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whenisitenoughtrees · 5 years ago

Text

the point in just drowning another day

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

Patton is struggling far more than he wants to admit, both with his loneliness and the crushing weight of the mistakes he's made, and it's sending him spiraling. It doesn't help that apparently, his amphibian traits are here to stay.

Content Warnings: depression, mild body horror

Word Count: 6,900

Pairing: Moceit

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

It is a grey day today.

He hasn’t had one in a while, but he’s sensed it approaching for the past few days, so he supposes it’s his own fault that it hits this bad; he willfully ignored all the warning signs, pushed aside his fatigue and his slowly souring mood, telling himself that he was alright, that he was being silly, that the feelings would pass. And now, the world is grey, the colors leeched from it like a black-and-white film, and a weight sits heavily on his chest, making every breath a struggle.

He needs to get up. He knows this. Knows he should have been up hours ago, that he should be making breakfast, eggs and sausage and pancakes, should be smiling and happy and ready to greet the world. The others are probably waiting for him, wondering where he is, why he’s not there.

Only, they’re not. And he knows that too. For the past month, family breakfasts have dwindled to a rarity; Roman spends all his time in the Imagination, Virgil almost never leaves his room for anything, and whenever Logan makes an appearance, it’s only to grab food and leave, heading back to his work and his planning with barely a backwards glance. Too often, he prepares meals alone and eats them alone, at an empty dining table, the room silent except for the fridge humming in the background. The house is empty and still, and he sits alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he has failed all of them. That he has no one to blame for this but himself.

If he had been less strict, could this have been avoided? If he had been more open to others’ opinions, open to change? If he had been better at understanding Virgil, less eager to shut out Logan, more perceptive of the issues that Roman tried so hard to hide?

He’s losing his family, has already lost them, inch by creeping inch. And it’s all his fault, and the morning dawns grey and cold, and no matter what he tells himself, he cannot persuade his body to leave his bed.

It’s not that he’s comfortable. He’s not. His mattress feels too lumpy, his blankets too hot, too stifling, and his pillow too soft and yielding. His skin itches, too, itches like it is trying to crawl off his bones, but he can barely make himself move at all, cannot stir from his curled up position. One hand lays near his head, in his line of sight, and one by one, he twitches his fingers, raising them off the mattress before letting them drop again. He tracks the motion, almost fascinated by the way his muscles shift, as much as he is capable of being fascinated by anything right now.

Something about the hand looks odd. It feels odd, too, large and clumsy, almost disconnected from the rest of him. He thinks he should probably be alarmed by this, but he can’t work up the energy.

He needs to get up. He knows this. The hours are slipping away. Soon, it will be too late for breakfast at all.

He lies there and thinks instead. Thinks of all the harm he’s done lately, to Thomas and to the rest of them. Thinks about how Virgil has pulled away from him, how he skipped over Logan’s contributions, somehow convincing him that he doesn’t care about him. How he’s been fighting so hard against the idea that Deceit and Remus could help Thomas at all, how he labelled them as the things that make Thomas bad, only to find out that Janus, at least, has been advocating for Thomas the whole time, and if that is the case, perhaps Remus, too, is not nearly as terrible as he’s always believed.

He thinks about the bitterness on Roman’s face as he sunk out. The disbelief in his voice, the betrayal, the pain. He thinks about the fact that he hasn’t seen Roman since, that Roman has locked the door and refuses to answer, no matter how much he pleads and apologizes.

He lies there, carried by the grey day haze, and thinks that apologies don’t really amount to much, in the end, because apologies don’t fix anything. They don’t reverse time, don’t repair shattered trust or heal deep wounds. At best, they are a bandage, helpful when the injury is small but utterly ineffective otherwise, and these wounds are like vast chasms rending them all apart.

Patton thinks that he might be the bad one. Bad for Thomas. Bad for his family.

So maybe, he should just stay here. Should stay in bed, away from everyone, at least until he figures out what to do, how not to hurt them anymore, but really, wouldn’t they be better off without him as a whole? Without him there to impose his rules, his black-and-white mentality that has done so much damage? He has tried so hard, these past few weeks, to adjust his worldview, to make room for change, but how much does it really matter when he has already broken so much?

Not that he has much of a choice right now. He can’t get up.

So he lies there. Minutes blend into hours blend into seconds, and he has no idea how much time passes. Surely it is afternoon by now. He hopes everyone found something to eat.

His skin itches.

He’ll be fine, eventually. He is well aware of this, well aware that grey days pass, like melting snow revealing blooming spring flowers. Except, not like that, not exactly, because these days, the melting snow seems to reveal nothing but cold, hard ground, frozen through. But it is easier to walk on ground than through snow, easier to smile and laugh and pretend that everything is alright, to tell yourself that everything is alright, when you don’t have to fight just to walk, to keep your balance.

It’s repression. He is well aware of that, well aware of the consequences, of the toll this takes on him. He does listen when he is told about these things, even if it might take longer for the message to sink in, for the rest of him to catch up to what his brain already knows. But he can’t deal with his own problems right now, not until everyone else is alright again, and really, most of the time he thinks he’s got a lot of nerve to have problems at all. He’s the one who hurt them, so what right does he have to be acting this way, like he’s the one with a broken heart?

The grey thickens. Tears blur his vision. He feels like he’s inhaling thick fog, like every breath comes in hard and labored.

He could stop breathing, if he wanted. He’s not human. He doesn’t need to breathe to exist.

It’s tempting. Tempting to just… stop. To discorporate his human form, to spend a few days as an automatic function, to spend a few days without remembering, without worrying, without the guilt that is a constant weight on his shoulders. But it would be a reprieve he’s done nothing to deserve.

His skin itches.

He doesn’t expect the knock at the door. Under any other circumstance, he might jerk in surprise, but his body is held fast as if by molasses. So he lies there, looking at the door through half-lidded eyes, and wonders if he’s supposed to answer. He doesn’t think he can, doesn’t think his mouth will cooperate long enough to form words, and his tongue lies thick and unwieldy behind his teeth. If he doesn’t say anything, will they leave? Assume he’s sleeping, perhaps? Or will they come in and see him like this, miserable and drowning and unable to do something so simple as sit up in bed?

He doesn’t know which option he likes less.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the door cracks open, bright light spilling in from the hallway, and he has to squint at the figure silhouetted there.

“Patton?” someone asks. Janus’ voice.

He doesn’t reply. Can’t. Maybe if he says nothing, he’ll leave it be. He’s not up for a debate, or for wading his way through another moral quandary. Janus seems to like both of those things, and lately, Patton has been more than happy to engage with him, to draw out sharp words and sharper smiles and occasionally, genuine laughs that do something to his stomach. Janus has been the only one willing to spend any time with him at all, these days, and he cherishes those moments, gathering them up like fallen leaves and clutching them to his chest as a reminder that he still has a purpose, that he can still make this right.

But not today. He can’t do this today.

Janus steps into the room, closing the door behind him, and the vague hope he’d mustered deflates, like a sad, punctured balloon. That’s what he feels like right now. A sad, punctured balloon. A sad, itchy, punctured balloon. And Janus is going to see that he feels like a sad, itchy, punctured balloon, and he doesn’t know why, but the idea sends an ache radiating through his chest.

“I could sense you lying to yourself,” Janus says, but his voice is far softer than his words would imply. “Are you alright?”

He blinks, slowly. He supposes that it’s fairly obvious how he feels, fairly obvious that he’s not alright. And even if it weren’t, Janus sniffs out lies like a bloodhound on a trail.

“Feel not great,” he manages. It takes a monumental effort to force the words through his lips, and they hang heavily in the air, thick and distorted. “Sorry.”

Janus crosses the room and kneels on the floor next to the bed, holding steady eye contact. His eyes are mesmerizing, one brown and one gold, both staring with an intensity that Patton wishes he could find it in himself to return. His expression is cool and blank, but a small divot presses between his eyebrows, and if Patton had the willpower, he might try to smooth it away.

He doesn’t, though, so it’s a moot point.

“You don’t need to apologize for the way you feel,” Janus says. “It’s alright to be sad.”

He understands that. He does. They did a whole video about it, once, back when things were so much simpler, the stakes so much lower. Back when he still felt secure in his ability to guide Thomas well, to help him be the good person that he knows he is.

But how can he explain that he doesn’t feel sad? That he feels nothing but grey and empty, disconnected from himself and his body and his emotions, left with nothing but constant ruminations on the past and all the ways he’s messed up. Even his guilt feels distant, like it’s surrounding him but unable to touch, kept at bay by the grey cloud swarming his thoughts and dulling his vision. He wishes he felt sad, wishes he felt guilt, that steady companion, wishes he could feel anything at all. But he is an empty container, filled by nothing but swirling grey smoke, no substance there at all.

And he can’t get up.

Janus lets out a slow breath, brow furrowing even further when he doesn’t respond. He reaches forward and takes his hand where it is lying on the mattress, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles in a soothing, repetitive pattern. It would feel nicer if he took off his gloves, if he allowed skin to skin contact, but Patton won’t push for that, wouldn’t even if he had the strength to make the words leave his mouth.

He’s not sure what he did to deserve any comfort at all. Especially not from Janus, who perhaps has the most right out of anybody to hate him, after all the years he spent pushing him to the side and calling him evil, who he still hasn’t properly apologized to, not really.

Perhaps he’s here to see if he can get him out of bed. Breakfast has long since passed, but perhaps there’s still time for a late lunch, if he could muster up the motivation to prepare it. And Janus does represent Thomas’ self-preservation, so it would make sense for him to want to make sure that all of the sides are doing their jobs.

But for a long time, Janus says nothing at all. Just holds his hand, lightly traces patterns into his skin.

“Is there anything that I could do to help?” he asks eventually, voice low and earnest. It is almost enough to banish the grey, if only for a moment, because it has been so long since any of the others trusted him enough for this question, trusted him enough to help him or to ask him for help, and he wants to say yes, wants to ask him to spend time with him, to watch a movie, maybe, or cat videos on the internet, because nobody’s done that with him in weeks, and he’s so, so lonely.

But then he remembers why he’s lonely, why they’re avoiding him, and the grey filters back in. Because it’s his fault, and if he cannot face the consequences of his actions, then what good is he as Morality?

So he makes a noise, one that comes out halfway between a grunt and a whine, and hopes that’s good enough to appease Janus’ question, to make him feel that he’s done his duty.

Janus frowns at him, and his hand stills. Patton expects him to pull away, but instead, his grip tightens slightly, and he tugs Patton’s hand toward him, inspecting it. Patton watches, vaguely confused, as his frown deepens, and he pushes back the sleeve of his pajama shirt to look at his forearm.

“Patton,” he starts slowly, “are you aware of…” He trails off, gesturing, and Patton stares at him, trying to read his meaning in the lines of his face. It’s something he’s concerned about, clearly, which makes Patton think he should be concerned too; maybe even alarmed, seeing as the point of contention seems to have something to do with his arm. He can’t work up anything more than a mild curiosity, but that is enough to get him to angle his head to look at what Janus is referring to.

At first, he doesn’t notice anything wrong. He feels an odd dissociation from the entire limb, as if what he’s seeing isn’t attached to his body, much less something that should concern him. And the more he stares, the more unreal it appears. But eventually, his gaze drifts to what Janus likely believes to be the issue: his skin is covered in mottled patches of green, each blemish appearing stretched and dry and flaky. They itch, too, itch just like his entire body has been itching, and if these blotches are the cause, his entire body must be covered in them. As if in response to his consideration, the itching, scratching sensation increases, almost enough to motivate him into movement.

His body is so heavy, though, and his mind so sluggish. This seems like something he should care about, something that should scare him, and the fear is there, he thinks. But it’s lurking beyond the grey fog, and it can’t touch him.

“What is it?” he murmurs, or at least tries. It comes out sounding more like, “Whazzit?” but it’s intelligible, at least.

Janus runs a finger down his arm, a feather-light touch that sends shivers down his spine.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks.

Patton stares. What is he supposed to say to that? He doesn’t much care to know about anything right now; all he wants in this moment is to bury himself in the covers until this horrible emptiness goes away.

Maybe it will be gone by dinner. Maybe he could make dinner. Make dinner for people who aren’t going to eat it. Stick it in tupperware in the fridge and let it go bad because nobody but him is eating it.

“Itches,” he says, his eyes slipping closed. “Don’t feel good.”

As he says it, the grey slides away a bit, as if it were waiting for such an admission, and the overwhelming influx of sensation catches him off guard. It’s more than just an itchiness; it’s a tightness, too, like his skin is a bit too small for him, and he is struck by a need to squirm and scratch. Something is wrong, he realizes, and the fear that is creeping into the corners of his mind is worse than the grey emptiness, because even though his brain has begun to process the world again, his limbs still feel too heavy to move, his chest too constricted to bring in enough air.

He whimpers. Janus sucks in a breath, and he opens his eyes again to see that he’s changed position, has shifted to sitting on the edge of the bed rather than kneeling on the floor, and is leaning over him, arms hovering above his body but not touching.

“I’m going to help you sit up,” Janus says, “unless you have any objections.”

Patton does not, in fact, have any objections. The grey is receding far faster than it came on, leaving him at the mercy of all the fear and sadness and guilt that he’s been contemplating, and with each passing second, his panic grows, because his body is not cooperating with him in the slightest and something is wrong.

Janus gently pulls him upright, and he slumps forward, all of his weight crashing onto Janus’ chest. Janus appears to take this in stride, wrapping his arms around him in a hug that Patton would very much enjoy if he could return it, but his arms refuse to listen to him, hanging by his sides like limp, bloated noodles.

“You don’t currently feel like you have an outlet for your emotional distress,” Janus says starkly, bluntly. “You’ve been repressing it in an effort to focus on fixing your relationships with the others, but the fact that that is going nowhere only worsens your state of mind.” He pauses. “The last time you experienced an instance of severe emotional distress, you turned into a giant frog. It is… possible that after that display, Thomas now associates you with… amphibian-like traits, shall we say, to a degree, just as he associates me with snakes.”

His breath catches, and the memory comes flooding back in full force. The terror, the awful sensation as his body transformed, as his mind worked at a fever-pitch, desperate and confused until he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, until he resorted to such terrible tactics to try to work everything out, until he lashed out in anger and pain and hurt Thomas--

He can’t hurt Thomas. He can’t. He can’t do this again. He won’t let himself do this again.

The itching increases, like millions of tiny needles being jammed into his skin over and over again. He needs to calm down, he knows, because if he’s going to stop this he has to be calm, but the grey has abandoned him to his emotional turmoil, and he tries desperately to press it all down, because he knows that repression is bad but it has to be better than this, better than turning into a monster again--

“I think some healthy, open-ended discussion would do you some good,” Janus continues. “So, not that I care at all, but if you wanted, we could-- Patton? Patton, you need to calm down.”

He’s trying. He’s trying, but he can’t, and it’s too late, because he can already feel it happening, can feel his body begin to twist and warp and change no matter how hard he tries to stop it, no matter how hard he tries to ground himself, to keep himself human. And Janus is saying something, something loud and urgent, but his voice rings and echoes and Patton can’t understand a word of it.

So he closes his eyes and stops fighting it. There is a single, gut-wrenching lurch, and his hands hit the bedspread as he fumbles for balance, and then everything is silent. He should open his eyes, should face the music, but he doesn’t want to see Janus’ expression, whether it be anger or fear or disgust or scorn. And he doesn’t want to see the mess he’s surely made of his room, the destruction, like last time, doesn’t want to open his eyes and find that he’s looming over everything else, that he’s cracked his ceiling and crushed his bed.

“Oh,” Janus says. His voice is still oddly echoey, and Patton can’t interpret his tone at all. “Oh. Well. Ah, I totally expected this. Definitely. Um. Oh, gosh.”

Is he flustered? Surely, that can’t be right. He’s pretty sure that Janus doesn’t do flustered. But he has to know, now, has to look, so he opens his eyes.

He expects to be looking down. Instead, he finds himself looking up. It is Janus that towers over him, rather than the other way around, Janus that towers over him with unmitigated shock written on his face. Patton blinks, just to be sure that he isn’t seeing things, and as he does, his brain helpfully provides him with a million other things that are wrong with this picture; the ceiling, for instance, is miles above him, and his bed is as vast as an ocean.

He tries to speak, tries to ask what’s going on, but all that emerges from his mouth is a shrill squeak. He attempts to stand, then, or at least sit up, but every effort sends him sprawling on all fours, his limbs clunky and uncoordinated and unfamiliar. His panic mounts as he finds himself unable to do much of anything at all, and he flails, trying to attain some amount of control.

“Oh gosh, okay,” Janus says, and leans down. “I know this is scary, but you’re fine, I swear. Actually, honestly swear. You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

Everything clicks then, and Patton goes still, staring at his own limb stretched out in front of him, long and thin and green and four-toed. He’s a frog, he realizes. A tiny frog. His whole body feels so odd, so different, out of place and completely foreign, and it’s because he’s a frog. Not a weird, giant, humanoid frog monster, but an actual frog.

He focuses back on Janus and squeaks again. For some reason, Janus’ right cheek reddens.

“Fuck,” he mutters, glancing away, and Patton would chide his use of language, but he’s pretty sure by now that he can’t talk. “Okay, um, you’re not cute at all, so don’t even ask. But this is definitely not normal, and it will definitely last for a very long time. Accidental transformations always do.” He frowns, tilting his head slightly before shaking it. “You know what I mean. Which is to say that I myself am occasionally a snake, so I know what I’m talking about.”

He blinks. He didn’t know that Janus could actually transform into a snake, though now that he reflects on it, he supposes that there’s no reason why not. It makes him wonder just how much more he doesn’t know about him. How much he never bothered to learn.

Okay, so. He’s a frog now. A small, squeaky frog. So, this is a lot better than he thought it would be. And Janus is implying that this will wear off eventually, so he can just… stay here, right? Stay in bed, not bother anybody else with this? Wait until he changes back? Bit by bit, the fear drains out of him, leaving him exhausted. And with the fear gone, the adrenaline dissipating, the grey creeps back in. Not as bad as it was before. But enough so that remaining in bed for at least the next few hours sounds very, very appealing.

He looks up at Janus, his eyelids drooping, and tries to convey that he can leave now, that he’ll be fine with just… sitting here for a bit, on his covers, until everything goes back to normal. However long that takes. However that’s supposed to happen. He should probably be more worried about how to reverse this, but now that the terror of the moment is over, he finds himself willing enough to allow things to happen as they happen. He’s not sure he could marshal the energy to force himself to change back even if he knew exactly how.

