Managing Chronic Health & Chronic Illness:
Some helpful tips & strategies to manage chronic health, relapses & the hard days.
Managing chronic health, chronic illness and relapses can be tough, but here are some helpful coping strategies.
Living with s chronic illness, disease or even autoimmune disease such as MS ,Lupus or even Hashimotos disease can be hard. It can sometimes feel like a full time job just trying to manage to stay healthy, manage symptoms & doing all the things to prevent relapses. But when a relapse hits, it can sometimes rock you to your core and feel debilitating, leading you into a spiral. So here are a few friendly reminders for those relapse days, those hard days, the days when you feel completely alone & for those days where you feel like you are losing hope:
Understand relapse days may look a little different than other days: it's important that when a relapse hits, we prioritize what our body needs, which is often rest. We NEED rest in order to get through the relapse. Your body needs rest to be able to work through the symptoms and recover.
Pain management: when dealing with diseases such as MS or even Lupus flare ups, our bodies can hurt a lot. It's important we pay attention to what our body is feeling and it's important to manage pain symptoms. If we can manage the pain symptoms, it will help provide a bit of comfort and when we are not feeling pain and discomfort, then our body can start to relax a bit which is also important in trying to manage a flare up.
Practice self care & comforting rituals: having some activities that you enjoy and bring you comfort and will help make the tough days a little bit easier. These self care things can help take the "edge" off of things & ground us when we are feeling like things are out of our control. It is sometimes helpful to have a list of these things beforehand so that you know what your "go to's" are when a relapse hits you out of nowhere.
Low impact body movement: practicing moving your body with low impact things such as simple stretching, a few yoga poses or even getting a few steps such as walking, can sometimes help to decrease the pain. Some days it may feel painful to move our body, but by practicing small movements, it can help prevent our body from stiffening up. Sometimes you can even practice some stretching in the shower to help loosen things up as water therapy can be wonderful for those flare up days.
Surround yourself with support; having a good support system is important on the hard days and the days of relapse. By surrounding yourself with others, it can help to feel less alone. When we can voice our struggles, fears and frustrations to others, and when we are head and validated in our struggles, we don't feel so alone. Having support is an important part of our healthcare journey. It can also be helpful to find others who are experiencing similar struggles whether it's a support group or just connecting with others in some way. By voicing things out loud or connecting with others who are experiencing similar struggles, it feels less scary and normalizes our experiences and we feel less alone.
Celebrate the small wins: because there are a lot of highs & lows & definitely some rough days. It's important that we acknowledge the small wins too! They make it a little bit easier to keep fighting this every day even on the tough days because fighting a chronic illness every single day is hard work.
Find your therapy: finding the things that provide you with comfort & care including counselling, is an important part of keeping yourself healthy; mind and body. It is important to maintain overall wellbeing and is an important tool as you navigate your healthcare journey. It's also important to have supports and people that you can talk to & provide support because let's face it, not all family & friends are good supports & many often don't truly understand unless they experience it themselves. Find your supports & find the people who are always "rooting" for you and will offer that gentle & soft place to land especially on the days that are a real struggle.
One important thing to remember is that you are MORE than just your illness & your symptoms & you are not your illness. You MATTER and all of your experiences, struggles & feelings ARE VALID. It takes a lot of strength, resiliency & hard to work to fight every single day a silent illness, disease or autoimmune disorder or any chronic health condition. Be proud of the steps you have made & remember that you are not alone in this journey and in this fight.
If you are struggling with a health matter, a chronic illness, chronic disease or are needing support in navigating your health journey, contact Mallery@serenityandsoulealing for support & more info on resources available.
