DO YOU get the sense I'm avoiding continuing talking about pain?
If I am, it's not conscious. I'm in pain right now. Sitting upright working on the computer for long hours puts a pressure on everything in the pelvic area. You can figure out where that leads. Pain here I come!
With endo, if it ain't one thing leading you down the path to pain it's another. So you have to build up as equally vast an arsenal against it. Right now, I want to give you something to put in your pain-fighting stockpile ... and in your teapot.
Reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, I came across an herbalist character who used white willow against pain. I did a good bit of research before committing to give it a try myself.
I was tired of having to put painkillers into my system. I actually felt guilty, though I needed them. And I don't know if you've noticed, but some, despite their rep, just do not seem to work.
I used white willow as a tea. I did not have that groggy, dry-mouth feel as when I took some tablets, just a nice comfy mellow. It even worked fairly fast, though not suddenly; and without that washed-up comedown feeling after.
Where There's a Willow There's a Way
White willow was used way back in 400BCE, when the "father of modern medicine," Hippocrates, made patients chew on the bark to reduce fever and inflammation.
It contains salicin, similar to what's in aspirin, so allergic folk should steer clear.
Willow can help with lower back pain, headaches, menstrual cramps, as well as with osteoarthritis and tendinitis.
It is slower to ease pain than aspirin, but may last longer. Willow is also antioxidant, antiseptic and boosts the immune system.
You are advised against use if you deal with diabetes, gout, gastritis, hemophilia and stomach ulcers or related issues.
Willow may have contrary interactions with certain other drugs. Feel free to do further comparative research or consult a professional nutritionist or herbalist.
Willowing and Able
In a covered pot, simmer 1 tbs willow bark in 16 ozs of slow boiling water for 2 minutes; remove from heat, keep covered, and steep for half hour. Drink half a warm cup when faced with mid-level pain and relax. You can use honey instead of sugar. The flavour is bitter but not bad, so you can big-girl try it without any sweetening.
In beauty may you walk
IF I SAID to women suffering under endometriosis, "Let's take a break from the pain. Who's on board?" I bet I know what most of you would say.
So that's just what I'd like to do, although I said I was going into detail about what all might be causing your separate endo aches. I'll do that soon enough, but I felt we could use a breather from thoughts of (and actually feeling) pain.
Now then, this will sound odd, but endometriosis can be enriching. Seriously. Oh, I would much rather have never had it, and I wish you could have lived your life without ever enduring it.
Yet, sometimes the thing that helps us be better is the thing that made us ill in the first place ... metaphorically AND literally.
Still outstanding
Experiencing endo has made me a more empathetic person towards those coping with illness.
I am certainly more savvy about overall healthcare, fitness and determining good lifestyle nutrition.
I got turned on to herbs, essential oils, vitamins, minerals and other supportive type ways of treating with anything from agony to aging.
I know so much more about living well, body, soul and mind, that I have wonderful insight to share with others to help them reach for better, too.
The list is long. Life is still outstanding.
So every now and then I'll make mention of something bright that I think came out of endo in my life. Bet I surprise you sometimes. Hey, why not give this a shot as well!
Without further ado:
Endo Gave to Me
Endo is certainly beastly, but I have never met a woman who has endometriosis who did not look years younger than she is, barring when suffering a flare-up.
When women experience menopause, it is the reduced production of estrogen that leads to some less flattering aspects. Some get hormone replacement treatments full of -- yep! -- estrogen.
My theory is that since endo can be attributed to a hormone imbalance -- mainly the overproduction of estrogen -- the very thing that might be responsible for the disease could be the same that makes many women who have it look less than their years.
If my theory holds water, many of us may ask, "Is it worth it?"
Guess each of us has to answer that for herself.
Five Ways to Walk in Beauty
- Smile often
- Hum a happy, peaceful or upbeat tune often
- Extend big and small acts of kindness to others regularly
- Dance when no one is looking. Or even when they are
- Say truthfully nice things about yourself inside every time you say something nice to someone outside
Feel free to add to the list and share with friends. Make a game of it!
And obviously, in beauty may you walk
Photo by Designecologist from Pexels
MY ARTWORK for endometriosis pain often involves a wall effect.
Pain builds walls: the kind that keep you shut away from life's beauties, life's joys. The kind that hide the sun, that break your heart, hurt your spirit, oppress you with despair. Walls that kill hope.
Let us fight to break down such walls!
Remember, we are taking the "know your enemy" approach in our war on endo pain. We will know our enemy intimately, the way it has come to know us.
We'll start the learning with
When.
But, "Oh," you say, "I know when I feel pain, so I don't need schooling on that."
It won't hurt to attend. It may even help alleviate hurt in the long run. See, identifying when you feel your pains can help you define what your separate endo issues are, so you can treat with each "elementally."