“Wait here a moment,” Janus says suddenly. “I’ll be right back.” He stands and sinks out directly, and Patton watches him go, vague disappointment filtering though his mind. Sure, he didn’t want Janus to think that he is obligated to stay with him, to deal with the mess that he is, but some part of him had hoped that he would stick around anyway. The grey seems to lift, a little bit, with someone else by his side, seems to shy away from the warm presence of another person’s voice.

Minutes pass. Or perhaps it’s hours. He has long since given up keeping track of time, and in the middle of a bed that is far, far too large, in a body that is entirely familiar to him, Patton feels himself begin to drift.

But then, Janus comes back, rising up in the middle of his room, a laptop tucked under his arm, several blankets thrown over it. Patton rouses himself with some effort, staring as Janus approaches, gently placing the laptop and blankets on the bed.

“I thought we could watch a movie, if that’s alright,” Janus says, and pulls a DVD case apparently out of nowhere, holding it up for inspection. It’s The Aristocats, the title written in swirling golden letters, and Patton can’t help but let out a croak in surprise. Janus shrugs, glancing away.

“I figured you would like this one,” he says. “I mean. Disney and cats. So.”

The right side of his face once again flushes a bright, cherry red, and even like this, even in this fugue-like state, Patton is absolutely touched. Not only that Janus cares enough to remember what he likes, but also that he wants to spend time with him? That he would drop any other plan he might have had to watch a movie with him, presumably to help him feel better?

He didn’t know that frogs could cry. But tears well up in his eyes, and he blinks them away.

“Just an idea,” Janus says, his eyes going wide. “We don’t have to. We could pick another movie! It would be such a problem to pick something else!”

No!

Patton wants to scream, wants to shout, because he’s misinterpreting his tears, because in this moment, Patton barely has the strength to want anything at all, and yet there is nothing more that he wants than to watch this movie with Janus. But he can’t speak, can’t make his vocal cords produce anything more than squeaks and croaks, so he pushes past the grey to do the only thing he can think might work.

These limbs are unfamiliar to him. But he knows a few things about frogs, knows how far they can jump. So jump he does, surprising himself with the power in his own back legs, and launches himself at Janus, who flinches, stumbling back, but too late to prevent Patton from sticking his landing, right on his cheek.

“Oh,” he says, stammering. Patton is certain that he has heard Janus stutter more today than in all the years he’s known him. “Um. What?”

Patton takes a moment to breathe, and to comprehend the fact that his feet are literally sticking to Janus’ skin. He adjusts himself, settles in more firmly, and then lets out a loud, intentional croak.

It’s all he can do. He just has to hope that Janus understands, understands that he doesn’t want him to leave, that he doesn’t want him to change a single thing.

“Oh,” Janus says again. He takes great care not to move his mouth much, takes great care not to dislodge Patton, and it would be enough to coax a smile out of him, if frogs could smile. “Are you… is this alright, then?”

He croaks again, and the muscles in Janus’ cheek twitch as he resists a smile.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get it set up, then, shall I?”

And he does, popping the movie into the laptop’s disc tray and wrapping himself in soft blankets as he settles against the headboard. He arranges the blanket in an odd way, creating a series of folds on his shoulder, and it is not until he gestures at it that Patton realizes that it is meant for him, that Janus purposefully made a place for him to sit. He jumps down, almost falling before he steadies himself, barely preventing his limbs from tangling with each other, and snuggles into the soft fabric, reveling in the way it brushes against his skin.

The grey is still present, still pervasive, filling him with an emptiness, with a void. But the void itself has filled a bit, filled with warmth, with the knowledge that Janus is doing this for him, even if he doesn’t quite understand why.

The movie begins to play. He turns his attention to the screen, and even though his mind wanders, slips away at some points, he does feel a little bit better, a little more present, a little less like he wants to stagnate in his room forever.

Janus is quiet throughout the first stretch of the movie, though Patton can sense him shooting him glances every now and again. But as Duchess meets O’Malley for the first time, he speaks up, face forward, eyes fixed on the screen.

“The first time I transformed was confusing,” he murmurs, as if to himself, though surely, he hasn’t forgotten that Patton is there, that Patton can hear him. “Thomas was so young, and I didn’t know what was happening. The scales had been appearing for a while, but I never thought that I could change so completely. It was a moment of emotion, frustration at not being heard, when Thomas got in trouble that a white lie easily could have prevented. One minute I was having a meltdown in my room, and the next I was a snake.” He chuckles a bit, as though the memory is fond, though it doesn’t sound that way.

How much distress was he in, Patton wonders? How confused was he, how scared, his body warping and changing and no one at all there to help him?

“This is all to say that I’ve since learned to control it. I’d demonstrate, but I hardly think that turning into a snake while you are a very small frog would put your mind at ease.” Janus sighs, fiddling with the bottom of his capelet. “But you can learn to control it, too, provided that these traits stick.”

Patton wishes he could say something, anything at all. But his voice is gone, twisted so that small sounds are the only thing he can produce, so he stays quiet, listening to Janus talk. In a way, it’s a blessing, the inability to respond. None of the impetus of the conversation is put on him, so he feels no pressure to muster up replies that would surely be lackluster, given his emotional state, or lack thereof.

“But that’s not really the point right now, is it?” Janus says softly. “The more pressing concern is why you transformed this time. You must have been on the verge of it for hours, subconsciously holding yourself back from it.”

He shifts. He’d woken up itchy and uncomfortable, his mind buried in the grey and unable to do anything about it, unable to move at all, much less rouse himself into action. He hopes that this won’t happen every time he has a grey day. He can’t afford to lose time like this. There’s too much to do, and though grey days are bad enough on their own, he can force himself to work through them, sometimes, when the haze isn’t too strong. He can’t do that if he’s always turning into a frog when he gets overwhelmed.

“I do hope you know that your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s,” Janus says, and Patton stiffens. “To be sure, you messed up, and the others have every right to be upset, but I challenge you to find any one of us that hasn’t accidentally screwed everyone else over at some point.” He pauses. “Or even on purpose. Which you are assuredly not guilty of.”

The words buzz in his head, vibrating in the fog, and Patton’s not entirely sure that he understands what Janus is saying, not entirely sure that he has the energy to try. What do intentions matter? Messing up is messing up, and even if he didn’t mean to, he’s hurt everyone in the mindscape. If it wasn’t anything to be upset about, he wouldn’t be upset, would he?

“And of course, it’s not like they’re to blame for this at all,” Janus continues. “It’s not like they’re being immature, hiding away in their rooms and refusing to confront their problems.” He shakes his head. “Patton, you have to understand that it is not your job to ensure their emotional competence. All you can do is try your best, and if they refuse to meet you halfway, that’s on them, not you. You shouldn’t blame yourself when you’re obviously doing everything you can to own up to and fix your mistakes.”

Patton croaks, the denial ripped from his throat. He’s never seen it that way, didn’t think that he could see it that way, but Janus’ voice is streaking the grey through with yellow and gold, forcing him to confront the root of the problem in a way that he never has before.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person,” Janus says. “You’ve learned that by now, learned that Thomas himself is nowhere near flawless. But that applies to you as well. You’re allowed to make mistakes, to learn and grow from them. No one should expect you to be right one hundred percent of the time, and that includes both yourself and them.”

Once again, his eyes well up with tears, and this time, they drip down, splattering onto the blankets.

He falls silent, then, the movie still playing but long since forgotten, and Patton has to take a moment to absorb what has just been said.

He’s not too hard on himself. He can’t be. Everything he’s said and thought these past few weeks has been true, completely and utterly; it was his mistakes that drove the others away from him, and it is his responsibility to correct those mistakes. And if the others don’t want to see him, don’t want to talk to him, then that’s fine. It’s their right, and he doesn’t blame them at all, can’t possibly blame them when most of him believes that they’re right to do so, right to avoid him, because after everything, he can’t possibly deserve--

Oh.

But Janus says he does deserve it. That he deserves help, that he deserves support. Who, then, is right?

“Think about it this way,” Janus says, as if sensing his struggle. “If your positions were reversed, if, say, Virgil had messed up and everyone was avoiding him, would you think that’s what he deserved?”

Well, of course not. Everyone deserves love and support, even when they make mistakes, because--

Oh.

The realization comes crashing down with the force of the loudest thunderclap, and something deep within him twists, wrenches at his heart and at his stomach, and all the breath is knocked out of him as he suddenly finds himself falling forward, landing hard on Janus’ lap, arms and legs achy and all too human. Janus yanks his arms out from under the blankets to catch him, his lips parted in surprise.

“But I hurt them,” Patton says, the words ripped from him as if by force, desperate, like the world might just crumble into pieces if he doesn’t get an answer. “I hurt all of them, so much.”

“And their hurt is valid,” Janus says. “Each one of them is entitled to their anger and their pain. But Patton, so are you.”

He bursts into tears at that, the dam breaking at last, and he lurches forward, flinging his arms around Janus’ neck and burying his face into his shoulder where the blankets have slipped away. Janus makes a startled noise, and then brings his arms up to embrace him, holding him tight and close as he runs the gamut of all the emotions he has been pushing back.

“You’re loved,” Janus says. “They all love you, even though it may seem otherwise right now. They love you, and they’ll be ready to show it again, in time.” He pauses, and his next sentence carries a strange weight, a slightly different tone, a reticence and a rushed eagerness all at once. “And I love you, Patton. Please don’t forget that.”

He sniffles. “Even though I’m getting snot all over you?” he asks into his shirt, and Janus laughs, startled.

“Even so,” he answers. “It’s snot an issue.”

Patton gasps, thrilled despite himself. He still can’t bring himself to display the reaction he would normally have, but he manages a weak smile. “Pun,” he says, voice still muffled by fabric.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janus says. “I would never in my life crack a pun. Lies and slander.”

Patton pulls back a bit, enough to see his face, and is shocked to find that he is crying too, though he looks much more dignified than Patton is certain he does. For a moment, his heart fills with an overflowing, overpowering love, and before he can think better of it, he leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Janus’ breath hitches, but Patton doesn’t back down, staring him straight in the eyes.

“I love you too,” he says, and in the moment, doesn’t know exactly how he means it. Just that it’s true, and right now, that is enough. “Thank you.”

He pours all of the sincerity, all of the emotion that he is capable of right now into the words. He needs Janus to understand how much it means that he is here, with him, willing to help him and to hold him.

Janus stares at him with something like affection and something like awe.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “Not for this. Never for this.”

And Patton sighs, shifting position until he is leaning against Janus’ chest, tucking his head under his chin and turning his head so that he can see the movie. It’s almost over by now, Edgar receiving his just desserts.

“I still don’t feel great,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t. Better, now that he’s let his emotions out, now that he is human, now that he has someone with him, holding him, caring about him, loving him, but the grey still hovers around him, still lands heavily on his chest and in his head. If human contact were enough to solve it all completely, that would be a wonderful thing, but the greyness isn’t so simple, isn’t so easily banished. He doubts he’ll be able to gather the energy to make dinner tonight. He may not even feel better by tomorrow morning.

But Janus is with him, supporting without judgement, and that makes all the difference.

“That’s alright,” Janus says, kissing the top of his head. “You don’t need to be. Would you like to watch another movie? And by that I mean actually watch, not leave it on in the background as we discuss deep, abiding emotional issues.”

He manages a shaky laugh at that. “I’d like that,” he whispers. His voice emerges hoarse and thick, and it takes too much effort to get the words out. “Could we do Tangled?”

“A terrible choice,” Janus says, and summons the DVD with a wave of his hand, reaching around Patton to place the disc in the laptop. The title screen begins to play, and he adjusts the blankets so that they are both fully covered, and Patton curls into his side as the narration starts.

He still feels bad, and he knows he has so much more to work through. But the deep, aching loneliness has abated somewhat, and he knows that the greyness will fade away too, eventually. Until then, he has Janus here, with him, wrapped up in soft blankets, a comfort movie playing for both of them, and confessions dancing in the air between them, spoken but not quite elaborated on, not yet. And that’s alright, because there’s time, because the sun always shines brightest after the rain has passed.

He sighs, snuggles in closer, and allows himself to simply be.

Writing Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer

#sanders sides #ts sides #moceit #patton sanders #janus sanders #ts patton #ts janus #my fic #long post #patton: *ribbits*#janus: oh no you're adorable

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rayraywrites · 5 years ago

Text

Title: Just keep breathin’

Characters: Miyuki Kazuya, Sawamura Eijun

Relationship: Miyuki Kazuya & Sawamura Eijun | Miyuki Kazuya x Sawamura Eijun

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Total Word Count: 2539

AO3

Summary: Feel my blood runnin', swear the sky's fallin' I keep on breathin'

breathin' by Ariana Grande

His chest shuddered, a painful tug on his lungs as he struggled to bring in air. Hands scrambled against the wall, with his nails digging into the tiles in order to give him a point of anchor as he pressed back further. A stray sob made its way up his throat, catching at the base of his neck and leaving a painful lump. He tried to clear his throat, shifting the noise away and letting the life-giving oxygen in, but no matter what he tried, he failed.

“Did you hear about Miyuki?” The voices whispered to each other loudly.

The gasps came out louder and more scratchy as his vision blurred; stars danced in front of his eyes. His head felt heavy, but if it had been clear he would have surely chuckled. Having lived in Tokyo for his whole life, this was the most star-lit sky he’d ever seen. And his eyes were closed.

“Heard he won’t be playing any matches any time soon! Wonder what that does to a team?” It had been after class, two girls whispering to each other in the hallways. Uncaring as to who could hear them.

His legs came up against his chest, one hand and then the other shakily reaching around his knees and twining together tightly. He pushed his head into his legs, trying to use the smaller space to force air into his nose and mouth. For a few minutes the stall was silent aside from the forceful gasping. It worked, albeit slowly and not as effectively as he would have liked. But he could feel himself beginning to breathe cleanly. There were still shallow gasps escaping his mouth, nevertheless he began to relish the inhalations that were followed by shuddering exhales. When he finally reduced his breathing to a functioning but still laboured status, he pulled his head out of the proverbial box it had been shoved in.

Broken. Damaged. TIme away from the team. Healing. Replace the captain, catcher, and clean-up. Screw-up.

Eyes watered from the influx of light, but that was quickly blocked again as he slammed them close. For a moment he considered the thought of standing up, leaving the bathroom and heading to the privacy and confines of his room. He even tried to force himself up, pushing against the wall until he was half crouched on shaky legs. But his knees buckled under his unstable stance, fatigue draining him of all energy.

His mind might have felt like he was wading through gravy, a slow trudge to make any thought formulate, but even then he could tell that he was about to slam down onto the ground, knees first. But no pain came, no jarring slam to his legs which would leave the rest of his body to rattle like a shock absorber. Instead hands suddenly appeared under his arms and hoisted him up. They were familiar, a combination of rough, well-worn skin and a heat that seeped into his aching muscles. His eyes flashed up, locking with angry golden ones.

For a moment there was a stalemate between them. One was essentially crippled by his love of baseball until it left him injured beyond compare. The other feeling a righteous anger at being forgotten, but also a blend of guilt and concern surging through him that kept him mum on his grievances.

They continued to stare at each other until he couldn’t help the grunt of pain that leaked from his throat. The support to his body, while welcome, was pulling on his sides. And the ribs that he’d ignored for the sweet bliss of air entering his body now began to cry out their sorrow and hurt. He gasped again, involuntarily ripping himself away from the other’s grasp to crash back against the wall. The sudden movement was apparently unexpected as he moved quickly away and the cold feel of tile chilled his heated body. A soft moan escaped his lips at the juxtaposed temperatures. His head lolled forward as he took another shaky breath. Sawamura’s grunt of surprise reminded him that he wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

He whipped his head up, ignoring the vicious crunch that came as his head slammed into the wall from his speed. As he made eye contact with Sawamura again, he felt himself flinch at the emotions flashing across the other’s face. Anger. Sadness. Desperation. More that he couldn’t give a name to, but it still left him with a heart-wrenching pain in his chest. Moreso than any lack of air, the punch to his gut he felt as he watched Sawamura try and wrestle his negative emotions back under a semblance of control was enough for Kazuya to break. Harsh sobs ratcheted through his chest as he grappled for a way to get out of the room. His hands, usually on his side in all other situations of his life, failed him as he tried to push himself up off the floor once more.

He could feel his heart trying to beat itself out of his chest, so he raised one hand to his chest to try and assuage some of the pain. But as he approached his side, he felt an unexpected urge to grasp at his injury. This time his fingers cooperated, as they easily danced their way towards his bandaged ribs. With no patience or gentleness considering the severity of the injury, he rubbed the wound. The blossoming of pain made him grit his teeth hard, but the saccharine voice inside him felt satisfied.

Maybe if you can handle this pain, they’ll let you back onto the field. Maybe you’re not as broken as you think?

But what he hadn’t accounted for, so lost in the haze of his own pain and panic, was Sawamura. Sawamura who had yet to leave, who had toppled back when he’d ripped himself away, but had not left. Sawamura who had remained frozen as he’d began his self-inflicted punishment of failure. Sawamura who had learnt how to deal with his anxieties over years of support from friends and family. Sawamura who knew getting through to Miyuki would be difficult but would try anyways.

Sawamura who was fighting back tears as he watched someone he cared for, admired, respected, and more, break down like this.

Kazuya, barely staying conscious in his cloud of pain-induced endorphin release, blinked wearily as his ears picked up a constant stream of words coming towards him. They were soft, but firm in their conviction.

“Miyuki I want you to pay attention to my voice, to follow my breathing. Don’t worry, we’ll do this together, and I won't leave your side for a moment. I just need you to focus on my voice, because it is so important we get through this together now.”

As he struggled to open his eyes again, he found himself flinching at the sudden onslaught of stimuli. From the brightness of the lights, to the scratchiness of the skin around his injury. But the voice was soothing, enough to pull his attention to the one point. With a shaky breath, he felt the heaviness of his chest lighten just a bit as he followed Sawamura’s breathing pattern. Watching as that pulled a small smile to the other’s lips was even more validating. The stream of consciousness that seemingly never ended continued to spill from Sawamura’s lips.

“Good Miyuki. That’s really good. Just keep breathing with me. In. hold. Out. Again.”

Sawamura’s hand appeared in his vision. For a moment he tensed up again, chest freezing in it’s slow return to normalcy. But all it did was come to rest on his shoulder. Seemingly ignoring the fingers that continued their assault upon his side. Instead the hand only placed a steadying pressure onto his shoulder. Unbidden, tears built up in the corner of his eyes. The hand only squeezed his shoulder tighter, while another came up to brush the tears gently away.

