This will be my last post for CFS Squared – Tales of CFS. I have enjoyed writing here, for the past two years. But it’s time for me to move on now.

I must say, that this last word stuff is a little daunting. I kind of want to sneak away – and leave you with fun and quirky posts. But, I owe more than that to all of you, and to myself.

On more than one occasion, I have written about Do No Harm. I am going to share a little secret with all of you. Writing and/or following a health blog about chronic illness eats away at the energy you have. It most certainly eats away at mine, which is why I don’t read illness related news blurbs or other blogs. Spending so much time thinking about your illness and how others cope = self harm.

What we should be doing is enjoying life. We should be singing songs to our friends on the phone, hosting dance party in our living rooms, reading Dr Seuss to our favorite 3 year old, playing catch with our dog and his best tennis ball, and throwing fancy dinner parties where we serve pizza and KFC with very expensive wine.

We need to savor the small stuff. Stop analyzing every pain and cough.

Sure, reading about how other people cope with their issues can be somewhat helpful – but this journey is about learning what works for you. My tricks won’t work for everyone. Just like yours won’t always work for me. The best thing to do, is to get out there, and start figuring out what helps. The only way to do that, is to just do it. Be your own Nike advert.

Reading about recent developments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia, is not going to help you get well. The latest drug may make life slightly easier for a little while, but will most likely become less effective. I will say one last thing. And this will be the most important advice that you will hear….

Get out of your head!

Now go outside and have some fun!

It’s been a pleasure.

**Picture Source - flickr

Post from: Blisstree

The Swan Song

After a week, some of the seeds have started sprouting…which proves that at least my thumbs are partly green. I took some fantastic pictures, but alas the usb port on my camera cable is bent, and so all pictures will have to wait, until I replace it.

Hopefully they will keep growing….I am getting really excited about it, and can’t wait to start using them. The one thing I have learned already, is to make sure you mark your rows. I neglected to do that, and now I don’t know which herbs have sprouted and which haven’t. A mistake that will not be made on my next attempt. Oh well, its all a learning process.

Will report more on the garden in a couple of days.

In the meantime, to tie you over-here is a picture of what Lemon Balm is supposed to look like.

Image details: Lemon balm plant served by picapp.com

Post from: Blisstree

The Start of My Journey Into Medicinal Herb Growing

As I write this post, I am wearing a pair of Pinhole glasses. When I first discovered this product, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. A few weeks later, I received my pair of glasses and not only was I skeptical, but I had thought I had time traveled back in time to 1984. I am fairly sure that I had a similar pair, when I was a kid. Although I suspect they were for purely aesthetic reasons.

Now, it must be said that I have no problems with my eyesight, with the exception of being a little light sensitive. I work in a very bright office during the week, and so there are days when I wear sunglasses indoors. I wasn’t sure if I was the right person to test this product out. So I passed them around to various coworkers who have some vision problems.

Out of six people who wore them – one person loved them, and thought that it actually would help him. To be fair – he is the only person who gave them a fair chance. He wore them the longest, and looked at different things (computer, the newspaper, outside), to see if it would make a difference.

Three out of the six people just couldn’t get past the appearance of these glasses. The lens is made of perforated plastic, so you are looking through many dots. So they weren’t prepared to really get the experience. They did report that it didn’t make their vision any worse – or cause any other symptoms such as headaches.

Two of the six people, couldn’t remark on how effective these glasses are, because their vision is so bad – and these glasses are not for everyone. So really, they weren’t fair test subjects.

The last test subject is me. Here are my findings:

• These glasses filter out a lot of light. So in my very bright office, these glasses were quite helpful
• I had to slow down my reading speed a tad, just because the glasses are foreign to me, and it took some adjusting. This is not at all a negative. Slower reading speed means higher comprehension. In fact, I accomplished a whole lot more than I usually do, and that is due to wearing these.
• When sitting at my computer, changing head position from looking at the screen to looking at a report on my desk, would make me a little dizzy. So when I had to do a lot of switching back and forth-I just chose to remove the glasses. But when I am working on just one activity, such as writing this blog post-they work great!
• The pin-hole glasses are not to be worn in a dark environment. Which is why they are perfect in an office setting. The entire time I wore them, I was headache free – I am attributing this to the spotted specs.
• Definitely image is a lot clearer when wearing them.
• It does take quite a while to get used to looking through polka dots. But once I adapted to the change, I became a lot more focused (vision, brain power, everything).

These glasses will reduce peripheral vision, so make sure you do not wear them while driving or operating machinery.
When I started writing this post, I had an unbelievable hang over from lack of sleep. I have worn these glasses now for almost an hour, and not only is the fogginess completely gone, but my energy has started coming back. Now, I am not claiming that these glasses will completely combat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but they have helped with my visual focus. This is a huge step in the right direction.

If you want to know more about what Pinhole Glasses can do for you, go here.

If you are interested in obtaining a pair, you can order some through Pinhole-Glasses-Direct

**Picture Source- wikipedia

Post from: Blisstree

Seeing Spots for Better Eyesight

Image details: Man asleep in bed holding large alarm clock served by picapp.com

Every morning at 5 am, my radio is set to play selections from the classical music station. I listen to the music for an hour, before starting my day.

This is the only way for me to wake up properly. I can not wake up without assistance. If I decided to wake up, when my body (and mind) was ready – I might now get out of bed until well after noon (such is my curse of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). The 5 am start is necessary – I have a job, where I need to be everyday – and it takes about an hour to get there.

The 1 hour of listening is imperative. First it brings enjoyment to my day (important!). It gives me an opportunity to awaken my senses in a way that is calming and energizing at the same time. Because of the genre of the station – the music is rarely of a jarring nature. Although, occasionally they will play a jig – or something by Vaughn-Williams – and then it becomes harder for me to wake up in a good mood. Often when this happens, I usually close my mind off, and roll over and fall back to sleep. It happens, when I am forced to listen to music that I do not like.

