knows what the other might have gone through thanks to fibromyalgia is priceless.

Support is the other key factor in becoming successful at winning at fibromyalgia. Support of people who know what you are going through, who hear you, see you AND believe in you.

That’s what I will be doing for you guys.

There will be a small fee associated with this activity, paid monthly, it will be a close knit and private community to get us started.

We will get to know each other story well, to whatever is each of you feeling comfortable,

And we share our knowledge and stories and tips every week

I will moderate it and it will be a positive, private, and confidential type of setting where everyone participating will feel comfortable and safe.

www.winningatfibromyalgia

[email protected]

facebook name: martina lenartova

You might wonder why we need to talk about self-compassion in pain reduction in fibromyalgia. What does it have to do with alleviating physical pain? Well, it turns out, a lot. Self-compassion is a way of soothing the over-agitated nervous system, that is amplifying our pain sensation on constant basis. We may not be directly to the part of our nervous system that amplifies the pain. WHen we practice self-compassion, we are addressing our suffering, whatever is the circumstance, and that soothes the nervous system as a whole - including parts that cause or amplify the pain.

enjoy, leave me a review or comment, appreciate hearing from you :-)

Martina

www.winningatfibromyalgia.com

Today we talk about somatic tracking as one of the core techniques on pain reduction.

in episode 32: I talk about embracing the concept of neuroplasticity - the fact that the brain can determine what hurts, how much and can also make it better/we can rewire the brain neuro pain pathways.

ONe of the hallmarks of neuroplasticity is also the fact that the brain is wired for any sign of threat/danger. When it finds it, it can increase the sensitivity to pain and the pain perception itself.

It does not have to stay this way, and it never does. The pain can increase, or decrease, depending on our ability/on our brain's ability to increase or decrease activation of messages that turn off the pain.

enjoy :-)

Episode 31: Winning at Fibromyalgia podcast

Well hello my friends!

It has been a while! I have been MIA a little bit, for a good reason and I am back  I met someone special, his name is Greg and he has swept me off my feet, that’s all I will say for now.

I am coming on today to introduce you to my new, simplified version 2.0.1 of my Winning at fibromyalgia method. It is very powerful and I am very proud of it.

For those who don’t know me, I am a board-certified rheumatologist and work almost full time at the Rheumatology office in Cape Cod. I am an expert fibromyalgia coach where I teach women with fibromyalgia tools to reduce their pain, and win at fibromyalgia.

The principle 4 steps are:

Rinse and repeat 

I want to start with the power of Belief today.

I cannot stress how important belief is. I truly cannot.

Believing my women can achieve pain reduction is #1 item I work on with my patients and clients alike. I want to tell you why it is so important.

I want to tell you this because I found out the hard way. I LACKED belief myself – until I took the Whole health medicine institute course led by Dr. Rankin. Going through her program made me realize I lacked belief in my body’s ability to heal. I was able to uncover where it was coming from, and then changed it around. It did not happen overnight. But I did it. And I now am sharing it with you, my listeners and clients.

I want the same for you.

SO first of all – why do I even talk about Believing?

There is an undeniable body of research supporting the notion that our thoughts and perceptions affect our physiology. That our mindsets can MEASURABLY affect physical healing. In research studies it is called placebo effect – meaning, taking a sugar pill has positive, measurable physiologic and physical effects (improvement in depression, mood, or asthma). There is even such thing as placebo surgeries! – when doctors opened up a patient/made an incision but did not do ANY instrumentation on patients knees and people felt better!!!! Can you comprehend this?

Fascinating research from Yale – IDENTICAL milkshake given to TWO groups of people with TWO different labels – one that suggested more “indulgent” or calorific drink triggered REAL body responses suggestive of having consumed more calories!! But they have not! That’s all our brains/minds at work!

Neurobiological research has shown that the placebo effect, which stems in part from individual’s mindset and expectation to heal, triggers DISTINCT BRAIN AREAS associated with ANXIETY and PAIN that activate physiological effects that lead to healing outcomes. The placebo effect is mediated by the release of neurotransmitters, consistently impacts certain areas of brain and even mirrors the action of of pharmaceuticals on human physiology.

In clinical trials it is actually NOT uncommon for the placebo to BEAT the active drug, especially in the studies on anti-depressants! Do you know what this means?? This means that our minds can produce the effects of a medication as powerful as an antidepressant!