“You’re doing fine senpai. Just keep breathing. Focus on my voice.” Sawamura’s voice remained steady, the volume only a fraction of its usual vibrancy.

The hand on his face came up to his hair, the fingers running through the sweat-soaked strands as another soothing balm. Slowly but surely, his breathing was starting to come back to normal once more. The fog in his head began to clear, but he still felt exhausted. The weary sigh that escaped his lips was coupled with a collapse of his shoulders as he succumbed to the tiredness inside. As his head lolled forward, Sawamura came closer, becoming a physical support. As his head pressed up against Sawamura’s chest, his fingers lost their vigour and he felt them slip away. The pain spiked from the momentary loss, wires twisted in his head as his brain struggled to deal with the loss of pain receptor activation. But as all humans are wont to do, his brain compensated quickly. The pain began to fade away slowly, until it was only a pulsating thought in the back of his mind. Sawamura was quick to act, arms rushing to wrap around his chest until he was propped up against the pitcher’s chest comfortably.

“Senpai, I’m going to let you go for just one moment.”

He flinched.

“I’m not going anywhere. I just want to grab you a shirt. You might not feel it right now, but your skin is ice cold Miyuki.” Sawamura’s voice became jumpy as he spoke, as if his conviction was beginning to fade in the face of Kazuya’s fear.

With some careful maneuvering, he managed to push himself off Sawamura, leaning back against the tiled wall. Sawamura stood up, his motions more exaggerated than normal. Somewhere in his hazy mind he realized that it was for his own benefit. The pitcher was efficient, and returned within moments with a familiar shirt. A white tee with red sleeves. It had a worn look to it, unsurprising as Kazuya had owned it for a few years by that point. But interestingly, and he only registered this subconsciously, the shirt had been missing for a few weeks, while Sawamura had seemingly gained a red tinge to his face whenever it had been brought up.

With a struggle he attempted to raise his arms enough to slip the shirt on himself. But finding that he had no energy in his arms he let them collapse again. He felt the bone-tired exhaustion seeping through his entire body even as he struggled to work, to function. It felt as if every nerve ending was on fire with all synapses active, response signals sent out, but no effectors responded. His arms just shook lightly on the ground. Staring at his unmoving fingers, and then towards Sawamura’s concerned looks, it took all that he had not to lash out. Not that he had the energy to even speak.

However, there was no pity in Sawamura’s eyes or his actions. Instead, it was filled with efficiency. He managed to pull the shirt over Kazuya’s head with little to no hesitation, slowing down only when he raised the right arm. In a way it felt better that there was a brusqueness to Sawamura’s actions rather than any sympathy.

Once the shirt was on, he could feel how chilled his skin was. With the shirt on he felt a bit of normalcy bleeding back into him. His side was still burning, but the pain had mostly returned to the throbbing it had been since the injury. His breathing was nearly stable, though his chest continued to heave from the previous exertion.

“Senpai, do you think that maybe we can stand up and go towards your room?” Sawamura’s voice had returned to the gentle tone it had started with, the firmness gone and replaced with a slow cadence designed to soothe and calm.

Kazuya’s nerves were shot, and he barely had any energy to respond, but he managed a weak nod before Sawamura simply came closer and pulled him up. Again there was a care not to pull on his right side as he was picked up. Some stumbling and Sawamura bearing much of his weight, but they managed to make their way to his room without too many hiccups. He hadn’t really let himself acknowledge how much help Sawamura had been.

At the pause outside his room he leaned his head on Sawamura shoulder for a moment, ignoring the twinge of pain at pulling on his side. A whispered word of "thanks Sawamura" put a smile back onto Sawamura's face, even as his behaviour remained the calm surety it had been the entire evening. The pair danced their way towards the bed, so intertwined were their bodies, before Sawamura helped him lay down. A hand settled into Kazuya's hair once more, gently rearranging the messy strands back to normalcy. The extra weight on his head was a comforting pressure, and he couldn't help the sigh of pleasure that escaped as Sawamura continued his ministrations. Another hand came to remove his glasses, and for a moment he felt lost again, but they returned quickly back to his face, the tears and sweat wiped away.

As Sawamura made to stand up, seemingly to leave and let him decompress from the attack, he found himself feeling lonely. Kazuya, the boy who had not relied on anyone for so long, found himself wishing that maybe Sawamura wouldn't leave. His hand caught onto the fabric of the pitcher's sweats. It was enough to get his attention, to stop his departure.

"Stay." Kazuya's voice was barely above the whisper it had been before, but the note of desperation that lined the monosyllabic word relayed more than the volume of his speech could have. He could no longer see Sawamura's face, instead looking at his back. He watched as the muscles of his shoulders tensed, before forcibly relaxing, and then finally slumping as the other came to a decision. He wanted to jump out of his bed and offer to catch for Sawamura. He wanted to have the energy to simply sit up and wrap his arms around Sawamura. He wanted to tell Sawamura how disastrous his day had been, how hearing those girls had sent him spiralling the entire day but he'd held it together until then, how he feared that even after he healed that the coach would be hesitant to let him go all out. He wanted to shout about how scared he was when he had gotten injured, how the thought that maybe that was the last time he'd play baseball crossed his mind.

He wanted to tell Sawamura Eijun that when he had gotten hit, the only thought that mattered was that he couldn't let his pitcher down, he couldn't let anything hurt his pitcher.

But instead all he could do was wait, and watch as Sawamura turned around, as he came back towards Kazuya and crouched near the bed again. One hand rested beside his pillow, the other beside him. Summoning more energy from somewhere deep inside he reached over and tangled their fingers together. The sad smile on Sawamura's face began to flicker as tears built up inside the pitcher's eyes, but all Kazuya could do was say it again.

"Stay."

#daiya no ace #ace of diamond #diamond no ace #miyusawa #miyuki kazuya #sawamura eijun #panic attacks #oneshot #ray ray writes

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no6secretsanta · 5 years ago

Text

Snowflakes and Starlight - pigeonsimba for celebrian

Snowflakes and Starlight

By @pigeonsimba for @aowyn

The snow floats and falls like dandelion fluff on the wind. Shion’s canine escort frisks about in the muddy snowbank just to his left, chomping occasionally at snowflakes that err too close to her eager muzzle. Although the dog looks laughable in moments like this, Inukashi assures him she’s a scrapper when it comes to confrontation. It’s been weeks since the run-in with the Disposers, so Shion isn’t sure he still needs the dog’s protection, but he’s glad to have her company on the solitary walks home from dog washing. He means to name the piebald mutt, but he hasn’t settled on the right one just yet, and he wants to make sure he gets Inukashi’s approval first.

The snow has been constant the last week. There’s so much that Shion is convinced that if you cut the snow banks open like a cake, you’d get a graduated slice, starting from black muck at the bottom, rising to grayed slush, and ending at the sugar white of fresh snow. The layers just beneath the top are fully frozen and treacherous if one doesn’t mind them well. Nezumi reminded Shion that sweet as the snow may seem the first day it comes down, it makes hell out of the ground in the days that follow. It’s especially bad when the snow compounds day after day, hiding the freezing sheets beneath clean coats. It is like walking on a pretty powdered minefield.

Shion picks his way carefully down the dark, narrow lane of the main street where the snow is less dense. This small sliver of road has not been cleared so much as stomped into submission. Though the residents of West Block do have shovels and other rudimentary means of cleaning the snow, they don’t have the luxury of time to do it, nor do they have the temperment. Inclement weather or not, the people trudged on, opening shops, hawking wares, swearing, sweating, and cursing until the dark brought them indoors again. To claim that one can’t perform their regular duties due to dangerous conditions is ludicrous; conditions are chronically dangerous in West Block.

So Shion sets out every other day to wash dogs, and Nezumi goes to the playhouse, or wherever else he gets off to when he isn’t home. It is a way of existence that Shion could never have conceived of in his old life. In No. 6, the streets would have been paved clear within the first hours of snowfall, and icy sidewalks would be a rarity, if not an impossibility. If the meteorologists predicted a winter squall headed their way, the populace would be warned to stay inside, work and class would be canceled, and families would sit inside their warm homes, sipping hot chocolates and watching the elements wail and blur outside their windows.

Shion no longer lives in No. 6, and it’s possible he never will again, but he doesn’t regret his life in West Block. Although he hopes he might be able to see his mother and Safu again one day, he doesn’t miss the city itself. Nothing ever felt real there. West Block, however, is excruciatingly real.

When Shion returns from dog washing, he feels the result of that work in the deep ache of his muscles and the fog of fatigue clouding his brain. And when it snows, he feels the sharp burn of the wind on his cheeks, the searing cold ripping in and out of his lungs, and he appreciates the warmth of his home that much more for it. Pain and discomfort are humbling teachers, and Shion feels blessed to have the chance to learn from them.

The dog hops off the top of the snowbank and into Shion’s path. She flops her thin brown tail and rubs up against his side, nosing his gloved hand. Shion laughs and pauses to give her head a good scratch.

“Sorry, am I walking too slow for you? I know it’s cold.”

The dog chuffs and the vapor ghost of her breath dances skyward. The snow is tapering off, and the fat gray clouds move slowly across the sky to inundate other places. When Shion finishes petting the dog, he gives her flank a pat and continues on. The dog follows along for a few strides but then stops and perks her ears.

“What is it, girl?” Shion sidles a bit closer. His dog escorts rarely dither or pause, so Shion pays special attention when they do.

The dog’s ears swivel, and she turns and trots down a side street. Shion follows without hesitation. He trusts the dog would not lead him into danger, and besides, it doesn’t seem that this alley sees much traffic. Shion’s legs sink mid-calf into the untrod snow and he shivers at the chill pressing at his skin through the fabric of his pants.

The alley lets out onto another street, which lays quiet but for a gray building two doors down. Conversation buzzes from the cracked doorway and Shion can see the faint amber glow of candlelight from the upper windows. The dog stops in front of the building and plops down onto her hindquarters. She gives a light bark and wags her tail.

Shion studies the exterior and realizes that the building is not gray, but faded green, a few shades shoddier than the carpet in the underground room. The snow around the building is heavily trodden, so much that Shion can actually make out the sporadic cobblestones that make up the streets of West Block. Whatever this place is, it’s popular.

Shion glances at the dog, wondering what drew her here. Then, he hears it:

A voice rises above the hubbub and the noise ceases, snuffed like a candle. The voice flutters in song, and though Shion stands outside and the sound is muffled, goosebumps prickle his skin. The song is crisp, clean, and clear, the singer’s timbre pure as the reverberation of struck crystal. Shion closes his eyes and lets the beauty of it wash over him for a moment.

“Nezumi,” he breathes. Shion would recognize that voice anywhere.

He doesn’t recognize the song, though, and after a moment more of listening, Shion rakes his teeth over his lower lip. This must be the playhouse Nezumi works at. Shion had been strictly barred from Nezumi’s performances, and he has never had a chance to seek out the playhouse. But now that he’s here already….

Shion reaches a hand toward the cracked door and glances down at the dog, as if she could advise on whether this is a good idea. The dog stares back with her liquid brown eyes and wags the tip of her tail. Shion figures she must approve, since she led him here, and pushes the door open.

The air inside the entrance is stuffy from the bodies packed into the room beyond. Shion can see the backs of men and women through the open doorway, and the sound of Nezumi’s song floats over their heads like fairy music—Shion can’t help but gravitate toward it.

“Hey!”

Shion jolts. An elderly woman glares at him from behind a small table at the side of the room. Nothing is on the table except her gnarled hands and a dun colored lockbox.

“You got a ticket?” she rasps. The woman looks like an ancient oak tree come to life, and her voice is dry and rough as bark.

“Oh. Uh, no,” Shion says, coloring a little at the raw dislike on her face.

“Got any money, then?”

“Oh! Yes, I…” Shion roots around in his pockets for a few seconds before he remembers he hasn’t been paid yet. Inukashi always pays him at the end of the week, and it’s only mid-week now.

Shion fists his empty hands at his sides and cranes his neck in an attempt to see into the room beyond. Nezumi’s voice tapers off on a sad, sweet note, and the room erupts into claps and cheers.

“Well?” The woman holds out her hand, her fingers curled like the legs of a dead spider.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money after all.”

“Then get out!”

Shion flinches at her vitriol. He hasn’t closed the door behind him and the cold outside air whispers over the back of his neck.

“But couldn’t I just—”

“No!”

The woman pushes up from her chair with a series of worrying pops and shuffles toward him. Shion backs out the door and the old crone slams it in his face.

He sighs and leans against the wall, as close to the window as he can get. Nezumi has started another song, this one more lively than the last. The spectators inside laugh and clap along.

“Maybe this is the universe telling me I shouldn’t betray Nezumi’s trust?” he asks the dog, who hasn’t moved since she’d parked herself in front of the playhouse. The dog cocks her head at Shion’s question and he gives her a small smile. “Well. Thanks for bringing me here anyway. It’s nice to know where Nezumi works.”

Shion tilts his head back and watches pieces of the night sky peek through the clouds. It looks like they’ll have clear skies tomorrow. Shion’s chest fills with relief; snow has long lost its novelty.

He turns back to the dog. “I think I’m going to wait and walk back with Nezumi. You can go home; I don’t want to make you stay out in the cold.”

The dog’s ears perk and her eyes seem to narrow, as if she’s judging whether he can be trusted to stand against a building without being accosted. Her skepticism reminds him so much of Nezumi that he can’t help but laugh. The dog must decide he can manage well enough alone, because she stands, stretches, and gives his glove a lick before turning back the way they came.

Shion attempts to make a mini snowman while he waits for the night’s performances to end. The top layer of snow is quite powdery, but it holds together in a ball well enough to stack. He hears the gathering break up just as he’s adding the finishing touches: Black pebbles for eyes and two cigarette butts for arms. His slumped and mouthless creation looks more like a warning for the dangers of reckless living than the jolly, happy soul Shion envisioned, but he is proud of it nonetheless.

Shion steps aside as the playhouse door tears open and its occupants elbow their way out. The warm air they carry with them is thick with sweat, alcohol, and the odd whiff of grilled meat. Few pay Shion any mind, but he keeps his gaze low to the ground to avoid attracting the attention of anyone rowdy or drunk enough to begin something over eye contact.

When the last of the patrons files out and disperses into the night, Shion raises his head and peers into the playhouse. Nezumi didn’t come out with the crowd, but Shion hadn’t expected him to. He imagined Nezumi would want to avoid his fans and come out only when they were gone.

He could see into the main room of the playhouse clearly now through the doorway. It’s an open space with no seats that he can see, but the stage at the front is sizeable enough for a play. The stage has only one small spotlight, its bulb still glowing faintly from use. There are no microphones and no orchestra, nor any stage equipment.

Shion waits a few minutes, but Nezumi doesn’t appear. A few minutes more and still no Nezumi, and he decides to brave the crotchety old lady again.

“Um. Hi.” The woman spears him with an acidic leer, but he gives her a close-lipped smile and pushes on. “Has Nezumi left yet?”

“Who?”

“Nezumi? Or, ah, Eve?”

“Oh. Another Eve fanboy,” she scoffs. “No, Eve isn’t here. He left a while ago, secretly, like he always does to avoid hangers-on like you. Now get out!”

Shion pulls the door shut and twists his mouth to the side. He should have guessed Nezumi would have a back way out. If he hurries, maybe he can catch up to him on the path. Shion steps over the trampled corpse of his snowman and heads in the direction of the underground room.

Luck is on his side that night: Once Shion leaves the town behind and is on the lonely path winding its way home, he spots a familiar silhouette ahead.

“Nezumi!”

Nezumi frowns as Shion trots to his side. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m heading back from dog washing.”

“At this hour?”

“Well… I made a detour to the playhouse.” Nezumi’s grey eyes flash as they narrow, but Shion pretends he doesn’t notice and continues, “I waited for you, but you had already left. I caught up, though. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Nezumi echoes dryly and resumes walking. “Where’s your four-legged babysitter?”

“I sent her home. I couldn’t hear you well when you were performing; what songs did you sing?”

Nezumi clicks his tongue. “Some holiday garbage. That’s all the audience wants when it snows. Tis the season and all that.”

“That’s nice,” Shion says with a smile. “No. 6 doesn’t keep a good record of songs from before the Babylon Treaty, but I think there are still a few from Christmastime… The ones about snow, at least.”

No. 6 doesn’t have any holidays apart from Holy Day, and there is nothing cheery about it. No songs, no dancing, and the only decorations allowed are banners of No. 6’s emblem. All celebrations with religious significance, no matter how loosely associated, were done away with when the city-state was established. Still, Shion has a basic understanding of what the holidays had meant to the people who celebrated them more than a decade ago.

“But even though we don’t have the winter holidays anymore,” Shion muses aloud, “I think people still feel their pull… There’s something about the cold that brings people together.”

“Yeah, it’s called fear of freezing to death.”

Shion shoots Nezumi a wry look. “You know I meant in the metaphorical sense,” he sniffs. “Winter… equalizes people. Everyone is affected by the cold—no matter who you are or how you live—and it reminds us that life is precious. And that makes you remember what’s actually important.”

“And that is?” Nezumi prompts as he kicks a snow drift. Powder explodes into their path like fine fog.

“Well, like family,” Shion answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And friends.”

“And food, and shelter.”

Shion presses his lips into a line. Nezumi isn’t looking at him—hasn’t been looking at him since they started walking—but the smug amusement in his tone is enough to make his skin itch.

“Oh, but let’s not forget peace on earth, and goodwill to men,” Nezumi chirps. Shion scowls at the sharp edge of his patronizing smile. “Those are very important metaphorical things to cherish this holiday season.”

“Right,” Shion huffs. “Those too.”

Nezumi finally turns to him. “What happened to your good cheer?” he says with mock surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re done waxing poetic. I was really starting to see the vision.”

Shion stops and exhales noisily through his nose. “Why do you always have to pick apart the things I say? It’s childish.”

“Because you always speak carelessly,” Nezumi snorts. “Ninety percent of what you say is fluff—there’s no meaning behind it, no depth. The world is a shitty place, but you always act like everything is just perfect. Talking to you is like staring at that wall:”—Nezumi flings his hand at the shadowed silhouette of No. 6—“Pleasant at face value, but dig a little deeper, and it’s just empty platitudes.”

Shion curls his hands at his sides. The comparison stings, as it always does. Nezumi despises No. 6, and no matter how much Shion tries to assimilate and adapt to his new life, Nezumi never misses an opportunity to remind him that he will always be tainted by his connection with the city. He holds it over Shion’s head like it’s a critical flaw in his personality, drives it like wedge through their relationship and blames Shion when it causes splinters.

