Tag: itch

Writing a Reflective Poem to Manage a Chronic Illness

I participate each month in a writer’s group for people experiencing chronic illness and/or disability.  We meet online on Zoom and undertake reflective writing following a stimulus piece (e.g. a poem, a song or short story) introduced by our facilitator.  We then share what we have written, being open about our challenges and the feelings we experience in dealing with them. 

An added benefit of our Creative Meetups is the willingness of participants to share their strategies for dealing with their difficulties.  While we each have quite unique health conditions, we are readily able to relate both to the feelings expressed by others and the strategies they share to overcome any negative self-talk.  Through the online Meetups, we can see other participants from around the world and progressively build relationships with members of the group.

The facilitator for our Creative Meetup group is now Jennifer Crystal, author of One Tick Stopped the Clock.  Jennifer is a story coach with The Health Story Collaborative that hosts our monthly Meetups.  So we have the distinct advantage of having a facilitator who is experienced in narrative therapy and teaching people how to write for healing.

Reflective poems: a strategy for managing chronic illness and associated feelings

One of the participants in our January Creative Meetup, mentioned that he writes a reflective poem as a means to “tell himself what to do” when he is overcome with difficult feelings such as anxiety or depression.  As an amazing piece of synchronicity, I had done exactly the same thing the night before the Meetup.

I was beginning to get frustrated with the constant flare-ups of dermatitis, set off by my multiple food sensitivities, when I began to ask myself, “Why do I keep eating things that I know will cause a flare-up of dermatitis?” Through the reflective poem, I was able to stand back, look at the consequences of my actions  and form the resolution to behave differently.  My recent reflective poem has enabled me to find light in the darkness.  The poem acts as a “bridge to action” in the face of inertia.

The Creative Meetups are a great stimulus to write and share our stories and the group provides ongoing support for behavioural change.  The insights gained from the stories of other participants are invaluable.  I have found, too, that I invariably write a poem after each Meetup – which is helping me to grow in self-awareness and to address unresolved issues in my life.  For example, I have written the following poems stimulated by activities of our monthly Meetups:

Healing through storytelling

Jennifer Crystal’s book, One Tick Stopped the Clock, epitomizes the healing power of storytelling encapsulated in the Creative Meetups.   She shares her feelings of being frustrated with the medical profession (it took 8 years to obtain a correct diagnosis of her chronic illness), how she had to develop a new identity and find ways to achieve self-care amidst her debilitating experience.  The strategies she employed to manage her challenges and difficult emotions included writing and pacing herself.  Jennifer’s proactivity, like that of participants in the Creative Meetups, act as inspiration for me to take action on my own chronic health condition.

Like Jennifer, I initially sought the advice of my General Practitioner only to find that the issue of allergy was outside his area of expertise.  However, to my frustration, he did not inform me that the clinic had a doctor who was trained in immunology.  After searching the profiles of the clinic doctors, I found a doctor who had a PhD in immunology and had worked in a number of hospitals as an immunologist. Through her referral, I had an appointment with a specialist who was a clinical immunologist and allergist.  Once again, my proactivity led me to unearth an erroneous assumption that I had made. 

The immunology specialist pointed out that I did not appear to have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).  He explained that there were two levels of Mast Cell Activation – mine related to Level 1 which was largely confined to the skin and was reflected in dermatitis.  He stated that MCAS, the syndrome level, was more episodic and systemic (including symptoms such as diarrhea, brain fog, breathing difficulties and digestive problems).

Reflection

I have been trying to manage my chronic condition of an overactive immune system but recently a tick bite set me back considerably as my dermatitis flared up resulting in a short time at the Emergency Centre of a hospital.  My feelings of frustration at not being able to eat a wide range of foods were generating a sense of helplessness. 

I have found that writing a reflective poem helped me to identify what was in my control and to face up to the actions I needed to take to redress my symptoms.  As I grow in mindfulness through reflective writing, I am gaining increased self-awareness, tapping into my creative energy and generating momentum for positive behavioural change.

The following reflective poem flowed from Creative Meetups and related storytelling and shared wisdom:

Managing Chronic Illness Mindfully

The chronic condition:
immune system overdrive,
comfort and pleasure turned to discomfort and pain.

Focusing on deprivation:
makes it more difficult,
harder to avoid the breakouts.

The brief taste sensation:
gluten delicacies enticing temptation,
causing skin damage.

Setting off micro-implosions:
lasting rash, hives and itch,
discomfort magnified by frequency.

The body keeps the score:
registering every aberration,
exacting its toll.

The way forward:
openness to “what is”,
bringing light to depressing darkness.

Paying attention to the body:
listening to the body’s wisdom,
breaking free of emotional blackmail.

Buying time to heal:
avoiding alcohol and sleep deprivation,
eliminating causes of flare-ups.

Reducing the need for cortisone ointment:
protecting the body’s skin barrier,
restoring immune equilibrium.

Mindful awareness growing inside:
opening to nature’s beauty,
savouring life-giving breath.

Discerning the locus of control:
identifying what I can change,
acting on this insight.

It’s time to rebuild:
exercising and osteopathy,
walking and Tai Chi.