When the Hurt's In Charge
- MENSTRUAL PAIN: Dysmenorrhea is the clinical word for cramps, and it can be felt in the back just as much as the belly, and stretch out from both to affect other reaches. Many women accept that extended pre- and during menstruation cramps are just par for the period course; but funnily enough, it can be the earliest sign that something is wrong and serve as a diagnostic indicator of endo.
- PELVIC PAIN: Once you learn how many pelvic organs the female body has, you become aware of what all endo can use to sling spasms at you, and not the nice kind. Pain can bombard one pelvic organ or several, your uterus or/and ovary (or/and both ovaries) or/and anything else that's "down there." Bloating can result, and that gives a specific painful discomfort of its own added to the cramping. "Well isn't it just like my period pain, then?" Yes, except pelvic pain does not confine itself just to your actual time of the month. You can be beset during your ovulation and before your period actually comes.
- BOWEL MOVEMENTS PAIN: "Just take a purge before your period," I've heard tell many a time. Like it's a simple as that. But this specific pain tells you that there are most likely lesions located between the uterus and the rectum, putting such pressure on both that you feel it when you try to pass. Furthermore, endo can be mistaken with irritable bowel syndrome because implants near the bowel produce chronic gastrointestinal symptoms. So while a doctor may be treating you for just IBS, you may be left to continue suffering from unidentified other endo-spurred gastro factors (and endo itself) like yeast infections, prostaglandins release, endometrial tissue present in the cul-de-sac and out of wack intestinal bacteria flora.
- SEX PAIN: Talk about knowing something intimately, right. Almost all endo-copers face this, with about two-thirds of us feeling dyspareunia, pain even after intercourse. Endo most occurs behind the uterus, in the cul-de-sac called pouch-of-Douglas. Lesions here can force the uterus into a tilted-back position (retroversion), bringing on unreasonable pain during vaginal penetration as the uterus shifts around or is totally pulled outward. The penis itself can damage with each thrust, by bruising or tearing present endometrial implants. This can cause bleeding after sex, and other complications one might encounter from an open wound. It can all be worse if you have sex while menstruating, as it will take longer to detect if you are bleeding from tearing and need to treat with that before it gets infected.
- OTHER AGONIES: Speaking of infections, the pain brought on by inflammation trying to battle those is severe and takes a long time to counter, because you have to fight the infection itself. Add to that, the resultant fever can actually kill you. Sorry to be blunt, but this is serious. Other symptoms, not immediately perceived as being painful, can also add aches to an already over-burdened body: nausea, vomiting, upset stomach, diarrhea, constipation and dizziness or passing out. There are also headaches, swollen limbs, hurts that come just from trying to walk, move at all, even sleep.
These are among only the physical pains of endometriosis. Each one can indicate an issue we need to be looking at and doing something about.
I suggest you refer back to the post, "The Agony Is the Beat."
Please, do not sit back. I want you to groan and fear endo pain so much that you are willing to take committed steps to overthrowing it, if not completely, at least for almost that.
In beauty may you walk
Next post: Whyfore Art Thou Agony?
I ONCE described that the symptoms of endometriosis are as varying among different women as these women vary from each other.
It's like a buffet menu but you have no say in what ends up on your plate. For some women, it's more of this and that, less of so-and-so; for others it's an unhealthy portion of Y, and X-amount of some'at else.
But here's what around 95 per cent of endo-copers share as communal fare: PAIN.
Not surprising, that, since there is always pain in battles. And you are battling endo.
Pain is endo's most wielded weapon; and an endo-sufferer can feel its wounding during her period, during her ovulation, during her day-to-day. You're always on the losing end when you face off with endometriosis agony.
"Endo is causing me pain," you acknowledge.
But there are so many types of pain with endo, though. What is causing which pain?
This is why I devoted an entire category specifically to pain. The issue is so grand, the layers are multi, there is so much to know: types of pain; times of pain; degrees and causes of; resulting complications; downright dangers to; triggers, treatments and trying to head pain off at the pass.
All the most lauded generals of bygone wars advocated, "Know your enemy." That's the attitude to take with endometriosis pain, my warrior sistuhs. Get to know your pain intimately ... and I do not mean like you do now.
Pain gaining on you
Learn the hurt inside out: how it evolves; why it does what it does; the altering feel of one type versus another; the remedies that can deal with each aspect where it is.
Determine to make endo pain have to work hard to gain any ground in your life.
Chronic ailments so rock our foundation, we often get lost under their influence and think of them as these great, big, insurmountable wholes.
Even they are made up of elements. If we commit to aiming our concerted attacks on the manageable components, well, that's what wins us the war.
In beauty may you walk
Photo caption: Is endo pain like an ever present danger that you know little about how to fight?
Next post: Whys & Whens of Hurting