Shion hates it. He hates when Nezumi lashes out and criticizes him for being the catalyst, and he hates that Nezumi makes him hate him.

Nezumi lifts his chin and meets his gaze with a knowingness that causes Shion’s skin to feel too tight.

Nezumi’s mouth twitches up into a smug smile. “Say something worthwhile, and I’ll be glad to listen like an adult.”

Then Nezumi turns and walks away.

Shion leers at his back, blood boiling. He feels small and impotent, and although he knows the feeling will pass and reason will soon be within his grasp again, at present, he wants to harness his anger to lash back at Nezumi. He knows, though, that the West Block resident is impervious to verbal assault, and Shion is no match for him physically.

Shion’s gaze drops to the snow sucking at his ankles. He kneels and packs together two hard, fist-sized snowballs, and stands again. His body buzzes with the sweet anticipation of payback.

“Nezumi!” he shouts, then takes two skipping steps, and launches one of the snowballs.

He means to hit Nezumi square in the back—even with his judgement hazed in irritation, Shion can’t conceive of doing any real harm—but Nezumi twists around, and the snowball hits him perfectly where shoulder meets neck, the edge of it just grazing his chin.

Nezumi freezes as the snowball bursts, its shattered ice crystals clinging like gems to the coal black superfibre cloth around his neck. Shion revels at the shock on his face—only for the triumph blazing in his chest to sputter when Nezumi’s gaze meets his.

Nezumi is always beautiful, but outrage lends an otherworldly element to the sharp planes of his face. His eyes gleam like quicksilver: liquid, cold, and deadly. When Nezumi is like this, Shion can conceive of how people looked upon the mutable gods of old with a commingling of fear and reverence, why even when they knew the price of transgression, they raged and loved and sacrificed for a mere moment of their attention.

Nezumi brushes the snow from his person with fastidious fury, and Shion’s body tingles with an exquisite combination of wonder and dread.

“Shion,” Nezumi says, and takes a step toward him.

Shion chucks the second snowball. It’s a fear-propelled knee jerk reaction to the low warning in Nezumi’s voice, and it’s a mistake. Nezumi sidesteps the missile easily and it evanesces into a snowbank.

Bereft of projectiles, and with no way to make more as Nezumi approaches, Shion decides to retreat. He flees off the well-trodden path and into the field alongside it. His boots punch through the hitherto undisturbed snow, but it takes an obscene amount of effort to run in the calf-deep drifts, and Shion’s legs burn after only a few strides. Fortunately, Nezumi does not follow him in—probably because he noted Shion’s trouble wading through and does not want to sacrifice his dignity by trudging after him in a slow motion chase.

The mental image brings a smile to Shion’s face. He stops and turns to Nezumi, and they assess each other across the snowy expanse.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Nezumi says. “I’m not going to chase you around. Get back here.”

“You still look mad. I’m not coming out until you’ve calmed down.”

“Now who’s acting childish? You started this.”

Shion cocks an eyebrow. “Debatable.”

Nezumi’s gaze sweeps over the field dividing them, trying to gauge if it might be surmountable after all. The intense aura about him has the same energy as that of a cat surveying a fishbowl. Shion laughs and Nezumi’s eyes flick back up. His mouth tilts mulishly and he takes a step into the snow.

Shion readies to turn and flee again, but the snow holds onto his foot when he tries to lift it and the boot gets caught on the side of his other leg. A squeak of surprise slips from Shion’s throat as he pitches backward and lands with a crunchy whump in the snow. His breath whooshes out and clouds above his head.

Nezumi appears above him a moment later. “Klutz,” he scoffs, but his brow is pinched in concern.

Shion stares up at the blue-black sky and pulls a slow, silent breath through his parted lips. The clouds have migrated somewhere else, and the stars shimmer in their place. Calm washes over him, muting the icy press of the snow against his skin and banishing every thought. There is only the epiphany of now, of this single moment, and the infinity of stars above him.

“Shion?”

Shion grabs Nezumi’s pant leg and tugs. “Lie down.” He doesn’t take his gaze from the sky.

“What? No.”

“You have to see this.” Shion gives Nezumi’s pant cuff another tug and drops his hand back to his side. “You won’t regret it.”

Shion’s eyes find the moon, and he stares until he can see the specter of the luminescent circle on the back of his eyelids every time he blinks.

Nezumi growls under his breath, and the snow shifts as he drops down beside Shion. He’s sitting, not lying down, but Shion takes it as a victory nonetheless. “I already regret this. It’s freaking cold.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“What?” Nezumi mutters, incredulous. “The stars?”

“Yes.” Shion swallows. “There are so many of them.”

“…You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

“No.”

“It does, however, occur to me,” Nezumi says slowly, “that even if you did hit your head, I might not be able to tell the difference. You speak nonsense either way.”

Shion sighs. “I’ve lived my whole life under this sky, and I’ve never once appreciated the stars.”

“Is that a poem of some sort? Shion, really, what are you talking about?”

“This!” Shion flings his hand skyward. “This is exactly what I was talking about. This is what’s important, appreciating the things around you. I never did that when I lived in No. 6.”

In No. 6, life is led with your shoulders hunched and your eyes no higher than government mandate. You take the job the city thinks you’re good for, go where you’re told to go, and you don’t dare run your mouth for fear of saying the wrong thing. Shion had lived sixteen years like a machine, and although he was never satisfied, he convinced himself he was at least content.

Then he was torn from that world of paranoia and monotony and thrown into West Block, the polar opposite of the Holy City. West Block is loud, dirty, lawless, unmonitored—freeing.

For the first time in his life, Shion doesn’t have to hold his feelings in; he can speak truthfully, and he might be disagreed with, but he can disagree right back and there is no penalty for doing so.

That’s why Shion talks so much. That’s why he tends toward happy and idealistic. Because he can finally speak his mind. He’s finally free to think and imagine and desire things for himself, and sometimes he can’t help but get carried away with the wonder of it.

Shion shakes his head. “I was so busy keeping my head down, I never noticed everything I was missing. I mean… Look at the world we live in.”

The wind whispers through the barren trees, trailing icy dust in its wake like gossamer threads. The stars wink in and out of focus in the silken blackness. Somewhere down the way, a wooden door creaks, followed by children’s laughter. Shion and Nezumi lie still in the midst of a vast snowscape, but life flows on around them, unconcerned with their participation.

“It’s beautiful. Not perfect,” Shion says softly, and turns to meet Nezumi’s gaze, “but still beautiful. Don’t you think?”

The expression Nezumi wears now is one that Shion has seen more and more as of late. Nezumi is not so much looking at him, as into him, as if he is desperately trying to reconcile what Shion’s saying with who Nezumi thinks Shion is. It’s a consternation reserved for magic tricks and puzzle boxes with no discernable seams.

Shion’s not sure why Nezumi has such a hard time figuring him out, but he enjoys when he makes Nezumi consider him more seriously.

“I guess,” Nezumi huffs at last.

“Thank you for acknowledging it,” Shion says with a smile.

“At this point, I’ll agree to any of your harebrained notions if it means we can get up and go home. My ass is freezing.”

“Alright,” Shion laughs. “Since you were good enough to humor me.”

Shion peels himself from the ground. His hair is cold and wet from lying so long and a shiver judders down his spine.

Nezumi brushes off the back of his pants with a sour look. When he’s done, he glances up and frowns. “Shion, you have something on your shoulder.”

“Hm?” Shion tilts his head to look.

A snowball smashes into the side of his face and Shion stumbles back a step. He turns, mouth agape.

“What, did you think I wouldn’t pay you back?” Nezumi says pleasantly. He tosses a snowball up and down in his left hand—the glove of his right is slick from the first he pegged Shion with.

Shion has no idea how Nezumi made two snowballs without him noticing, but he realizes he’s in danger.

Nezumi stops juggling the snowball and smirks. “You know how I am with debts.”

“Right.” Shion swallows. Icy droplets slip down the collar of his coat and melt into his sweater. “You got me. We’re even.”

Nezumi’s smirk morphs into a genuine smile. “Oh, but I don’t think you appreciated the snow nearly enough when you were in No. 6. Here, let me help you with that.”

“Hey—” The second of Nezumi’s throws hits Shion in the nose. He coughs and swats the snow out of his face. “Nezumi, no more. This is too much revenge—I only hit you once!”

“Not my fault you’re a lousy shot.” Nezumi walks backwards toward the path home. “By all means, hit me again. If you can manage it, that is.”

“Tempting,” Shion calls.

But as he joins Nezumi on the path, he decides it’s not worth retaliating. A hundred new tangents and observations are already queued on his tongue, and he wants to get Nezumi’s reluctant opinion on all of them.

#no6 #no.6 #no. 6 #no 6 #pigeonsimba #celebrian #nezushi #submission

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sjogrenssurvey-blog · 5 years ago

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What You Need To Know

Sjogren’s is an autoimmune disease that can cause a wide variety of symptoms and result in a wide spectrum of severity. It has an overwhelming fondness for women, affecting eight times as many women as men. The average age of diagnosis for women is the early 50s; the average age for men is the late ‘50s, but Sjogren’s can occur at any age. The portion of the general population who have Sjogren’s syndrome is not known; studies vary widely in their findings, from a fraction of 1% to 7% of the elderly population. Better research on prevalence is needed, as is a standardized set of diagnostic criteria. It’s important to note that elderly folks have Sjogren’s 7-8 times as often as do people in their twenties. Sjogren’s can leave patients bedridden, but many patients are very active with only bothersome dryness of their eyes and/or mouth that doesn’t affect their lives significantly. 84% of Sjogren’s syndrome patients are women. One-third of us (including me) have small fiber nerve damage that causes complications in their autonomic body functions. Some I’ve spoken to have damage to organ valves, some even die of the resultant heart or kidney disease. The folks whom I’ve met who bother to talk to other patients online are often very ill, and have become desperate to learn more about their complicated conditions. Please don’t visit a support group and assume you’re going to be just as bad off as the folks online. We are home and online because we’re too sick to do much else. Many complain that their family doctors are ill-informed or that they aren’t giving them enough information. The recent influx of studies on Sjogren’s syndrome and our related conditions make keeping up with the current literature a must for the doctors who care for us. All About Moisture and the Lack of It People with the disorder experience Sjogren’s in various ways. Some are barely inconvenienced, some lives are altered drastically by the profound fatigue that is a major hallmark of the disease (we’ll be talking a lot about fatigue later on). Some of us are in constant pain due to small and large fiber nerve damage, others suffer sporadically with gland inflammation. Some Sjogren’s patients are merely bothered by dry eyes and take a prescription that keeps that issue in check. They may always be able to manage their illness with little difficulty. These people may live and die with barely a hitch in the course of their lives. Others must use artificial tears regularly throughout the day and suck on hard candies or chew gum to keep their mouths moist. There are prescription pharmaceutical remedies for both these issues when over-the-counter remedies are no longer enough. Women with Sjogren’s can experience vaginal dryness that makes it too painful to have male/female sexual intercourse. Pain during intercourse is often described. A lack of ability to perspire can interfere with body temperature regulation. Some of us produce so little saliva that we are unable to keep our teeth from rotting out of our heads no matter how diligently we brush, rinse and floss. Many middle-aged folks in my Facebook support groups already have dentures or tooth implants. Some of us lose their voices due to lack of mouth moisture to lubricate their throats. Singers with Sjogren’s syndrome often notice a raspiness due to laryngeal tissue damage from drying out. Some singers have to give up singing altogether. A few SS patients even completely lose their ability to speak due to throat tissue damage. Wide Spectrum of Central Nervous System Complications As of this post, some small studies suggest that about 30% of Sjogren’s patients have small-fiber nerve disease as found by skin punch biopsy. There is some speculation that small-fiber damage can progress to large-fiber nerve damage; a small, but significant percentage of patients show damage to myelinated large-fiber nerves. Small-fiber nerve damage is common in SS; this kind of nerve regulates the function of autonomic systems; damage to these nerves leads to a wide variety of dysfunction to body processes that occur without our conscious effort. This condition is called dysautonomia. We don’t have to think about each breath, or each heartbeat for them to keep going, or about pushing our blood or food through our digestive tracts or accessing oxygen or glucose or the uptake of trace minerals. It’s worth noting that recent studies show that up to 62% of fibromyalgia patients actually have small-fiber neuropathy to blame for their muscle pain and spasms. Dysautonomia is a health problem caused by our central nervous system’s inability to properly carry out our autonomic functions, which is everything our bodies do unconsciously, that is, without our consciously directed effort. Some autonomic functions include: 1. Breathing 2. Sleeping 3. Digestion 4. Heartbeat 5. Hormone release 6. Body temperature regulation 7. Sweating 8. Balance 9. Sensory feedback 10. Storing memories - that memory loss is an autonomic function is speculative on my part. Emerging research has us closer than ever to a solid understanding of the memory storage process and the physical existence of engrams, the place where our long-term memories are thought to be. Many Sjogren’s patients report memory and cognitive issues (often called “brain fog” by patients). Many patients report losing jobs because of not being able to keep a train of thought or get enough done in a timely manner. Indeed, this was my chief complaint. I could have kept on with school, I could have withstood the muscle pain, dizziness and fatigue if only I was able to think like I used to. But, no, all of me was tired straight through, especially my brain. Even now, I try to do all intellectually challenging things in the morning when I am sharpest. Many Sjogren’s patients also have dysautonomia. We can’t always depend on a regular heartbeat, the ability to swallow smoothly, to be able to sleep well, to properly digest our food, or even to regulate our body temperature. Heatstroke is always a possibility in hot weather and can come on suddenly after even a short exposure to hot, humid conditions. Dysautonomia is related to small-fiber neuropathy, but it’s not clear exactly how. Even taking a shower can be challenging if we try to shower in the warm temperatures we used before we got sick. One woman in my Facebook support group reports that her doctor advised that she not even go outside when the temperature (in Fahrenheit) and humidity together add up to 150 or more. I have heard over and over people say that just the effort of taking a shower tires them out so much that they have to go back to bed. I have been there many times! Talking to Your Doctor If you’re really lucky, you have a GP who is familiar with Sjogren’s syndrome. Unfortunately, there is so much new info coming into medicine, our family doctors may not familiar with recent research on the disease and may still think it’s a rare condition or a condition that only affects salivary and lacrimal glands. For this reason, we may need for our rheumatologists to behave as the doctor who coordinates our various medical specialty needs. Please encourage your rheumatologists and family doctors to become more familiar with this condition as it is still under-diagnosed. Ask whether they would appreciate being updated by you; offer to bring in new research papers. You may not be able to bring in the full studies due to paywalls, but you can bring in the abstract; it will give your doctor enough info to look up the full study if s/he has an account with his university library, Medline or Pub Med, etc. Spreading awareness is important: Early detection can lead to disease-modifying treatment. That is, there are drugs that can prevent further damage in Sjogren’s patients who tolerate it. There is research going on right now that may result in a vaccine for us in just a few years. I encourage everyone to join The Sjogren’s Foundation (www.Sjogrens.org) to receive ongoing updates on the state of our condition. Patients are best-served when they are being looked after by a good rheumatologist. A good rheumy will know that your Sjogren’s can cause widespread pain from nerve damage as well as deep fatigue. Check the rheumatology staff of your local teaching hospital if you’re having a hard time finding a knowledgable doctor. I’ve found good specialists by seeing who, locally, was publishing research on my condition. I realize that not everyone lives near teaching hospitals, but it can be worth the trek to the nearest big city if you’re only seeing your rheumatologist every 6 months or so, as most of us do once all the diagnostic interaction between you and your doctor’s office is done. Unless a physician has a particular interest in Sjogren’s syndrome, they may not even be aware that it is as widespread as it is now known to be. Recently thought to be a rare disease, Sjogren’s is now thought to occur in 3-5% of the population. That makes it one of the most common autoimmune diseases, only lagging after rheumatoid arthritis. Even less-understood is the complication of small-fiber neuropathy (SFN). Approximately 30% of Sjogren’s patients suffer with it. Patients report that even their neurologists aren’t up on the fact that SFN can cause pain and spasms as this is relatively new information that they didn’t get in medical school. Have a detailed conversation with your general physician about the many aspects of Sjogren’s syndrome and make sure that the two of you are a good fit. Small-fiber neuropathy is painful and can be debillitating; it can impede all physical function because of the wide-spread muscle and connective tissue pain it can cause. SFN is a factor in the disruption in autonomic dysfunction that can lead to serious complications. It’s worth knowing that up to 1/3 of us have SS-A and SS-B negative blood tests. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You are welcome to tell us about your journey to diagnosis or your dissatisfaction with not getting a prompt one. Was it hard for you to get a diagnosis? Please tell us your experience! Sources - I’ve done a whole lot of reading since my diagnosis in February of 2018, but the studies and articles I consulted for this particular blog, are listed below. From Engrams to Pathologies of the Brain - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383718/ Small Fiber Neuropathy: Disease Classification Beyond Pain and Burning - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5912271/ Sex differences in Sjögren’s syndrome - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4630965/ Small-fiber neuropathy: Expanding the clinical pain universe - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30569495 Primary Sjogren’s syndrome with central nervous system involvement: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f2ee/a33c57f84283a4cd882294ad75fcc73e8232.pdf Sjogren’s syndrome disease info - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/sjogrens-syndrome Sjogren’s Center at Johns Hopkins - https://www.hopkinssjogrens.org/ Varied prevalence reported in large epidemiological survey - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122257/ The Sjogren’s Syndrome Foundation - https://www.sjogrens.org #Sjogren's diagnosis#Sjogren's#Sjogren's symptoms#fatigue#deep fatigue#autoimmune#spoonie#chronic#profound fatigue#fatique#small fiber neuropathy#autonomic disorder#autonomic#dry eyes#dry mouth

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chronicallymissyxo-blog · 6 years ago

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Being brave here, so here goes. Caution, in this post, I mention a few things that COULD contain triggers, so this is a warning just in advance. I needed to write today, it helps clear my head, and it helps me breathe.

This piece of writing I'm gonna call "Living my life with chronic pain & mental health."

First things first - My name is Meghan, I'm 23 years old and I am a chronic illness and mental health warrior. I begun struggling with my mental health when I was at school. I was bullied a lot, for my size, the way I look, for wearing glasses, for having spots, I was constantly pushed around and came home with bruises. I was a mess. I begun self-harming. Not a bad self harm, just a surface scratch when I was about 13. I hid this until after 3 years, my father hit me. We had an argument. I didn't know then I was suffering with depression. I was always the misunderstood, people didn't understand me because I was different. But I was taken by child protective services and moved back to my mums. I would get angry, frustrated, I'd have panic attacks but I didn't know they were panic attacks. I was really depressed but this wasn't acknowledged until I was 18. I finally caved in, wrote a note and took a bunch of pills. Because of that, I lost my job, I lost my life. I gained a lot of weight through antidepressants and I was told I was suffering with severe anxiety and depression. Since that, I've been on a rocky road. I started feeling a lot of muscle and joint pain, and it spread across my whole body and it was constant.

