Only a few have the up close, personal view of how I do daily life. “If I do this, I probably won’t be able to do that…” is a regular conversation I have with my family and myself. Somedays, I can do everything right and still get it all wrong. Pain and energy exchanges are […]
I have a long and storied relationship with chronic pain. Like many millions of sufferers of lower back pain one tends to self diagnose without much luck. This is because the cause for lower back pain is different for one sufferer to another, it's highly complicated. I first experienced back spasms when I was 17 […]
In December 2017 I was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer for the first time. I didn’t know what “having cancer” would entail and I never expected the level of pain that it would cause me both physically and emotionally. Although I managed to find myself in remission from the cancer itself, it left me with a […]
My name is Claire and I live in London, the UK. I live with fibromyalgia, Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, chronic migraine, interstitial cystitis and mast cell activation syndrome, as conditions that cause me chronic pain. Chronic pain has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, back to when I was […]
From the age of seven years old travelling on a public bus, returning from a day in year two at primary school I experienced my first migraine. At that age, no one had any idea what was going on, but it is only 35 years later that I have begun to understand that this was […]
Chronic pain is so unpredictable! Most days my chronic pain is stable and the level of pain averages around a 5-6. The 10-point scale gives us a fallible method to discuss how bad our pain is at any given time. The last two days have been rough. My pain levels in the morning are at […]
During my childhood, I was selected by a leading British ballet company to train intensively in classical dance. For five years my tiny body faced the rigorous demands of elite training, and my love of the movement made me welcome the burning pain that seared into my limbs after a day’s hard work.I had no […]
Due to a birth injury I have (very mild) spastic cerebral palsy. As a child this didn’t affect me much. I had weekly physiotherapy at the children’s hospital and a surgery when I was 12 to alleviate symptoms. I have had a lifetime of dealing with chronic pain. It wasn’t until my third pregnancy in […]
Some would say I do not have much of a life. That it is small. Limited. I have fibromyalgia, chronic daily migraine with aura, and chronic dizziness and vertigo. Among the other random comorbids. It is true that I cannot function for much of the day. That my energy is limited severely. However, how I […]
I started life as a dancer. From the age of four my life was a constant round of ballet, jazz, tap and contemporary classes. I was lucky enough to go on and become a professional dancer - travelling the world on various contracts. For me, being strong meant the technique, the stamina, the ability to […]
