Abigail's Anxieties

 What it's like to go through a costochondritis flare-up So as some of you know, as well as having an anxiety disorder and depression, I have a multitude of physical health issues, including costochondritis.  The  NHS website  gives good information about costochondritis along with another similar condition called tieze's syndrome, which doctors still can't decide if I have or not instead of costochondritis... For the past 3 years, I have been dealing with the pain that comes with the inflammation of the cartilage in my ribs and sternum (aka breast bone), with the pain being at a constant 2-3/10 at all times. And let me tell you that constant chest pain and a family history of heart issues doesn't really help my anxiety, especially when the pain was just starting and we had no blooming idea what was going on.   The reason I say doctors cannot decide which of the two conditions I have is because while I am under the age of 40, and my pain has lasted many yea...

 The best-laid plans... It is often said that the best-laid plans go awry, and in my case, it seemed that my plan for a come back to regular blogging had a little hiccup and so on the first scheduled Wednesday at 9:48pm UK time I find myself writing today's post.   But I can assure you that there is a pretty decent explanation as to why the writing is a little late. I actually had another post almost complete for you all last Thursday and was planning to have it finished Friday ready for today, but that plan definitely went very awry. On Friday 4th September 2020, I woke up with costochondritis pain yet again and prepared to have a day of taking painkillers, which trust me, got taken, to try and control it, but there was something very different about this pain, the main difference being that there was a pain in another part of my body, more specifically my lower right abdomen. This was immedietly where we (i.e. me, my mum and my dad) focused our attention to because this...

Don't worry, I'm still here! Don't worry everyone, I'm still here, I'm still alive, it's just the case that the last year of my life has been rather action-packed and some things, unfortunately, had to go on the back-burner- including Abigail's Anxieties.    In the past year, I've been finishing my BSc (Hons) Food Development and Innovation degree, helping my family care for a member of the family who's had major surgery, dealing with my fibromyalgia that has been getting worse, dealing with many costochondritis flare-ups. Oh, and dealing with the multitude of changes that have come with this global pandemic while being an "at-risk" person living with another at-risk person. So you know...not much. In all seriousness, my family is starting to get into the swing of things with our "new normal" and having some adaptions in the house now that make life easier. In terms of my fibromyalgia, well it's affected my mobility with extre...

Feeling guilty for being chronically ill... But should I be? So in case you're new to this blog, I'm chronically ill in a few ways. A full list of medical conditions is as follows: Generalised anxiety disorder (GED) Moderate depression Asthma Fibromyalgia Costochondritis And unfortunately having the mix of all of these means that there are and many things I'm unable to do, not only for myself but for others around me. For example, I would often like to be able to carry things for my mum, but because of my fibromyalgia, I can't carry much with the pain in my back, shoulders and arms. I'm always being told it's okay that I can't do things like that, but it still doesn't suppress the guilt in me, especially when I see people struggling with something. As I write this, I'm in the tail end of a fibromyalgia and costochondritis flare-up. 24 hours ago I was in such pain that I just wanted to, unfortunately, end it all. I was also bu...

Dear body, why are you working against me? Do you ever feel like something or someone is working against you? Like it/they don't want you to do well or succeed in life? And that it/they will do anything to get in your way? Well, I feel like that right now. And this thing that's getting in my way? My own body. It started when I was diagnosed as asthmatic  which affects me a lot with physical exercise e.g. walking around and extream weather such as very hot and very cold affect my breathing so I have to use my inhaler but I've had it for so long I'm used to it. Then October 2017 happened and I developed costochondritis which I still have to this day. Most cases sort themselves out in less than a year or at least improved. My case has gotten worse over the past near year and my day-to-day life is affected. I have to take multiple breaks during the day just to give my body a chance to recover. I have to use so much more energy just to get through the pa...