After that, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Borderline Personality Disorder, so I'm gonna explain about these illnesses, and how they affect me every day. I have nothing to do with my parents anymore. Mostly because my Dad hit me and my Mum doesn't understand my illnesses and isn't willing to. I do apologise today by the way, I'm having a really terrible brain fog day. When you’re struggling with your mental health, it can be so easy to mistakenly believe the people in your life hate you. For example, it’s hard to remember when that person you haven’t spoken to in a few days doesn’t reply to your texts, they aren’t ignoring you out of spite, they’re probably incredibly busy.If you can relate to this struggle, you’re not alone. Thinking the people around you secretly hate you or don’t want to be around you is a common experience for those dealing with mental illness. When your brain is being cruel to you, it doesn’t just affect you, it can often extend to how you interact with others. If you recognise what your disorder does to you, it’s a new stepping stone to greater skills and extra peaceful moments sprinkled throughout your day. I feel exhausted and weak at the end of the day, whether I let everything out of hell’s gates or I attempted to find peace. The goal is to make it to the end of your day with the knowledge you are worth it and it’s possible to make it through your misfortunes, even if finding peace hurts. Now imagine you experience losing your best friend, or thinking that's the case when they're just busy, you'd get panicked and upset - imagine that exact emotion at that level of intensity every single day. The gears start spinning your head. The truth starts to be less and less relevant when you experience this level of emotion. Do they even like me anymore? Did they ever? Have they been doing everything they can to show me they don’t want me around, and I’ve just been missing it? I hurt one of them the other day, saying or doing something careless based on too much emotion, like I usually do. Was that the final straw? Are they finally done being able to forgive me like I always knew they would be? You start to push them away to protect them from yourself and from all of the huge feelings. If one of them is your “favourite person,” someone you have become enmeshed with and have taken on their emotions as if they were your own in a really unhealthy fashion, it gets even more intense and complicated. This is the fear of abandonment someone with Borderline feels, on some level, every single day. It’s not them being dramatic. It’s not them looking for attention or trying to isolate you. It’s a level of emotional pain most people will never experience or will experience so infrequently that it stands out in their mind as a terrible day in their life. I suffer with quiet borderline, in which I keep it all in and internalise the feelings, but blame myself for it.

With anxiety, I do little things that normal people living a normal life wouldn't do. I start to obsessively clean and organise things. I rearrange things. Something as small as the order of my bathroom, taking everything out of the cupboards and putting it back in different places, or even my furniture. Sometimes it stays, sometimes I move it back the way it was. I guess I feel like it’s in a better spot than it was before and if I’m moving while doing it I’m putting myself in better place also. I blink. A lot, And clean like a madwoman. Sometimes, it’s the only thing I can do that allows me to feel in control of something. I also twist my hair, shaking my legs unintentionally, and click my nails. Anxieties lead me into a state of thinking I’m worthless, not doing enough or being good enough. Then that leads me into my depressive, no motivation isolation state. I ask my fiance why he loves me and why he chose to be with me. I often don’t feel like I’m ‘enough.’ If I’m anxious I try my best not to bombard him with messages especially if he's out, but sometimes it's the only thing keeping me sane. Anxiety makes me feel that I’m always bothering people. Even close friends. Just trying to start a conversation with them makes me feel that I’m just being a big bother, so I tend to isolate myself. Since feeling lonely is better than feeling like a bother in my eyes. I see myself mentally retreating and feeling myself go down the spiral, while being able to maintain a good outward appearance. Nobody notices the change. Having to deal with the constant depression and social anxiety along with Borderline, people think I’m ‘doing better’ whereas I’m just good at hiding the hard things. I internally attack myself. Whereas someone with classic Borderline acts upon other people, I attack myself because I prefer to deal with things internally, if I've done something wrong, I internally attack myself then over-react in situations because I feel like the worst person on the face of the earth. It's been described as being a quiet Borderline. I get attached to friends almost immediately and I spend 90 percent of my day trying to make them like me. If I think they are a little angry with me or dislike me, then my world crumbles and I feel like the worst human being alive, like I'm not good enough. If me and Jonny have a disagreement, I dissociate completely which in turn causes over reactions I'm unaware of being I'm not fully aware of what I'm doing. It's easier to dissociate rather than deal with things.

Dissociation takes me to a peaceful place but on the outside I'm saying and doing things I'm unaware of. It scares me, and it makes me scared of myself. I'd never hurt anyone else, I'd only ever hurt myself. Little things can set me off, which then can cause me to feel really depressed. I internalise things then hurt myself, though I'm 2 months clean of self-harm now. Before that I was 4 months clean. I fear abandonment, but I also fear getting attached to people because I always end up hurt, then feel even worse. Vicious cycle of mentality. I find it easier to shut down than blow up, so I self-sabotage myself. All these flood gates of emotions in my head build up, but I can't let them out, I hold it all in.Then we come to the chronic pain side of things. People who don't understand just think "oh it's just pain and tiredness, get over it." But it's so much more than that. It isn't just pain and fatigue. We can't just take painkillers and hope it goes away. However, those living with chronic pain/Fibromyalgia/M.E know it can cause so many more symptoms than that. Sometimes these illnesses can even cause symptoms that others may see as “taboo” or off-limits. The first thing we cross is sensory overload. It’s hard to handle too much noise, movements, lights, smells, etc. It makes socialisation extremely hard because if there’s more than one person there, there’s already extra movement and sound going on. Add a public place to it, and it makes the system go haywire with brain fog, indecisiveness, anxiety and pain. A lot of times it can come off as rude or antisocial, but I don’t think you could ever understand how hard Anglicization with sensory overload is until you’ve experienced it. I struggle to regulate my temperature a lot too. Some days it's not even hot, or sweaty but I'll be drenched even when I haven't been out. In Summer, unless there is water involved, I try to avoid going out which is a downfall because I have a vitamin D deficiency, so I can never win. It's really embarrassing and I constantly feel like I need to explain myself if people look at me because I'm so sweaty.

Now we move on to the sudden fatigue… I AM NOT LAZY! I’ve learned that I have to pace myself to ensure that I have the right energy to get through the day so if I say no to something or ask you to help with something that seems like an easy task, I’m not being lazy, I have hit an energy wall. Some days I still over do it and I struggle to cope with the pain. It's almost like constant exhaustion, and the fact that no one wants to understand or comprehend makes it more difficult, especially because we're in pain 24/7. I’m sometimes a little sensitive, irritable and snappy. I don’t enjoy being around people (partly due to sensory overload) and I have closed myself off so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings with my callousness. The constant pain makes me so angry with everything that it’s hard to function.

The worst thing for me living with this is the migraines and the brain fog. I can't describe exactly what it feels like, but what I can tell you is when I get a chronic migraine, I get severe brain fog. Some days I get just migraines, some days I get just brain fog. When this happens, it's almost like I feel disconnected from life, like there's a huge bubble around me. It's like I'm in a slow motion picture, I forget words, forget where I am, and I forget what I'm talking about mid-sentence. Conversation with Brain Fog is difficult. I accidentally zone out while listening to my fiance and sometimes I drift into a different thing entirely whilst still trying to listen to him. It's like I'm walking through jelly, everything just feels heavy, like there's a weight pressing right on the front of my head. My eyes don't focus. I'm trying to function but it's difficult to coordinate physical movements as you try to go about your day. Some days, you can see straight but everything seems distant. You feel exhausted mentally, everything exhausts you mentally and though you're seeing straight, the world just feels blurry. It's hard to put sentences together, or to think of certain words. It's hard to do little things because you've sort of forgotten how to do them. I struggle with my weight. I fluctuate a lot. I can't help it, I can lose weight but I'll end up putting it on. I struggle with my tummy, and find myself needing to go to the bathroom because something I'd normally eat just upsets my tummy on that day. I sometimes have issues with my bladder. My bladder is overactive, but I have to drink a lot as I get dehydrated quickly and I get a dry mouth as a side effect from medications. I find myself waking 2-3 times a night to go to the bathroom. Something less talked about with chronic pain, is genuinely anxiety and depression. Depression is a factor, but it's not the cause of chronic pain. My pain is medically unexplained. Depression doesn't go away because the cause of it doesn't go away. You can keep it under control with medications but people don't want to, or aren't willing to understand invisible illnesses. People will see you laugh, and smile so they assume you must be happy. But they don't understand the true feelings of what goes on deep inside your brain.My life has gotten slowly better over the last few months. Whilst yes, I've been on a low, it's nothing to do with my fiancé or anything. It's just the vicious cycle of emotions and pain that drags me down.

I love him so much. I know there's times when I'm selfish unintentionally because I don't think, I'm always apologetic if I've upset him for whatever reason. I've always placed him first, even though he never asked me to, but I love him that much I'll worship the ground he walks on. I'm always apologetic if I've ever lashed out and caused him pain. All these little apologies I need to make, because I know there's times where he's doubted my love and affection. I'm just so lucky to have a guy like him in my life, while he doesn't understand my illnesses, he does his best to support me. I know we have our arguments, and our disagreements, and there's been times we've pushed each other away. But being able to look him the eye, and apologise, helps us grow even stronger despite the blips. How do I tell him how much love I feel when I look into his eyes and hear him telling me he loves me? How do I express my feelings for him as there are not enough words to tell him how much I care? If he wasn't here for me, I would be nothing but with him by my side, I feel like I can do anything and be myself. I'm the luckiest girl on the planet to have a fiancé like him, I really am. So yeah. I'm sorry this has been long winded. I just needed to get a lot of things off my chest today. I hope you all have an amazing day.

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agnes-knits-blog · 6 years ago

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Things I wish I had known about fibromyalgia, and how to live with it

To put this into context, I was diagnosed about 10 or 11 years ago now, and it was a diagnosis reached by excluding other things that could be causing my symptoms. I had X-rays and MRI scans, I had something very unpleasant called electro-conductivity testing to rule out multiple sclerosis, and then I was told that I have fibromyalgia, have this leaflet, please close the door after you. I was basically forced to deal with it myself for a long time, and I’ve learnt quite a lot about how to manage myself. I hope what I learnt can help you.

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia means “muscle and nervous pain”. Current research suggests that it is a dysfunction of the central nervous system (that is, the nerves that tell your brain what you’re feeling), so nerve signals are misinterpreted as pain.

Symptoms include, but are not limited to:

Widespread muscular and nervous pain, fatigue, headaches, cognitive dysfunction (problems concentrating, poor memory, slow or confused speech) extreme sensitivity of the skin, extreme sensitivity to pain (as in, you accidentally catch your finger on the cupboard door, it hurts really badly and it still hurts 2+ hours later), muscle stiffness after being still for a while, muscle spasms, poor sleep quality and waking up tired, dizziness and clumsiness, feeling too hot or too cold (because the body isn’t able to regulate it’s temperature) sensations like tingling, numbness, prickling or burning in hands and feet (and maybe other areas), anxiety and depression.

That’s a lot of symptoms, and chances are you don’t get all of them, and other people will be affected differently.

Stress

Stress makes fibro worse. It makes the pain worse, it makes everything harder to cope with. It’s not just me saying that, it is a scientific FACT. I know if I get upset, stressed or angry, my pain INSTANTLY increases. I can’t watch horror films anymore, every time there’s a jump-scare I feel like I’m being showered with needles! So, it’s really important to try and keep your stress levels down. Find hobbies that help you relax. Choose to be calm and happy! It will really help!

Pain

How you think about your pain needs to change. It isn’t a matter of “powering through” and having to “man up”. If you have fibro, you have something which means your nerves are nearly always screaming at you that stuff hurts. LISTEN to your body when you exercise. If it tells you doing something hurts, slow down how you are doing it. Slow your movements down, focus on how you feel and go gently. If it burns or hurts more than you are prepared to deal with, leave it for the day. Get some rest, take some paracetamol and ibuprofen and relax! If the pain gets too much – as in, can’t eat because feel sick because pain, or can’t walk/do daily tasks anymore, go see your GP about pain relief. It took me 8+ years to find a doctor who took me seriously and understood the condition, and gave me the pain meds I need to function day to day.

My current meds are: 2 x cocodamol (30mg codeine/500mg paracetamol) x 4 times a day. 1 x 100 mg gabapentin twice a day. 1 x 100mg sertraline (anti-depressant) twice a day. 45mg mirtazapine at night. That’s a lot of anti-depressants because I also have Bipolar Disorder (used to be called manic depression). Gabapentin has been an absolute godsend for me! It’s really helped tone down the constant prickly/tingly sensations

Sleep

Sleep is incredibly important. When folks with fibro don’t get enough sleep, or don’t get enough deep sleep, everything hurts so much more. Fibro can disrupt your sleep cycle so you don’t go into the deep sleep your body needs - so SLEEP IS IMPORTANT! If you sleep well, you will be so much more able to deal with everyday pain. So try your best to get a good night’s sleep. Create a bedtime routine – go to bed at a decent time (around 11pm at the latest) after a warm bath or shower. Have some extra-soft pyjamas or loungewear to get into after coming out of the bath or shower. Have a hot (non-caffeinated) drink e.g. herbal tea, hot milk, Horlicks or Ovaltine. Don’t watch TV in bed! Do not spend too much time on tablets, phones etc past 9pm (blue light from screens will make you feel more awake, use a blue light filter if it’s built into your devices).

This may make you feel like an old fogey, but SLEEP IS IMPORTANT! Like, super duper important! And you need to do everything you can to make sure you sleep well. However, and this is the real kick in the teeth, sometimes you can do everything right and still wake up exhausted. If that happens, talk to your GP about medication to help you sleep. There are various anti-depressants that are commonly used for this, like amitriptyline (which I used to take, and my sister takes now), and I am currently on mirtazapine to make me properly sleepy. There’s a happy side effect in that these drugs also help to lessen nervous pain.

Fatigue

As you will have noticed by now, fatigue isn’t just feeling tired. It’s feeling exhausted, like you haven’t slept for a week, and you can barely do anything before you have to stop. On days like this, you only have a little energy, and you have to be careful how you spend it. Figure out what HAS to be done (e.g. need to do the laundry so you can have clean clothes tomorrow, dishes need to be done because you have nothing to eat off and you are hungry), and what can wait until you’re feeling better (e.g. vacuuming). You can’t do everything at once, so take it one task at a time slowly and at your own pace. Give yourself breaks if you need it. It’s important to cut yourself some slack and allow yourself to come back to it later. Be kind to yourself. Ask for help if you need it. No one wants to see you struggling with something, or in too much pain to cope.

Cognitive dysfunction (a.k.a. fibro-fog)

Some days, your head might feel like it’s been stuffed with hot cotton wool. You can’t think straight, and you can’t find the words to properly express yourself. You will probably forget things that are a change from your normal routine. People may ask you if you’re on any drugs! Unfortunately there’s no treatment for it, but you can find ways to deal with it.

Use a calendar or paper diary – writing things down may help you to remember them better. Make lists of important things WHEN YOU REMEMBER THEM – you can’t rely on yourself to remember them another time. You have to try and leave yourself reminders. Future you is forgetful, so present you has to plan for it! And if you forget something important, be prepared to apologise!

Food

I’m know it’s very tempting, when you’re in pain and tired, to just order some delicious food delivered to your door, but you’re gonna find it very hard to lose weight when you can’t do lots of cardio, so it’s best to eat healthy most of the time. Keep frozen chopped onion and garlic in the freezer, and tinned tomatoes and pasta in the cupboard, so you can knock up a good meal with minimal effort. Try to have a folding stool in the kitchen for you to perch on whilst cooking. Make it easy to eat well, and save the left-overs for lunches!

Exercising

You’ll probably find it very hard to keep exercising like you used to. Try to replace high impact exercise with something low impact like cycling (not spin class!) and rowing. Maybe try something like yoga or pilates (I know, it’s old lady stuff, but it’s still good for you!), low impact stretching and general core work will be good for you.

DON’T do exercise classes where you will get constantly yelled at to go harder. Don’t let other people set your pace! Let your body tell you how fast you can go!

In general, don’t let other people set your pace. Sometimes you will need to go more slowly, if you feel unsafe on your feet (as in, knees might give out and you might deck it, right in the middle of the street) consider getting a stick. It took me years to finally admit that I needed one, but it has seriously helped me. My sister went through the same thing a few months ago, and I told her: it isn’t you admitting defeat or failure, it’s you doing what you need to do to help yourself. Plus she now has something to trip people up with if she doesn’t like them!

And to anyone who says that fibro isn't real, or is all down to lifestyle factors, I say this: me, my sister and my aunt have all been diagnosed with fibro independent of each other. And I have reason to believe other members of my family might be showing symptoms too! There is clearly a big genetic component at play, so blaming people who can't exercise for being overweight is counter productive as fuck.

#fibromyalgia #fibrowarrior

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facingdownleviathan-blog · 6 years ago

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This one is kinda dark, guys.

My anxiety has been off the chain this week.

So I’ve got this thing--and I’ve got so many issues that it’s next to impossible to pinpoint just which one (or combination) caused this--where, when I am in the depths of depression and weighted by my own self-loathing, I begin feeling like my mind is a separate entity from my body. And my mind really hates my body.

I hate that I’m physically weak and my disability bars me from working out enough to gain muscle;

I hate that I get dizzy and out of breath a lot, and can’t walk or stand for more than an hour;

I hate how my hands shake all the time either from anxiety or hunger;

I hate the near-constant chronic pain in my joints and the painful way my elbows give out when I carry heavy things, or the way my knees give out sometimes when I’m running or walking up or down stairs;

I hate the fog that rolls into my brain and inhibits my ability to communicate or understand;

I hate how sensitive I am to pain and how everything from a stubbed toe to a shot makes me wish I’d pass out;

I hate how, when I get anxious, I get the worst B.O. even if I’m not sweating, and that makes me even more anxious;

I hate that I just can’t magically look how I wish I did, like a fucking shapeshifter;

I hate that even my mild revulsion from my body keeps me from enjoying sex and makes it such a challenge even to masturbate;

I hate that I’m always too fatigued to get dressed, or shower, or eat, or even have fun, and I still have to drag this body to work all week;

--and sometimes all I can think about is how badly I don’t want to be inside myself. My body feels like a prison, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from clawing my way out. When I self-harm, I do it punitively. I bite my hands or scrape my skin, and when I was at my worst I’d even punch the shit out of myself and now I have a permanent misalignment in my jaw that is invisible to the naked eye, but occasionally gives me tinnitus. It’s like a kick when you’re already down.