This means that the mind is capable of great feats in healing the body. This should not come as surprise given that the body is an infinitely intelligent organism. Humans have been healing themselves long before the invention of modern medicine techniques. Indigenous shamans have been facilitating healing for thousands of years. They gave patients hope, and through expectation, the mind initiated the changes in physiology for the body to heal.

The question is not whether there is placebo effect (power of belief in healing) but WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?? How can we consciously deliberately harness that affect??

We don’t seem to know how to produce it on demand in health and medicine. We spend enormous amount of money developing meds trying to OUTPERFORM the placebo affect. How silly!

Mindset about treatments SHAPE treatment outcomes (antihistamine prick and cream test)

Placebo effect is the power of belief, and is related to multiple psychosocial factors. One factor is expectation, which relates to a reduction in anxiety, or in expectation of reward.

The placebo effect provides insight into the complexity of consciousness and how little we really know about the mind and its ability to heal. The scientific evidence is accumulating and points towards the possibility that the mind has an unlimited healing ability.

You heard me right – UNLIMITED healing ability. ALL WITHOUT OUR, HUMAN precious mind.

This makes a complete sense but skeptics don’t like common sense until the science proves it.

Where do the mindsets come from??

The placebo effect is a mind-body phenomenon that starts in the brain, results in clinical improvement and is intimately related to the ritual of the therapeutic act. This ritual involves things such as people in the room, spoken words, syringes or other devices and even the color of the pill.

One of the most important factors that trigger expectations and believe is a verbal suggestion. Verbal suggestions are frequently given in clinical studies of the placebo effect, and these words as part of the therapeutic ritual have powerful effects on the body. This is an important concept to remember because YOUR OWN WORDS BASED ON YOUR INNATE BELIEFS ARE part of your own therapeutic ritual every single day of your life.

The placebo effect emphasizes the importance of belief in overall health and wellness. BE positive in what you say and be discerning about what you believe. YOUR MIND-BODY IS listening.

More useful questions-  what is the best mindset to have, when diagnosed with fibromyalgia?

Answer” the one that empowers us. The one that enhances our belief in our body’s and mind’s ability to heal, to improve the pain. No matter what caused it.

The opposite is true also – injury to the body and negative thoughts can lead to stress, depression, anxiety and even to fear about getting injured again.

Standford University researchers found that what patients think and expect about treatments can influence health outcomes.

YOUR MINDSET CAN AFFECT YOUR RECOVERY.

Researcher Alia Crum, a psychologist at Standford describes her experience when she was 10 and broke her ankle while doing gymnastics but did not know it was broken first. She iced and taped it and competed the next day and qualified for nationals. Then she found out her ankle was broken. She basically MENTALLy overcame her injury.

Fibromyalgia CAUSES REAL pain but there is no injury. What a gift.

It is an invitation to us to utilize our brain, nervous system and mind healing potential to sway the course of the pain.

My entire coaching program is based on the premise that our brain has the power to alter the pain we feel in the body.

Once you start believing it can. And embrace the neuroplasticity as a real cause of pain, you have won.

Our brains usually need love or encouragement, sometimes both.

Our primitive brains are also wired to look for danger. Maybe in some of us the wiring is stronger than others.

What if our job was to provide reassurance to our primitive brains that we are safe, that we are strong, taking care of ourselves, attending to our needs and that things will be ok? And I am not talking about gaslighting and claiming everything will be fine if we are in real physical danger. I am talking providing our minds and nervous system reassurance and reassuring messages of safety when we are, in fact, physically ok, nobody is shooting at us or attacking us physically. Because short of physical danger, most of the time, we are ok.

The first step is to BELIEVE that we can get there – to the part where our nervous system is at peace, and we truly really believe we are ok. And that we can feel better. Things start changing then.

You can change your mindset.

The brain is NEUROPLASTIC – meaning neural networks can continue to grow, change and reorganize throughout the lifespan. By challenging yourself with new experiences and perspectives, you can FORM NEW NEURAL CONNECTIONS – OR MINDSETS – at ANY POINT in life.

I invite you to do the following exercise:

I am powerful.

I have the power (to change my neural connections).

I have the power to change my perception of pain.

I am strong, I am healthy, I am resilient.

I am learning to harness the power of my brain and nervous system

I believe in my body’s ability to heal and in my own ability to choose my own thoughts.