Episode 7: How do you know you are winning (at fibromyalgia)?

Welcome to Episode 7 of the (best ever) Winning at Fibromyalgia Podcast!!!   I am Dr. Martina Ziegenbein, a Rheumatologist and your Fibromyalgia expert and guide, bringing you news and all the things Fibromyalgia.   Timur and I spent some time with good friends in Boston and It was cold! I guess it is time for me to accept Cape Cod gets winter weather!   In the last episode, I talked about the 5 steps of my Winning at Fibromyalgia method. Today, I am talking about how do you know that you are winning, actually?   Your first response might be – well, I have no pain or less pain – and that is nice but it is only PART of having made good progress. What?? Yes, you heard me right. There are other “markers” or signs that tell you that you are succeeding with your efforts in setting yourself free from fibromyalgia forever. Here they are:   You now have the knowledge of what neuroplastic pain is. Listen my friends, knowledge truly is power. It is not just a saying. Having knowledge is empowering and studies have shown that this fact alone can make some people feel better.   For the sake of rehearsal, I will summarize it here again. Neuroplastic pain is a result of misfiring neuronsthat are mis-interpreting signals from the body as dangerous and are putting the brain at alert mode/danger mode which in turn activates the pain (and other symptoms such as headache, IBS etc). The pain is a message from the brain that it is not feeling safe. Sometimes the reasons are obvious, sometimes less, but understanding that it is the danger signal that sets the pain off gives you a roadmap for investigation and curiousity. The brain has learned pain subconsciously, without you giving permission, and now the pain neurons are “wired”. The great news is that this pain can be RE-WIRED or UNLEARNED. And THAT part, my friends, is the good news and makes all the difference – that the pain can be UNLEARNED and pain pathways REWIRED!   As a result of having all this knowledge, You also understand that the road from pain to zero or very little pain is for the brain to receive messages of safety.   Consistently, every day. Imagine brain is Like a little child that is scared. It needs to be soothed and reassured. You achieve that, as we discussed, with somatic tracking or meditation or relaxation response and sending reassuring messages to the brain. Your brain literally learns how to feel safe and how good it feels to feel safe. It responds. I promise you, it does.   You feel HOPE.   You no longer feel that the pain must consume and dominate your life.  You know you can get better, and you believe you will. The hope changes at some point to having certainty, the feeling of inevitability, that your pain gets better.   I want to share my own breakthrough moment I recently had when I was doing a somatic tracking on myself. My upper back pain, that can be severe and annoying, just simply went away after I recognized the emotion I was feeling (I felt a lot of anxiety about an important meeting I had at work). It was glorious. It came back, but the moment made me realize I can and will get better.   The reason it was glorious is twosome – I felt better/the pain got better (yay)! But perhaps more importantly, I knew I DID it, and that means I can do it AGAIN. I can bring on that feeling myself.     You welcome all your emotions. This does not mean that all emotions are pleasant. NOT AT ALL. Quite the opposite. But you are able to RECOGNIZE the emotion now, ALLOW yourself to FEEL it, and then soothe yourself/reassure yourself – by self-compassion or self-love or just by breathing.   I had a beautiful experience yesterday in my office. A patient came in, really upset about her knee pain. It was clear to me there was a lot of anxiety surrounding this pain. I was able to guide the patient through somatic tracking and then have the patient recognize she was feeling anxious, in her chest, and through the calm breathing and reassuring messages she was able to make it go away during our session. We were able to identify what is behind the anxiety (in her case, she lives alone and is concerned about not being able to get help should something happen to her).   You are not afraid of your pain anymore. When it comes back or gets worse, you are able to say (even aloud): “Oh, ok, brain, I see what you are doing, you are sending me a message again. But it will be ok. It is just pain. I will be ok.   Now I have to say – this one I wish was easier. My back pain keeps coming back during driving – and I think I stress a bit especially on highways when I drive fast. I try to reassure my brain but it does not seem to respond very well.     That’s it for tonight my friends. Connect with me via facebook or on my website: https://www.martinaziegenbeinmdcoaching.com