My mind isn’t much better though, honestly; between the anxiety and depression, and the enormous self-doubt that plagues me. Am I a good person? What is the point of living if I’m just going to be in pain all the time? What’s the point in taking good care of myself if no matter what, I won’t be able to do the physical activities I love anymore? Am I really trans or am I manufacturing my disgust with my body in my head? Is this actually dysphoria? Am I autistic or do I just think that because I can relate to a bunch of text posts about it on the internet? What if I’m nothing like what I thought? What am I? Does any of it matter? Do I even matter?

I think it’s definitely time for me to talk to my psych. In fact, I’d say I’m long overdue.

#tw suicide #tw suicide ideation #tw self loathing #tw self destruction #tw self harm #tw self hatred #tw dysphoria #personal #dnr pls #I could really use a pint of ice cream and a cuddle rn

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allenmendezsr · 4 years ago

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I needed to get ready for dialysis and that’s when the put the fistula in my arm. (the photo to the right ==>

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I Had TOTAL Kidney Failure . . .

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I had no social life, because not many girls want to date or be around a sick guy… “who will end up on dialysis.”

Things got worse, when I ended up in the hospital almost in a renal failure induced coma. And that’s the first time they hooked me up to the machine . . .

3 days a week, three to four hours a day they puncture my arm with two oversized two-inch long needles and “clean my blood.”

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Feeling wiped out all the time from the dialysis.

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If you get a new donor kidney…

YOU MUST TAKE ANTI-REJECTION DRUGS AND YOU NEED TO BE SCREENED FOR CANCER REGULARLY.

*** The ANTI-REJECTION DRUGS CAN CAUSE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE, HIGH CHOLESTEROL AND INCREASE YOUR RISK FOR DIABETES AND CANCER!***

I want to save you the terrible pain, the heartache, depression and the intense suffering I endured. I want to show you how to Improve your kidney health and avoid the horrors of dialysis treatments!

You CAN have Healthy Kidneys’… and live an active, healthy life where you never even THINK about your kidneys – IF YOU KNOW THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO!

But before I get into all of that, I want to tell you the truth.

I Was SCARED… I’d End Up Right Back On that Damn Dialysis Machine!

After I recovered from my kidney transplant surgery and adjusted to the anti-rejection meds I was forced to be on, I tried to get my life back together. I knew I had to find out the real truth about why my kidneys failed. I started studying everything I could about kidney disease . . .

The truth is it was because I was SCARED . . . scared that if I didn’t do SOMETHING I’d end up right back on that damn machine . . . And as I got deeper and deeper into the truth about why kidney’s fail and learned more about what causes kidney disease and harms kidney function… I got really pissed off!

I’d suffered needlessly for so many years!

NOW. . . I know now the ‘real truth’ . . . that my kidney disease was treatable!

You can improve your kidney health — WITHOUT needing or suffering through dialysis!

100% All Natural Treatments & Remedies Scientifically PROVEN To REPAIR Kidney Damage

UNKNOWN to Doctors!

“The Shocking Truth”

About Kidney Disease!

Here are just a few of the ‘WORST Kidney Treatment Problems’ I STUMBLED upon during my years of kidney research and training into the REAL causes (and real solutions) for Kidney Disease . . .

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 1:

The common marker used to detect kidney function (BUN and creatinine) is NOT considered reliable and may NOT increase above normal ranges — until 60% of total kidney function is lost.

(I’ve discovered there are better tests for kidney disease that are covered by your insurance that your doctor may not even know about. Find out what they are!)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 2:

Heavy metal poisoning can send your kidneys into the toxic over load leading to damage and loss of your kidney’s function — but the horrible fact is not 1 in 1000 doctors will check for this!

(But it is critical you get tested for this if you got a kidney problem and I’ll tell you all about it and why and what to do about it.)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 3:

By avoiding one commonly eaten food you can delay kidney failure and dialysis by up to 3 years – and most medical doctors won’t tell you about what food to avoid!

(I’ve created a list of common foods to avoid and tell you the truth about why those harmful foods are doing damage to your kidneys.)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 4:

Common everyday over the counter household items you use in your house you need to get rid off which harm your natural kidney function — that medical doctor’s don’t know about!

(I’ll reveal what these kidney-damaging products are that you could be taking into your body on a daily basis which are sure to affect you and will worsen your kidney health.)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 5:

One of the most popular weight loss diets on the market can burn your kidneys out — and your doctor probably suggested you lose weight with this exact same low carb/high protein diet!

(This is criminal! Because using popular weight loss diets to try to control your weight – can be causing your kidney function to get even worse! Find out what is the ‘right diet’ to use to avoid putting more stress on your kidneys and still lose weight!)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 6:

Do you love your coffee, caffeine and soda? Did your doctor warn you about the added health risks of drinking them and how they do irreparable damage to your kidneys?

(Find out how by drinking certain types of herbal teas you can help the filtering system of the kidneys and even naturally restore your kidney’s health!)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 7:

Do you feel constantly over-tired, know you are not sleeping well and end up tossing and turning during the night? Then when you tell your doctor about your insomnia they prescribe a habit forming sleeping pill — with lots of nasty side effects!

(Instead, find out how one supplement can end your fatigue and speed up your energy at a cellular level and quickly restore your feeling of well being.)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 8:

Did you know there are many all natural nutrients including herbs, herbal remedies and amino acids that can improve your energy, delay kidney disease and allow you to live a better quality of life that are recommended by the National Kidney Foundation? But there are no doctors following these recommendations or testing for the nutrients in their patients suffering with kidney disease!

(I found over 10 over the counter supplements with proven research that can drastically improve your kidney function. But don’t go running out to the health food store asking the cashier for advice. There are many herbs, herbal remedies and nutritional supplement products out there that can actually make your kidney disease or chronic kidney disease(ckd) worse.

Instead I’ll tell you all about the 100% all natural treatments and remedies used in Europe, Asia and other countries which have successfully treated and reversed kidney disease for over 30 years!)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 9:

Did you know that there’s ALREADY a safe scientifically validated over the counter supplement that can stop many kidney diseases in its tracts? It’s criminal that in January of 2009, the FDA classified this potent, entirely safe Chronic Kidney Disease(ckd) therapeutic as a drug, putting it out of reach for many Americans suffering from this deadly condition!

(I’ll tell you all about this and why in other countries this 100% safe all natural supplement has been proven to work and is a staple of most kidney treatment plans!)

KIDNEY TREATMENT PROBLEM # 10:

No one should be forced to bear the outrageous burden of costly pharmaceuticals and their toxic side effects when a perfectly safe natural alternative treatment exists. This drug won’t be available to Kidney Disease suffers for another 10 to 15 years. Why? Because it has to pass FDA approval and that may take many years for enough clinical trials to prove it works – even though it has been saving kidneys in other countries around the world for years!

(Luckily there is the cousin of this supplement that proves to have the same effects still available to the public and is used in other countries with phenomenal success and you can learn about it.)

Introducing…

The “Kidney Saver” eBook Program That Medical Dialysis Promoters hope you’ll never discover…

The “No Dialysis Needed” All Natural Kidney Health And Kidney Function Restoration Program . . .

My “No Dialysis Needed” program is a step-by-step treatment program which helps improve your kidneys naturally, without the use of unnatural man-made pharmaceutical drugs.

Even better, when you follow the program you’ll be able to delay dialysis by years or even decades . . . or possibly even avoid dialysis all together!

You CAN Improve Your Kidney Function Using 100% ALL NATURAL Remedies & Treatments . . .

Heal Your Kidneys

Without Dialysis . . .

Without Drugs . . .

Without Side Effects!

But NO MEDICAL DOCTOR In Western Medicine Was Taught This Information In Medical School!

Medical Doctors are pushing their patients towards dialysis and transplants when some didn’t need to. But as a nephrologist (kidney specialist) once told me, “that’s the American way of treating kidney disease.”

It’s not doctors who are at fault. They’re taught in medical school how to treat kidney disease, chronic kidney disease(ckd) and they stick to the book but also those who teach doctors to treat kidney problems!

You need to know that these alternative ‘KIDNEY TREATMENT SECRETS’ ARE REAL and most medical doctors in the United States DON’T KNOW!

My program is specifically designed to IMPROVE Kidney Health NATURALLY and ELIMINATE the need for dialysis completely.

Don’t Just “Manage” Your Kidney Disease…

Reverse It!

If you’ve been shocked by your doctor with this grave news:

“There is nothing you can do, you have to wait for your kidneys to fail, go on dialysis and hopefully be eligible for a kidney transplant.”

Now you have ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS!

The All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program™ is a compilation of the best and most effective natural treatments for kidney disease from around the world. It is meant as a complement to your allopathic, conventional or standard medical care, not a replacement.

You have a right to know all the real facts about your kidney disease and I’m blowing the lid off what doctor’s don’t know!

When you have this easy to understand kidney health program in your hands you can make better informed decisions about what’s ‘the right thing to do’ to support your kidney function and return your body’s kidneys to natural wellness!

See, these days I’m known as an expert on kidney disease . . . I help people who suffer from this horrible disease heal their kidneys, regain kidney function by reversing stages!

You may even be able to postpone or avoid dialysis or a transplant forever (just read the rest of this letter and I’ll show you how!) But what not many people (except my clients and my close friends) know is my own personal struggle and battle with kidney disease . . .

That’s what made me so passionate about helping you reverse your kidney disease. And why I will do anything to help you avoid being chained and imprisoned by that horrible machine!

In my ‘all natural kidney restoration program’ I’ve put all of my passion into my work to help people just like you — avoid worsening kidney health and the horrors of dialysis. . .

And The Incredible Kidney Restoration Results I Got For My Clients And Customers Were So Astonishing They. . .

SHOCKED Their DOCTOR!

It’s true! Allow me to read to you only a few of the amazing kidney restoration success stories I’ve had with my clients here in my New Jersey office and customers of my program . . .

Just read these improved kidney health success stories…

Creatinine From 2.7 to 1.8, GFR From 24 to 44, And Potassium Back In A Normal Range

“Thank you so VERY much!

I was really worried I was going to lose my husband. Mark had high blood pressure that caused a lot of kidney damage. We saw a dietitian that gave us some useful information, but I really was looking for something more. When I came upon your program I was excited to get started. I purchased your program, and went out and got all the foods and supplements for the kidneys you recommended to start giving to Mark.

My husband started to feel more energy and in about 6 weeks he said he felt about 15 years younger! His nephrologist was happy at the positive results. We explained to him about the program, and he said to keep doing what he was doing. Your diet and herbal treatment program is working to reverse his kidney problems.

It has been 10 months and Mark’s kidney health has stabilized. Your program explains and covers every aspect of how to improve kidney function and makes perfect sense that even a housewife, like myself, understands.”

~ Mark & Barbara Henswourth Lowell, Massachusetts

No More Protein In My Urine And Inflammation Is Gone

“Living on a small farm I wasn’t sure I would be able to follow your treatment program. I felt very relieved that you provided the exact products, supplements and internet stores to get them from. This made it very easy for me. I was able to modify my diet like you recommended and was happy to find I had most of the food already on my farm.

I had IgA Nephropathy kidney disease for years but was okay until recently. My doctor said I had a lot of protein in my urine and inflammation. I took medications like prednisone which helped but nowhere near enough and the side effects were really bad.

Your program really made sense to me. I followed it and took all the anti-inflammatory supplements. Overall it was fairly easy to follow with all the references you provided. On my 3 month follow up the doctor said I had normal amounts of protein in the urine and the inflammation was better. He lowered my prednisone which was a big relief for me. I still maintain everything and glad god lead me to your program.

By the way your kidney diet is easy to follow and eating out guide is very helpful, especially when I visit my family in the city.”

~ James Anderson Harrison County, West Virginia

Diabetic Kidney Disease Reversed In 3 Months

“I was very scared of when the doctor told me my kidneys were damaged. I followed the program exactly for a diabetic.

My 3 month follow up showed I had normal kidney function! I can’t thank you enough”

~ Christy Cambridge United Kingdom

Robert, Here Is My Blood Work I Said I Would Send If Your Program Worked…

Creatinine From 3.2 to 2.0, GFR 16 to 39(More Than Doubled), Potassium, Cholesterol & Albumin All Normal.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea how much this means to me and my family.”

~ Eliazar Brooklyn, New York

Kidney Function From 19 To 41%, Phosphorus Normal, No More Itching And Sleeping Better

“Hi Robert, when I was diagnosed with renal disease I didn’t believe what the doctors were telling me. For the first time in my life I was scared of the future and didn’t know what to expect. I have a family and kids to care for and I need to work to provide for them. The way the doctors were talking it was like I would have no life in the near future.

I was reassured I could avoid renal failure when I found The All Natural Kidney Health Program. It covered so many areas including how to improve kidney function and renal diet to follow. I followed the program and what I really noticed was how much better I was sleeping and the constant itching had gone away.

On my next doctor’s appointment I had a good feeling things would be better. I found my phosphorus mineral level was normal and I gained back 22% renal function. The doctors and myself think I will be able to avoid dialysis and renal failure.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

~ Khalifa Al Reshedi Jiddah, Saudi Arabia

Doubtful Anything Could Help But Glad I Was Wrong

“Stumbled across this video searching for anything that would help. Robert knew exactly what I was going through and I ordered his program.

Fascinating material that has improved my kidneys. So grateful I found this website.”

~ Abbey Walker Perth, Australia

Learn How To Improve Your Kidney Function With The “No Dialysis Needed” All Natural Kidney Function Restoration Program!

Exactly what kidney friendly healing foods to eat and which toxic kidney destroying foods to avoid in easy to follow lists. You will be shocked at what you learn…

Find out the ‘little known secrets’ about how to heal your kidneys like …

The “must have” insurance covered tests that most medical doctors don’t know about or don’t use … results of these tests can have you on your way to more energy, better mood and better kidney health. . .

Find out the name of the delicious natural sweetener used for 20 years in Japan and Brazil to treat kidney disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. . .

Discover which cooking methods and 3 herbal teas prevent kidney cell damage and kidney disease complications. . .

Did you know blueberries have powerful healing antioxidants that reverses kidney cell damage?

The 4 healing oils to use in your cooking, and one of these powerful oils stops kidney damage from toxins. . .

The kidney restoring diet is super simple to follow. No measuring food, keeping track of nutrients, or any other annoying meal planning tasks. . .

Supplements are essential to improve your kidney health but not all supplements are created equally … The one must AVOID ingredient in MANY supplements and even in some prescription vitamins and minerals that is detrimental to your kidney health. . .

The “Core Supplement Program” … covers the exact supplements, what they are, how they improve your kidneys, dosages to use, and 100% Safe FDA approved with third party tested companies and exact products. . .

The common grocery store item which instantly strengthens your kidneys against any disease. . .

The “weird” herb which is a prescription in China that stops kidney disease right away, available over the counter in the U.S.. . .

The family of good bacteria which starts to do the WORK of the kidneys when it’s not functioning properly, this allows your kidneys to rest and recover . . .

The “caterpillar fungus” which makes a highly effective kidney healing mushroom herb used by Asian doctors. . .

The fiber that sweeps away kidney damaging toxins popular in Middle Eastern medicine for treating any kidney disease or chronic kidney disease. . .

Human studies show a special Indian herbal remedy from a flowering plant reverses kidney disease caused by diabetes. . .

The prescription kidney cell protecting supplement available over the counter which a doctor will never prescribe and find out what your doctor doesn’t know. . .

The naturally occurring human hormone that restores the kidneys “antioxidant defense system and fixes sleep problems“… which is part of the reason why you have kidney disease. . .

Kidney Disease makes your bones brittle, weak and easily break … The 3 Wonder Nutrients which have shown to play a vital role in the production of building strong bones and how regular calcium is NOT what you need to take!

Uncover how to gain control of diabetes and blood pressure which will bring your kidney disease to a grinding halt. . .

How To Read A Food Label and know what you are eating … this is your ultimate reference to understanding quantities and nutrients in food. . .

Dialysis and kidney transplants: What you can use from the All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program to live a good quality of life and how to keep your transplant kidney healthy so it can last you the rest of your life. . .

The common over the counter, prescription medications and drugs which you want to steer clear of at all cost. I guarantee you will be mad no one told you these before. . .

And many more incredible kidney health boosting methods than I can list here…

The All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program has zero filler and is fully backed by modern day scientific research. In fact, there are over 300 medical citations with majority from peer reviewed medical journals “the gold standard” in medicine and the same exact, very expensive, books they use in medical schools. . .

But first you may the wondering. . .

Are These Natural Kidney Remedies And Supplements 100% Safe?

Everything in this program is safe, natural and with good safety profiles, proven case studies and doctor recommended. Many of the products including the diet, supplements and herbs have been used safely in other countries for years and in hospitals in the United States.

If you are concerned about any of the products in the program, discuss them with your local naturopath, nutritionist or physician, or email me and I will help you make an informed decision before taking any products you are concerned about. See my contact information at the bottom of this page.

“Even Medical Doctor’s Approve It!”

“My Patient Is Doing Better Than I Could Have Imagined…”

“I’ve been impressed by how well researched and complete this program is.

This 100% all natural kidney restoration program takes into account the factors of kidney disease and gives you many options and information to help your kidneys return to their natural good health. As a medical doctor I look at the risks and benefits of all treatments and especially alternative treatments before making a recommendation, that said, this program definitely gets my thumbs up.

It presents well-researched, scientifically balanced information with diet and dozens of natural, drug-free ideas and remedies you can start using to improve the health of your kidneys today. My patient began this program and had excellent results, better than I could have imagined. Everyone with any type of Kidney Disease and chronic kidney disease(ckd) needs this program. “

Dr. John Ree – Medical Doctor (U.S.A)

I want to give you as much possible help as I can and be absolutely certain that you get every possible tool and strategy to overcome kidney disease and avoid dialysis and a transplant.

So When You Get Started TODAY, For A Limited Time I’ll Also Throw In 5 Super Bonuses …

My Kidney Health & Restoration Guide Is “Enhanced” With 5 More Customized Kidney Health & Wellness Guides!

PLUS!

MY PERSONAL EMAIL CONTACT!

I don’t just want you to slow or stop your kidney disease … I want you to improve your kidney function – quickly and with a minimum of fuss!