My point to this, is that it is much easier to wake up to sounds that are gentle, than something extremely high energy first thing in the morning. Pop music belongs on the ipod, dance floor, or the car stereo, and not in the bedroom. An equally good substitute is listening to sounds of nature. But usually that can happen naturally in the spring and summer (at least in my neighborhood).

Another trick is to remain consistent. Don’t let yourself sleep in on the weekends.

What do you to start your day on a good note?

Post from: Blisstree

A Positive Start to The Day With CFS

Other sites that I use occasionally are: 

Flickr is an interesting site. One that I love looking through. I don’t take enough good pictures to use it properly though, hopefully that will be remedied, but in the meantime – I love looking at the works of people with a talented eye. Some readers of CFS Squared use this site, to showcase their talent – and I am in awe of them.

I use a site called Good Reads, to keep track of the books I am reading.  I have tried others before, but the maintenance was too much.  This one, doesn’t take up too much time – and the people are friendly, and don’t force themselves upon you.  I like that.  But I always end up feeling guilty that I don’t read enough.

And finally, I was invited to a networking site called Alopecia World – because of the Baldiness blog that I write.  Unfortunately, I have not spent enough time there, to know how it will work for me.  However, it does sound like an interesting idea.  I won’t be able to spend any time there though, until I have completely recovered from my facebook experience.

What social networking tools do you use – and how do you use them, so they don’t overwhelm your life.  If you don’t use online social networking sites- tell us what kind of activities you do to reach out to people.   I am all for real life interaction- so let us know what you are doing.

Post from: Blisstree

Is Social Networking Tiring You Out?

The last few weeks have been difficult ones for me. I have had some heinous cough- that is not really going away. I have all sorts of mono symptoms that haven’t really been going away. My skin has been peeling like crazy. And some other stuff has been brought to the surface, that I am not quite ready to divulge on here (don’t worry- it will get under control). Due, to the chest cough, and the skin peeling thing, it has been suggested that I give up dairy products. Remember when I tried to give up coffee. This is pretty much as hard as the coffee sabbatical. I can give up cheese, and ice cream (no problem), but I need milk, if my coffee is too strong….and I am having a very difficult time giving up yogurt. This also means, that I must give up cereal (because there is no way that I am eating it dry).

A week or two ago, I came up with the plan to try milk of different sources. I already know that soy milk will not work for me. In my mouth, it tastes terrible (unless its chocolate)- and besides, it gives me headaches. The only form of soy that I can tolerate is the edamame bean. Then comes the rice milk. And I may as well be drinking ground up chalk powder mixed with water. This stuff is vile.

But yesterday, I happened to be in the neighborhood upscale grocery (the one that sells the grapples) and discovered Almond Milk. While, this milk doesn’t taste like actual dairy milk. It doesn’t make me gag either. There is a hint of almonds in the flavor. While I do not think I could drink this milk straight up. I do think I could tolerate this milk in my coffee. I also discovered that the coffee flavored almond milk, gives my morning coffee a little extra kick!

Anyway, its not a bad alternative – if the real dairy stuff has been banned from entering your body. Now, if I could just find a yogurt substitute.

**Picture Source – flickr

Post from: Blisstree

Almonds – A Good Source of Milk?

~ George Carlin

Post from: Blisstree

The I’m Tired Quote of the Day

Lately, I have discovered the sounds of Radiohead. I know I know – they have been around for a long time. Well, I just discovered them. And this band totally relaxes me. I often miss the message of the song, but I like the sounds. So tonight, I am going to post their video “Go To Sleep”.

Here it is:

Post from: Blisstree

A Musical Interlude

Post from: Blisstree

How to Be Happy According to Jack Lalanne

Years ago, my doctor told me about a little trick I can use to figure out what kinds of actions are appropriate. I have long stopped using this, but it can be helpful. I can’t even remember what he called it, but I will call it “using the ruler”. You take a regular 1-10 scale. 1 represents I feel fantastic. 5 represents I am ok. 10 represents not only is the pain so bad that I need morphine-but I can not move.

On days where you are a 1 and feeling great, you are welcome to do whatever it is you wish to do. Keep in mind, that this may get you into trouble on subsequent days – as they often can trigger a crash. But enjoy how you are feeling. Try not to question it to much. Just smile, and have a good one.

On 5 days – get done what you need to do. Don’t overwhelm yourself with petty details. If things don’t work according to plan, let it go. It’s really no big deal if the floor doesn’t get washed right this minute. Alternate your must do errands and chores with something nice. Some relaxing music, 15 minutes in your garden, a bubble bath. The balance here is really important.

On 10 days – managing your pain is what this day is all about. I have had some 10 days – I don’t get them often. I think I can count early fall 2007 was the first time in 10 years, where I could consider myself ever having pain classified as 10. The only thing that I was able to do, was stay in bed – and have a whole lot of hot showers – because that was the ONLY thing that helped with the pain. Pain killers did not help at that point. I do not feel guilty or remorseful about this. It was the only thing that could be done. So why make yourself feel worse about it.

Here is the breakdown of the ruler/scale.

1-3 I feel fantastic/really good – Let’s Play. Don’t overdo it, but enjoy yourself
4-7 I feel okay. Pain/sickness is bearable. Make sure you balance your must do activities, with some good for you ones.
8-9 I am hurting. Do what you must do, and then come home to rest. You do not want to cause more problems for yourself.
10 The pain is awful, I can barely lift my head off the pillow. Call in sick. Leave household chores undone. Tell the kids that they can eat frozen pizza and twinkies for dinner.

**Picture Source – flickr

Post from: Blisstree

Measure the Pain