___________________________________________

Image by Melanie from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Persistence with Mindfulness Creates its Own Reward

In previous posts, I discussed how mindfulness meditation can provide pain relief in situations of chronic pain and alleviate the symptoms of psoriasis.

From my personal experience, I can confirm that being mindful in the midst of pain or the relentless itch from psoriasis is not easy.  However, I have found in both situations that mindful meditation has been extremely helpful.

In 1997, my back collapsed and I could not stand for more than two minutes or walk more than 10 metres without experiencing excruciating sciatic pain that travelled down to my ankles.  On top of this, I had pneumonia which aggravated the pain whenever I coughed.

I spent 18 months having all kinds of treatment – chiropractic, hydrotherapy, physiotherapy and osteopathy.  There were times when I had to lie on my back on the floor, alternating one hour on and one hour off.  When you are lying on the floor, there is not much you can do except meditate – which is what I did to achieve some degree of pain management.

More recently, I have found that mindful breathing focused on the part of my body that is itchy, has provided some relief.  This is difficult to do because the temptation is to seek distraction rather than focus on the source of discomfort.  However, as I mentioned in my previous post on psoriasis, research has demonstrated that mindful meditation can actually enhance the healing benefit of whatever form of treatment for psoriasis you are undertaking.

We know from experience that conscious breathing can help us manage pain when, for instance, we are undertaking painful physiotherapy or remedial massage.  Research shows that conscious breathing, combined with focused attention, actually speeds up the healing process.

While the pain or itching discomfort can remind you, and motivate you, to undertake mindfulness meditation, this practice in turn helps you to grow in mindfulness – with all its attendant benefits. So, there is a two-way dynamic operating – pain and discomfort precipitate mindful practice and the latter reinforces other forms of mindfulness that you have developed through different techniques.  Also, as you grow in mindfulness, it gets easier to be mindful when experiencing chronic pain or discomfort from psoriasis.

What I found helpful too is to visualise a future state where you are healed – in my case, visualising returning to playing tennis again on a weekly basis, a state which I eventually achieved after mindfulness meditation in concert with multiple treatments for my back problems.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: Courtesy of illustrade on Pixabay

Mindful Meditation to Reduce the Symptoms of Psoriasis

In an earlier post, I discussed how mindfulness meditation can help the management of chronic pain.  In this post, I will focus on the beneficial effects of mindful meditation for the management of psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition that can last for weeks, months and even years and can recur at anytime.  This skin condition is thought to be an autoimmune disease that typically manifests as a rash or skin lesion that can be exceptionally itchy and results in dry, cracking skin that can be painful.  The skin problem is exacerbated because people with psoriasis, consciously or unconsciously, scratch the itching skin which intensifies the itch and increases inflammation of the skin.

This vicious cycle can contribute to emotional and psychological problems.  People who suffer from this skin condition may feel embarrassed to be seen out in public and may withdraw emotionally leading to depression. The negative emotional effects are aggravated by the difficulty experienced in attempting to heal this persistent skin condition – a debilitating disease experienced by 450,000 Australians and over 125 million people world-wide according to the Skin & Cancer Foundation.

There are numerous triggers to cause psoriasis in an individual – stress and infection being two of the major triggers.  The inability to isolate the primary trigger for an individual adds to the anxiety experienced by the psoriasis sufferer.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a renowned mindfulness expert, undertook research in support of an approach to curing psoriasis using meditation as a means to heighten the effect of the treatment.  His research involved two groups of people receiving treatment for psoriasis, one group practising meditation during the treatment and the other group, the non-meditators, taking the treatment as normal.  He found that “the meditators skin cleared at four times the rate of the non-meditators”.

In discussing these results (which have been confirmed by other researchers), Kabat-Zinn suggested that the positive effect of meditation on the rate of healing of psoriasis is related to the connection between the body and the mind:

And it is a beautiful example of the mind/body connection because you’re doing something with your mind and something is happening in the skin.  So it just doesn’t get any better than that.

The Psoriasis & Skin Clinic offers a number of meditation methods to reduce the stress associated with psoriasis and to build emotional resilience while suffering from this skin condition.  They suggest a form of body scan meditation which involves concentrating on a specific part of the body where itching or pain is experienced., breathing deeply and focusing your mind on that itching or pain to reduce or alleviate the discomfort.

They also suggest another meditation/relaxation technique which involves experiencing, or thinking about, a peaceful or inspiring location and using this focus to release any troubles or worries that may be causing you stress.  Their instruction for this exercise is reminiscent of Kabat-Zinn’s book, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness:

If you are sitting on the sand on the beach, feel the setting sun warm your face, feel the breeze on your skin, smell the ocean air, taste the salty tang on the breeze, hear the waves washing right up to you and as you hear each and every wave, release all of your stress and throw it onto the waves to wash out into the ocean.

As you grow in mindfulness through mindful practices such as these meditations, you will be better able to manage the discomfort of psoriasis and assist your healing process, whatever treatment method you adopt.  The experience of itching or pain can even become a catalyst to mindful meditation to relieve the discomfort.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.