So for a limited time, when you order The “No Dialysis Needed” All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program, I’ll also include the 5 kidney health boosting bonuses, designed to help you quickly heal and return your kidney function to more normal levels.

Your Special Bonus # 1 is…

“The All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program Diet Plan”

You get a 14-day easy-to-follow menu plan with recipes and snacks. . . No fussing over putting together your own breakfast, lunch and dinner. . . no worries about what you’re going to eat next and simple, quick meal plans to prepare with no trips to special grocery stores.

Each day contains breakfast, lunch and dinner with 1 to 2 optional snacks. All nutritionally balanced to reduce stress on the kidneys, control mineral imbalances and maximize your healing. It also includes a section on making your own meals and how to adjust recipes to make them kidney friendly.

One of the toughest things about living with kidney disease is eating out with friends and family.

Just follow the “Tips for Eating Out Section” which covers all major restaurants where you will be able to make a kidney friendly choice enjoying your meal and the company.

Value: $39.95 yours FREE

Your Special Bonus # 2 is…

“The Definitive Guide To Potassium Content Of Foods” Over 1,000 Foods Listed

Potassium is a key nutrient needed for your heart and muscles to work properly and is regulated by your kidneys. When your kidneys are not healthy your potassium may increase to dangerous levels leading to further decline in kidney function and possibly a heart attack. .

The Definitive Guide To Potassium Content of Foods will give you the knowledge to select the right foods to make the perfect low potassium food choices to help your kidneys heal.

With over 1,000 foods listed there is no way you can’t find the potassium content of any food you want to know the potassium content of.

Value: $19.95 – Yours FREE!

Your Special Bonus # 3 is…

“The Definitive Guide To Protein Content Of Foods” Over 1,000 Foods Listed

Regulating your protein intake is crucial to improving your kidneys. This guide gives you the information to know how much protein is contained in foods educating you to make the right choices for a lifetime of better kidney health…

Protein foods contain high amounts of the mineral called phosphorus. Phosphorus is used for building bones, teeth, and is found and used by every cell in the human body. In kidney disease and chronic kidney disease(ckd) phosphorus may build up to toxic levels.

By regulating your protein consumption you can control your phosphorus from reaching dangerous levels. This takes the stress off the kidneys to maximize your kidney healing.

So, the “The Definitive Guide To Protein Content Of Foods” also controls your phosphorus levels allowing for the best kidney health you can imagine. Two very important uses out of one guide!

Value: $19.95 – Yours FREE!

Your Special Bonus # 4 is…

“The Kidney Diet Grocery Shopping List”

Sample Grocery Shopping List … as simple as printing it out and bringing it with you to the store. No need to dig through pages and take notes on what to buy. It’s all packaged into one convenient easy to follow list and it is printable so you can take it with you when you do your grocery shopping!

Value: $19.95 – Yours FREE!

Your Special Bonus # 5 is…

“The Kidney Diet Tracking Sheets”

Kidney Diet Tracking Sheets. You get diet tracking sheets you can easily print and this allows you to keep track of what you eat to help you stay on track and allows you to more easily stick to a better kidney health diet with a minimum of fuss. These Kidney Diet Tracking Sheets allow you to make a smooth easy transition to a healthier kidney diet.

Value: $19.95 – Yours FREE!

And when you order today…

For A Limited Time One Last Super Bonus!

60 Days Of Unlimited Email Support Provided After Your Purchase!

The “No Dialysis Needed” All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program offers Exclusive Personal One-On-One Counseling. You get FREE professional private email counseling, advice and guidance from a certified nutritionist, naturopath, kidney disease sufferer.

When you order the program today you get email access to a life-long medical researcher who is always just an email away. If in any time you feel confused, you can have your questions privately answered.

This advice is practically priceless.

You’ll always feel that someone is there for you…so you’re never left to deal with your kidney disease and chronic kidney disease(ckd) alone. With this free and unlimited email support you can feel good that you are always on track, you are always encouraged, and… you’ll be able to complete the program more effectively and get quicker and greater results to heal your kidneys.

I’d love to hear from you after you order the program. You’ll receive my private email with your order. I promise you’ll get an answer in 24 hours.

Value: $197 – Yours FREE!

“This Sounds Amazing, Robert, But How Much Does It Cost?”

“How much is it worth to you to have a PROVEN method at your disposal to help you truly IMPROVE your kidney health?

If you’ve suffered from Diabetes or Kidney Disease for any length of time, you already know how expensive it is and how much you are suffering right now.

Even with insurance (and insurance is covering less and less these days) you can end up paying THOUSANDS of dollars per year for blood tests, treatments and drugs that have nasty side effects and do as much harm as good.

Not to mention the cost of dialysis itself which can run up to $150,000 a year. . .

The price of the complete “No Dialysis Needed” program is extremely affordable. . .even for people on a fixed income. I made it so affordable most anyone can get it to help them reverse their kidney disease right in the comfort of their own home!

Think of the money you will save on the cost of medications once your kidneys have healed and are functioning more normally.

Save the money you would have to spend on expensive prescriptions and instead — heal your kidneys with all natural methods for pennies.

What is your current quality of your life with kidney disease?

Is it not worth living a miserable life on a machine where you die prematurely and can’t enjoy what you want or do the things you used to do.

Honestly this is the only program like this in existence so there is nothing to compare it to and this comprehensive kidney health restoration program is not available anywhere else at any price.

You get the complete, easy-to-read and understand …

“No Dialysis Needed” All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program ($297.95 Value)

Plus…

“The All Natural Kidney Health & Kidney Function Restoration Program Diet Plan” ($39.95 Value)

The Definitive Guide To Potassium Content Of Foods” ($19.95 Value)

The Definitive Guide To Protein Content Of Foods” ($19.95 Value)

“The Grocery Shopping List”

($9.95 Value)

“The Diet Tracking Sheets”

($9.95 Value)

60 Days Of Unlimited Email Support ($197 Value!)

All 6 FREE Bonuses = $296.75 Total Value!

** IMPORTANT** When you start your path of healing to reverse kidney disease and improve your kidney function, you are not doing it alone, there is support to ask any questions from the founder of this program.

You can protect and even reverse the damage to your kidneys. . . starting today.

“It’s a cold fact… “they” don’t want you to have this program…”

If you’ve read this far you already know you want and need this because your worsening kidney health is at stake here.

This is a kidney restoration program that will reverse – and even restore – yes that’s (R-E-ST-O-R-E) your kidney health with a GREAT success rate.

I’ll bet you’ll not get a peep from your doctor if you show him this or he may say to not use it because he doesn’t understand it. You’ve probably never even seen this remarkable program advertised on the health news channels either..

I ask you — why is that? When tens of thousands of kidney sufferers can be helped with this to revitalize kidney function and stop people from resorting to going under the knife for a new kidney from a dead person — a ‘cadaver’s kidney’!

I ask you.. If there ARE MORE TREATMENTS than what your medical doctor is using to test your kidney’s function… then why don’t they use them? (Because they only learn diagnoses, surgery and pharmaceutical drugs in school!)

It doesn’t make ANY sense to me, and it shouldn’t to you either.

These incredible ALL NATURAL KIDNEY RESTORATION METHODS are ALL HUSH, HUSH IN THE U.S. by the few who know about them.

Why? Well just think about it…

I’m sure the simple answer is there is more money to be made with unnatural man-made drugs which CAN BE PATENTED. . . over a diet, supplements and natural remedies and treatment which CAN’T!

I don’t know how long I can keep this website up, any day I may be pressured by some drug company attorney to pull it down. Don’t wait, you need to buy now before this kidney restoration program is closed down for good!

“To Do All You Can To Protect Your Kidney Health… You Have To Act Now…”

Now that you have read to this point in this letter it should all make sense to you now, does it? And you can’t leave this page empty handed now can you?

Just read the last couple happy consulting clients and customers who bought my kidney restoration program from this very webpage have to say about how it helped return their kidneys to more normal health!

“How Much Is Your Kidney Worth To YOU? Your Future Kidney Health Is At Stake Right NOW…”

All I ask is you try this kidney restoration program for FREE for 60 days.

Let Me Help You The Way I Wish Someone Had Helped Me All Those Years Ago…when my kidney’s first started to fail so I could have easily reversed my own kidney disease.

And… YOU CAN AVOID HAVING A 9 INCH SCAR IN YOUR ARM FROM AN UGLY AND PAINFUL FISTULA!

You CAN heal your kidneys, delay dialysis for years, even decades or even avoid it all together.

The fact that you have read this far, means you know the high value of this program.

It’s easy to make the ‘right decision’ when you know you can get proven methods to restore and even reverse your kidney disease — isn’t it?

As you consider investing in this program you might want to consider the added benefits and enhanced value the 5 incredible bonuses, a $296.75 Value. . . I have custom created just for you, to help you more quickly restore your kidney health.

When you invest in this program and follow what you read, you will get a dramatic boost in your kidney heath. You will also feel more confident since you will have the critical knowledge you need to make better informed health and diet decisions.

You can also use this information to better understand the tests and the drugs your medical doctor is using to treat you!

If you follow the program it will work to restore your kidney health.

You have nothing to lose.

Imagine how good you will feel when your next kidney tests come back more near the normal range and how much more in control of your kidney health you will be!

But. . . Please remember. . .

Big Pharma does NOT want you to have this.

In less than 2 minutes from now, you can be reading all about how to save your kidneys!

Get every thing you need to help restore your kidney health, and avoid getting diabetes and even cancer. . . Because you won’t need to suffer the problems if you can improve your kidney health.

I’m sure you don’t and I wouldn’t want to wish that horror on anyone.

I know you’re going to love how good you will be feeling soon.

I’m sure you’ll agree that $67 is a real small investment in yourself for something that could help you. . . from a life of unending dialysis misery. . . to a life of better health and wellness.

I say try it.

Follow what I believe is a serious method to restore and revitalize your kidney function quickly and easily. . . and soon you will feel marked improvement of your symptoms.

You can feel good about yourself because you are doing the ‘right thing’ to started healing your kidneys and I know you will feel better once you start reading the first book…!

I want to congratulate you on making a good decision.

Why? Because you are finally DOING something to help yourself return to good health!

Yes, I Want To Use All Natural Methods That Are Used All Over The World To Learn How To Improve My Kidney Function Using A Step-By-Step Scientifically Proven Method With NO Harmful Side Effects and $296 in FREE BONUSES!

When you click the “Add to Cart” button above you will be taken to the ClickBank secure order checkout page to buy your private copy of the complete program and get the free email consulting that comes with the proven kidney health and restoration program.

0 notes

luminaluminesce · 7 years ago

Text

This needs to fucking stop. My weight is not what you think.

I'm sick to death of being made fun of because of my weight. I'm gonna lay down the fucking facts. First of all, I never got to go out and play as a child because of the shitty neighborhood we lived in, the drugs and murders going around, and at age 4, I was diagnosed with asthma. My mum scared it into me that if I ever ran around too much, I'd end up in the hospital or maybe even die. So as I grew up and got more freedom, I never left home. Put on top of that the fact that I had no friends and was afraid to go out for fear of being bullied on a regular basis. I was bullied for being poor and having shit clothes, but mostly for my weight and I started eating less and less. To this day, I'm lucky if I eat 2 meals a day, I still struggle to feed myself on what I get and still live at home with a shit job. Anyways, I digress.

Now, I eat one meal a day, maybe two, I'm free of asthma but because I didn't go out as a kid, my lungs are weak so starting an intense workout would possibly land me in the hospital for a few days if not maybe a few weeks. But because I'm in a constant state of starvation, my body takes whatever I eat and stores it.

Here's a basic scientific fact, quoted from Ivan Nikolov;

* The body enters in the starvation mode with consequent metabolic rate slow down

* Rather significant calorie ingestion at night causes the body to store the surplus as fat

This is what's happening to me. I don't eat enough during the day, or at all and what I eat for supper is stored in my body as fat because it doesn't know when it'll be fed again.

Effects of this starvation is, AND I QUOTE:

extreme feelings of hunger

shakiness

fatigue

brain fog

headaches

feelings of weakness

inability to concentrate

binge eating

I'm starving on a daily basis, as I type my hands are shaking and multiple occasions my entire body has started shaking uncontrollably, as I type this my head is splitting and has done for a few days in a row, I'm completely exhausted most of the time and would like nothing more than to sleep for a month, at school I can't focus, and on some occasions I will binge. I will eat everything in sight because my body is saying EAT NOW BECAUSE IF YOU DONT YOU WILL DIE. I NEED CALORIES AND VITAMINS AND YOU BETTER GIVE EM TO ME.

I'm in pain, not just because I'm starving but because no one understands what it's like to go through this. It's easy for you to sit and judge when you don't know the story and you're hiding behind a screen. It's far too easy. My life has been so hard not even counting the outside problems and no one knows. Nor does anyone care because to the outside, I'm a fatass who eats too much McDonalds. Allow me to enlighten you, I can not eat McShits. I can barely eat any food. My body rejects anything I put into it so I'm sick most of the time, why would I make that worse by eating a big Mac???

I am trying to get to a somewhat normal weight, a normal size. Keep in mind too, I'm 5'10", I do a lot of heavy lifting so underneath this fat, I have quite a bit of muscle. I'm 325lbs (about 170kg for everyone else reading) but having said, I am not unhealthy. I've gone for a physical, the most recent being sometime last year, my heart is fine, my liver is working as great as a childs, compared to teens my age who binge drink and have a liver like a 50yo, my blood pressure is dead center (can't remember the specific number), everything is completely normal. And yet, I'm viewed as disgusting. Ugly. Unhealthy. Vile. Revolting. Overall a giant blob of grease.

Having said, my self confidence has dwindled, I'm hanging by a thread. I'm afraid to go to a gym, I can't even afford a membership. I'm afraid to go for a walk in public, I see people stare at me, even if they aren't, I feel their eyes. Judging. Disgusted at what I am. I've heard the horror stories of people my size walking into a gym and being laughed at. You do not laugh at someone who is trying to better themselves. Let me repeat; YOU DO NOT. LAUGH. AT SOMEONE. WHO IS TRYING. TO BETTER THEMSELVES. That behavior makes them want to quit, and it turns into an out of control downward spiral.

And when I hear that this happens in a society that wants nothing more than equality for all races, all social classes, all sexual orientations and both genders, it makes me want to curl up and die. I feel so upset, so hurt. But no one cares what the fat woman feels, she'll just eat her feelings and get fatter. Something needs to be done. It needs to stop. And I don't know how to stop it.

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robertsmorgan · 6 years ago

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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Natural Remedies That Work

We all feel tired, even exhausted, some of the time. But for some people, the exhaustion never lets up, and it comes along with physical discomfort, sleep issues, and trouble with memory and concentration. Anywhere from about 800,000 to 2.5 million Americans may have myalgic encephalomyelitis — more commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).[1]

Medical experts once told people these symptoms were “all in their head" — but they have come to accept that the suffering is real.

As one patient put it, having ME/CFS feels “like permanently having the flu, a hangover, and jet lag while being continually electrocuted"[2] — ME/CFS results in nerve pain as much as it does fatigue.

Though little understood and currently without a known cure, certain natural remedies may provide some relief from the discomfort and constant fatigue.

What Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Chronic fatigue syndrome, also called systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) as well as ME/CFS — is a serious, complex disorder of the central nervous system that affects the entire body. People with this illness feel constant, overwhelming tiredness along with other disabling symptoms that are not due to any other diagnosable medical condition.

Did you know that anywhere from 800,000 to 2.5 million Americans may have CFS?

Many people with chronic fatigue syndrome find it difficult to complete daily activities they once took for granted. It is chronic (which means long term), but symptoms may come and go and vary in severity.

People may even experience the symptoms but not realize they have chronic fatigue syndrome. According to experts, remission is possible, though it's unclear what will lead to that happy occurrence.

ME/CFS Symptoms

The symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome vary from person to person and are not visible to others. The classic sign is extreme tiredness and lack of energy. Other common symptoms include:

Sleep problems, trouble falling or staying asleep, vivid or upsetting dreams, and not feeling rested even when you get enough sleep.

Brain fog, problems with concentration, thinking, and memory.

Pain, especially in the joints (but without redness or swelling), and mild to severe headaches.

Dizziness, particularly when you sit up or stand.

Some people develop sensitivities to light, sounds, foods, or chemicals. There may also be flu-like symptoms including tender lymph nodes, frequent sore throats, night sweats or cold chills, and intestinal problems, such as irritable bowel syndrome.

These symptoms usually get worse after some form of extra exertion.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Treatments

Medical scientists have not yet uncovered a clear cause of chronic fatigue syndrome — although a few theories exist. There is currently no known cure. Treatment focuses on controlling symptoms, often through lifestyle changes and complementary and alternative medicine techniques.

Since there isn't a cure for CFS, experts recommend finding symptoms that bother you and fixing those first.

Experts recommend you identify which symptoms bother you the most and find what helps you feel better. Try a combination of things; what helps one person may not help another. Also, what helps may vary day to day, so try different approaches at different times.

Make sure your professional team has experience working with people who have chronic fatigue syndrome. Below, I list some of the top suggestions that may help deal with day-to-day symptoms.

Pace Yourself

Even a little exertion, such as cooking a meal or working an hour at the computer, can result in a bout of extreme fatigue. Identify your limits — and stop before that point. That way, you can plan for what you truly need and want to do, and not spend all your energy on unnecessary tasks.

Daily reminder: Know your limits — physically, emotionally, and mentally — and be sure to stop before that point.

Some people find it helpful to break tasks into several smaller ones and rest in between. For example, if you are folding laundry, you may first remove the clothes from the dryer, then rest, then fold two items, then rest again, and repeat until done.

Form Healthy Sleeping Habits

Good sleep habits are especially important for people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time in the morning. Create a quiet, dark, comfortable haven in your bedroom that you use only for sleep; do not use phones or computers or watch TV in this space. Also, avoid using electronics close to bedtime.

Pro tip: Create your own comfortable haven in your bedroom by reducing electronics and noise while also keeping your room dark and cool.

Eat your last meal several hours ahead of when you turn in for the night. Avoid caffeine and alcohol in the evening. If you can tolerate exercise, do it in the early part of the day to help you drift off faster at night. Together, these ideas will improve your ability to fall — and stay — asleep. For more ideas, check out our Can't Sleep? Causes and Natural Solution article.

Try Graded Exercise Therapy

Those with chronic fatigue syndrome may find that vigorous exercise makes their symptoms flare. You may experience "push-and-crash" cycles, in which you push yourself to do more on days when you feel better but soon find yourself incapacitated for a longer time. Graded exercise therapy attempts to break this cycle.

