Written in our tissue

Breathe.

That is the only "homework" I got to do. My physiotherapist, who has treated me for a few years, said that he doesn't want to see me anymore. It was just a joke, of course, he is also a friend, but on a serious note, he said it because my shoulders and neck are fine now and I don't have to go back for further treatments. I went to his clinic just twice in the last two weeks and it already made a big difference.

The tendons and muscles are no longer stiff and the pain I feel constantly is in a different layer that I suppose comes with age and with the posture when sitting. The solution to this discomfort in the neck and shoulders is a physical activity like pilates, which I will start in January (fingers crossed that the group is formed and we start).

Two weeks ago he did most of the stuff, like finding the spots where to introduce a needle and some electrical currents to my arm 😆. That was indeed funny as my arm was moving without my will. Chinese medicine is his great ally; that is why many times we apply acupuncture in the treatments. I also got some needles in my left ear and he freed the stiff channels through which the nerves roll along the entire arm by pressing on certain points in the area around my shoulder. Interestingly, sometimes my arms hurt (around the wrist and elbow) but the cause of the discomfort doesn't come from there. Unless there is a direct injury to that place, the problem usually comes from the area around the spine. If a nerve is pinched in that area, our arms react sending us signals we can feel (pain).

Because of his holistic approach to relieving pain in our bodies, he always asks a lot of questions. How I am coping with life, are there stressful situations, or what about my migraines? He believes the neck pain can also affect my headaches.

About migraines, I could write a lot, actually about the things I have done or tried to ease them. From conventional medicine to the alternative one, but in the end the majority of the things I have tried serve to relieve the pain. The best would be to find the reason why they appear. The origin of my migraines, if we can label this condition as a migraine at all is hard for me to find.

Just to mention them, I have tried homoeopathy, acupuncture, avoiding sugar and coffee for a few months, CBD, reiki, many different painkillers and shots for migraines when nothing else helps. I was also advised by my doctor to take antidepressants and try botox injections in certain parts of the forehead, but these two things I refused to take. I have been thinking recently about the possibility of daith piercing as it helped many to get better or even make migraines disappear completely. But it doesn't affect everyone in the same way. It could happen that it doesn't work for me. The trick is to find the origin and the triggers.

Diet and different circumstances can be a trigger for a migraine episode, hormonal changes each month and also our emotional state. He asked me when was the first time I remembered an episode that could be labelled as a migraine. I remembered one when I was 17 or 18, but again he asked me if this had happened even before and what my childhood was like.

Like watching a movie backwards, the memories went back for a few years and stopped at a particular moment when I was having an episode of a strong, burning headache caused by crying and not being able to breathe. It was a breakdown (and I can't share the reasons). In the moment I shared this memory with him my body reacted with hyperventilation and tears. I calmed down after a few moments as he held my hands and told me to breathe slowly and deeply. It's strange and interesting at the same time how our body reacts to memories, emotions, smells or anything that was so deeply hidden for years.

There are moments that we already close, store and hide, but they seem to live in our unconscious. According to him, every stress, trauma, crisis, good or bad situation we have been through is written in our tissue. It doesn't matter if we don't think about them or store them, they are part of our existence. Now it may seem terrible, right? But it is not. We can learn to control the reaction we have to them, and one of the things that helps us is breathing. Conscious breathing.

Well, I digress from the topic I started with, this is not even about the physical therapy I received on my neck, nor one step closer to finding the answer to why and when my migraines appear. But something interesting to think about is the experiences that we have lived but that were stored in the backpacks that we carry throughout our lives. The stronger our mind and body are, the easier it will be to carry the backpack.