This therapy incorporates gentle stretches and exercises for just a few minutes a day!

This therapy includes a structured program of gentle moves, starting with a few minutes a day. Working with a physical therapist, you'll practice stretching or other low-impact exercises, such as tai chi or swimming, that you can handle. Then, you'll gradually increase how long you do them.

Use These Stress-Relievers

Stress-relieving techniques may help soothe your discomfort and improve your mood. Consider joining a chronic fatigue syndrome support group and also try the following:

Deep Breathing

You can engage in deep breathing exercises at any time of day, in any place, whether standing, sitting, or lying down.

Inhale slowly through your nose, making sure you breathe in from your diaphragm (belly). Hold for 16 seconds, then exhale through your mouth for about eight seconds. Repeat nine times.

Deep breathing not only helps with relaxation, but also pain and fatigue because it brings more oxygen into your lungs, brain, and muscles.

Meditation

The ancient practice of meditation may ease chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms, relieve stress, and improve focus.[3] Scientists have shown that meditation slows down your nervous system's fight-or-flight response.[4] A relaxed state is essential for repairing the body, activating the immune system, and improving digestion.

Pro tip: Start by meditating for 5-minutes per day, then slowly increase the time each week!

One of the easiest techniques to learn is mindfulness meditation: Focus on becoming aware of your breathing and thoughts, progressively relaxing all areas of your body. You can learn how to meditate through helpful online videos or this meditation guide.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Psychological counseling helps many people with chronic fatigue syndrome work through their frustration and find ways to cope with the challenges they face.

Research shows that cognitive behavioral therapy, in which a therapist helps you identify and replace negative thoughts with constructive and positive ones, can ease the depression and anxiety that co-occur with the condition.[5]

Use Pain-Relieving Techniques

When it comes to relieving the constant discomfort of chronic fatigue syndrome, I recommend trying complementary therapies that focus on treating the whole person, rather than a specific symptom. Below are a few recommendations.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medicine technique designed to balance the "life force" (called qi or chi) in all your body systems. A trained professional inserts slim, short needles into specific "acupoints" on your skin. Despite the needles, the technique is painless.

The length of each session and how many you'll need to feel better depends on your condition. Some people have achieved significant symptom relief with a chronic fatigue syndrome treatment plan centered on acupuncture.[6]

Massage

The health benefits of massage go beyond relieving tension and muscle aches. It stimulates blood flow and helps eliminate toxins from your body. Massage helps to reduce pain, depression, and anxiety in all people, but particularly those with chronic fatigue syndrome.[7]

However, some people with the condition are unable to tolerate deep-tissue and other heavy-pressure massage techniques, so opt for Swedish or other gentle forms that focus on the top layers of skin.

Nutritional Remedies for ME/CFS

Maintaining proper nutrition is as important for people with chronic fatigue syndrome as it is for everyone else, and is one of the simplest ways to help manage the condition.

Diet

Eating a well-balanced, whole-foods diet — preferably plant-based — will keep your energy up and ensure your system has optimal nourishment. Make sure to include essential fatty acids in your diet, especially omega-3, which may help reduce fatigue. These fats are found in nuts, flaxseed oil, olives, olive oil, and algae oil.

Also, avoid inflammatory foods such as sugar, simple carbohydrates, processed foods, and fried foods. Some people with chronic fatigue syndrome notice certain foods trigger symptoms, so pay attention to what you've eaten if you get a flare-up. For more ideas, check out these stress-relieving foods.

Vitamins & Supplements

There are no long-term studies that show vitamins or supplements improve chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms. But some people with the ailment have deficiencies in certain micronutrients; if you do, supplements may be able to provide what you're lacking.[8]

CoQ10

Did you know that many people with CFS have low levels of CoQ10?

You can find coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10, naturally in many foods. Your body produces it, though it declines with age. CoQ10 plays an important role in regulating your metabolism. Further, it is an antioxidant that protects cells from damage. Research has found that people with ME/CFS tend to have lower levels of CoQ10 than healthy people.[9]

While no one knows why people with ME/CFS have low CoQ10 levels, experts have not only suggested that a deficiency in CoQ10 is directly involved in the development of chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms but also that supplementation may help.[9]

Magnesium

Magnesium plays an important role as a catalyst in your body, sparking hundreds of vital biochemical reactions. What's more, many people don't get enough of it in their diet.[10]

Some research shows magnesium improves mood and promotes normal energy and body comfort levels in people with chronic fatigue syndrome.[11] You can take it as a supplement or eat foods rich in it, such as leafy greens, avocados, beans, bananas — even dark chocolate.

What Causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

So far, experts have not identified a cause of chronic fatigue syndrome — or how to prevent it. Scientists think the condition might be the combined result of more than one illness, or that if it is a single disease, two or more factors may trigger it.

Risk factors include:

Age: Chronic fatigue syndrome tends to affect people in their 40s and 50s (though anyone can get it).

Gender: Women are four times more likely to get chronic fatigue syndrome than men.

Race: White (Caucasian) people tend to get it more than people of other races.

Health history: About 10 percent of people exposed to certain infections sometimes later develop chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms. These include the Epstein-Barr, herpes 6, and Ross River viruses and a bacterial infection known as Q fever. Others develop symptoms after a bout of flu or following a stressful event, such as surgery.

Some experts think an immune system malfunction, where the body attacks its own tissues, may cause chronic fatigue syndrome. Others believe a possible cause is an abnormal number of disease-fighting proteins or cells. Alternatively, hormonal changes — an imbalance of stress hormones in the brain and body — could be the culprit. Genetics plays a role, so it can run in families.

How Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosed?

Currently, there is no test to specifically diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome. Before your healthcare professional can diagnose you, they will rule out other treatable disorders that cause similar symptoms, such as mononucleosis or other viral infection, a sleep disorder, a thyroid disorder, mental health issues, or another serious illness.

Did you know that there are no tests that can specifically diagnose CFS?

This process of elimination may require you to answer detailed questions about your symptoms and health history, as well as undergo a physical exam, blood tests, imaging tests, and other types of screening.

If your healthcare provider can find no other explanation and you have the following symptoms, they may diagnose you with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Ongoing tiredness: This type of fatigue is more severe than you had experienced before feeling ill and it prevents you from doing ordinary things, most of the time, for at least six months. The tiredness is not due to over-exertion — although over-exertion can make it worse.

Post-exertional malaise: Your symptoms flare 12 to 48 hours after you make some type of physical, mental, or emotional effort, such as a big project or holiday shopping — but it can happen from an activity that doesn't require much effort, such as folding laundry.

Non-refreshing sleep: You feel no more rested after sleeping than you did before going to bed.

At least one of the following: Trouble with concentration, thinking, or memory, and feeling dizzy when you sit up or stand.

Points to Remember

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a serious, chronic disorder of the central nervous system that affects your entire body.

The main symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome are extreme tiredness and lack of energy to the point that daily activities become challenging. Others include sleep difficulties, worsening of symptoms after physical or mental effort, cognitive problems, and dizziness when sitting or standing. Healthcare providers use these symptoms to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome but must rule out other conditions first.

Chronic fatigue syndrome has no known cure, so treatment focuses on symptom control. Lifestyle changes may help. These include pacing yourself, forming healthy sleeping habits, and using "graded exercise therapy." Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy can help ease stress and pain, as can acupuncture and gentle forms of massage. A diet rich in essential fatty acids and certain micronutrients can support your overall health.

No one is sure what causes chronic fatigue syndrome. Possibilities include an infection, immune system malfunction, hormonal changes, problems with energy in cells, and genetics.

The post Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Natural Remedies That Work appeared first on Dr. Group's Healthy Living Articles.

from Robert Morgan Blog https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/

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bashful-namjoon · 8 years ago

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of chronic pain and spoons

i saw this post by @uziregar and, idk, i can’t sleep so i guess i’m going to write a thing.

i don’t want to write the thing. it’s unpleasant to talk about, but i feel like somebody ought to, so hey—why not me?

disclaimer: i don’t know grace’s story. i am not speaking for her. i am only recounting my own experience with chronic pain, spoons (or the lack thereof), other relevant things, and why it can be so difficult—and often impossible—to allow yourself to care about anything further than the bathroom and, on a good day, the refrigerator.

click the read more thing if you wanna, you know, read more.

i have fibromyalgia. it’s a musculoskeletal disorder that directly affects a good portion of the soft tissues of the body, e.g. muscles (skeletal), ligaments, tendons, nerves, etc., and indirectly affects bones and a lot of other stupid stuff (which i will explain further on). fibromyalgia is very hard to diagnose because it is, in a very literal sense, an invisible disease in that MRIs, PET scans and virtually every test ever reveal no abnormalities, much less abnormalities that would explain the symptoms. and to make a bad thing worse, many of the symptoms closely resemble the symptoms of a host of other conditions. in the end, fibro is usually diagnosed by process of elimination. it’s not rheumatoid arthritis because the pain isn’t as contained, and it’s not lupus because lupus can be diagnosed after an amalgam of tests. it’s also not polymyalgia rheumatica, spinal stenosis, lyme disease, or reflex sympathetic dystrophy, etc., and your thyroid’s fine.

so it goes.

after years of pain that eventually interfered significantly with my daily life, countless doctor visits, and being in and out of the ER and hospital, i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when i was 13. i don’t know if i’ve ever heard of anyone being diagnosed as young as i was, but i strongly suspect i’m not the only one who went through what i did at such a young age. anyway, we suspected fibro for a long time. my sister had been diagnosed 2-3 years before that, and we knew one of my cousins on my dad’s side had it, so it seemed to run in the family. and it does. since i was diagnosed, at least five of my relatives on either side have been diagnosed with it, and now that we know what we do, we’re 99% certain my grandmother had it as well.

but i digress.

~let’s get to the Science Segment of the program~

[fibromyalgia is] a musculoskeletal disorder that directly affects a good portion of the soft tissues of the body, e.g. muscles (skeletal), ligaments, tendons, nerves, etc.

let’s start off by separating those soft tissues into two classes:

connective tissue relevant to fibromyalgia: ligaments and tendons

soft tissue not of the connective variety but relevant to fibromyalgia: muscles (skeletal) and nerves

so what do ligaments and tendons connect? ligaments join bone to bone; tendons join muscle to bone. so, to put it practically, both basically keep your skeleton from being a hilarious pile of bones on the ground surrounded by and in bodily fluids and organs and Gross Stuff.

what function do skeletal muscles and nerves perform? skeletal muscles put your rack of bones into motion. they make the body move. basically the skeletal muscles contract (i.e. shorten), which pulls on tendons, which tugs bones into motion. muscle contraction doesn’t always mean a body part moves, though. they contract to maintain your posture and position, and the muscles in your abdominal wall and pelvis contract to keep your abdominal organs where they’re supposed to be. (can’t have them falling down into your leg or something, jesus.) nerves, on the other hand, are a complex subject—one that i really don’t feel like going into because i am In Pain and can barely think. but when i talk about nerves in relation to the soft tissues of the body and fibromyalgia, i’m talking about efferent nerves. efferent nerves are essentially Conductors That Conduct™. like. imagine an actual train conductor—those are efferent nerves. they leave grand central terminal (AKA your central nervous system) via a train track (AKA motor neurons) and conduct trains (AKA signals) to their target terminal (AKA muscles and glands).

okay…but what about ligaments? like. if tendons move bones, do ligaments also have other functions besides keeping you in one piece? ligaments wear more than one hat on the job, yeah. essentially they’re stabilizers: they regulate how much joints can move and prevent joints from being dislocated by limiting how much a joint can move in any direction. but also: they’re shock absorbers and protectors. ligaments are pretty flexible: they can stretch and contract under stress, and this allows them to absorb shock and thus protect your bones when you move suddenly or lift mad weights and ish.

[fibromyalgia] indirectly affects bones and a lot of other stupid stuff

so we understand the function of ligaments, tendons, bones and nerves, and we know that the contraction of a muscle does not always result in the movement of a limb. but…that also doesn’t mean they’re just maintaining posture and position of abdominal organs. people with fibromyalgia essentially experience muscle contractions all the time. it’s called a muscle spasm. many people experience them, but muscle spasms in people with fibromylagia are unique in that they are constant, usually stay in a state of contraction, happen all over the body, and stop just short (no pun intended) of pulling a bone into motion.

so let me put that in simpler terms: muscles knot up to a frankly frightening degree, pull on tendons and tug on bones until said bones are misaligned. but also!! because bones are misaligned, ligaments are also affected. they’re constantly under stress trying to prevent your actual bones from becoming actually fully dislocated, and they really wear themselves thin trying to adapt to your body’s weird af misaligned state. and this means that ligaments can also become misaligned in a sense!!!! which is great and really hurts!!!! ligaments can pop just like bones can, actually. and also like bones, sometimes they don’t pop back into place—they just…pop and snap.

this also affects nerves. muscle inflammation is very common in people with fibro, and sometimes when muscles are inflamed and/or stuff isn’t quite where it’s supposed to be, it presses up against nerves and pinches them. which is…frankly unpleasant. super unpleasant. the whole thing.

so basically nothing is ever in alignment in a fibro-ridden body. thing is, you can’t just go to the chiropractor when you’re all jacked up. it helps for sure, but i can tell you without exaggerating that i start hurting and getting out of alignment within 5-15 minutes after being realigned. it’s unacceptable, but i can’t exactly do anything about it. i can only treat symptoms because there’s really no known cause for why all of this happens. it just…does.

literally my whole body hurts. and i mean that literally, in the most literal sense of the word literally. where there’s skin, there’s pain. and then even when you take pain out of the equation, there’s the inhibited mobility. you can’t be fully mobile when your bones don’t know how to stay in alignment and every skeletal muscle is TENSE AF and knotted up. exercise helps, but first you have to be in a place where you can move a reasonable amount. and it is very, very hard to get to that place.

anyway, we’ve talked about widespread pain. what are some other common symptoms?

fatigue

vision problems (for instance, there are some days when my eyes just can’t focus; i’ve learned that i can press the knots on/under my browbone and around my eyes and my vision will clear up some)

morning stiffness

dizziness

“fibro fog,” which is cognitive or memory impairment

depression

anxiety

muscle twitches/weakness

chronic headaches/migraines

myofascial pain syndrome, which is a chronic pain disorder in which pressure on sensitive points in your muscles (AKA trigger points) causes referred pain (pain that occurs in seemingly unrelated parts of the body)

sleep disorders/disturbances

skin sensitivity

tingling or numbness in hands and feet

sound sensitivity, light sensitivity, temperature sensitivity

and more

people with fibromyalgia also have a higher risk of having/developing the following conditions:

anemia

bruxism (teeth grinding and jaw clenching)

carpal tunnel syndrome

crohn’s disease

chronic fatigue syndrome

endometriosis in women, which is a painful disorder in which the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus grows outside your uterus

gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)

hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)

interstitial cystitis (painful bladder syndrome)

irritable bowel syndrome (especially of the severely constipated variety)

low cytokine levels

morton’s neuroma, which a painful condition affecting the balls of your feet, usually the area between your third and fourth toes and basically feels like you’re standing on a pebble in your shoe or there’s a piece of glass stuck in your foot

multiple sclerosis

osteoporis

raynaud’s disease/phenomenon, which is a disorder that causes the blood vessels—usually in the fingers and toes—to narrow when you’re cold or stressed

seasonal affective disroder

sjogren’s syndrome, which is an immune system disorder that causes dry mouth and eyes

TMJ

yeast infections

now. let’s talk about the pain scale!!!!!!

i have actually experienced a 10. i’ve been to hell and back with fibro, debillitating weeks-long migraines and life-threatening serotonin syndrome. i have experienced—many times over—the kind of pain the body should not be capable of enduring while conscious. when you feel the kind of pain i have felt, your brain is supposed to take over and start shutting some of the more expendable functions such as consciousness and movement so that your body is only doing enough to keep you alive. but most of the time my body didn’t. there were a couple of times i passed out when i was hurting so badly i had a severe panic attack, and there were other times i was delirious with the pain, but mostly i was conscious enough to be aware of my entire body with such intensity that it was frightening and otherworldly. no one should experience pain like that, and i hope no one reading this ever does. and if you have, i am so sorry.

a 4 on the pain scale is when i say i’m “not hurting,” to be honest. most days i’m at a 5 or 6. right now i’m at a 7 or 8. i currently can barely get around my small house while using a walker, and i can only go out even with my walker if i have someone to catch me if i collapse. and even then it takes sheer strength of will.

now let’s talk about spoon theory. i’ll link the original post by christine miserandino here, but for now here’s an excerpt:

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case Lupus, being in control.

when you’re sick, you have fewer spoons than you would if you were healthy, so imagine you have pneumonia or a bad case of the flu. do you feel like doing the things you normally do? (probably not—you have fewer spoons.) come to that, are you able? sometimes when you’re sick you can push yourself to do the things you normally would do—or at least to some extent—but then you pay for it later. you’re zapped of all energy. you have no appetite. you’re more irritable than usual.

that’s basically what every single day is like for a person with a chronic illness. their number of spoons is limited and therefore precious. waking up and getting out of bed costs at least one spoon. if you get something to eat, that’s another. showering costs at least one spoon, and so does getting ready.

thing is, spoon theory isn’t even limited to physical function; it includes emotional and mental capacities as well.

when my body is in a lot of pain, it affects my mental and emotional state because pain is essentially a distress signal: it’s your body alerting you that something is wrong. and when your body alerts you that something is wrong, other parts of your body—including the psyche—respond immediately because it’s wired to react to stress. and stress, if you didn’t know, depletes your body’s magnesium. in fact, adrenaline and cortisol (byproducts of the “fight or flight” reaction) are associated with decreased magnesium. furthermore, most people with chronic pain usually have a magnesium deficiency anyway, which obviously exacerbates the body’s reaction to stress. this means that people who suffer from chronic pain are on a short leash, so to speak.

i cannot tell you the times i have had to cancel, postpone or reschedule plans. i cannot tell you the times i have not gone to very important events and funerals and wakes. i cannot tell you the times i have muted all notifications for weeks on end—months, even—because my friends tend to create emotionally-charged environments and i just cannot deal with it. there are days when i am physically capable of attending some event or other but don’t go because mentally and emotionally i cannot.

the point of this whole post is to say that people with chronic illnesses have to be very strategic in how they go about their day and what they let themselves care about. it sucks, yeah. oftentimes it makes us seem like a jerk. but trust me when i say that we know our body better than you do, and we know what effects it. sometimes sacrifices must be made.

#fibromyalgia #chronic pain #chronic illness

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