Tag: chronic pain

Health Journey

Gotta Catch Em All…NOT NO THANK YOU

Teresa Love

As Rick’s cousin says “you need to stop collecting conditions like they are Pokemon to catch.”

This is so very true! So I have many complex chronic illnesses. I have POTS, CFS/ME, Vestibular Migraine, Small fiber neuropathy, CRPS, anxiety, depression…I wonder why?, EDS/Hyper-mobility, and which used to be the newest Pokémon I caught.

Which cause my joints shoulders, hips, neck, knees, and ankles to “go out of the socket sometimes with the least amount of movement, it hurts.

Ohh nope that’s not my newest condition. The other day I had my blood sugar tested just cause I’m in the Medi-Cal system new primary appointment. And my A1C was 8.3 so APPARENTLY I’m a diabetic now. The doctor thought maybe type 2 but that wasn’t even confirmed. So what’s Teresa’s fears? Hmm doctors, hospitals, needles….OH WAIT. Needles need to be used to test my blood. So now I have to test my blood. I haven’t got the hang of doing it myself yet causes me a lot of anxiety to do the poke but it’s only been a day.

So if I wasn’t already scared enough for listening to my body and making sure nothings an emergency. I sure am now. It’s insane how much these symptoms over lap with my other conditions.

According to ChatGPT yes I’m using this!

🔄 Symptoms high glucose and your conditions have in common

1. Exhaustion / fatigue

  • High glucose: cells aren’t using sugar properly → low usable energy
  • POTS/CFS-type issues: poor circulation + autonomic dysfunction
    👉 Feels like: “hit a wall,” heavy, drained

2. Dizziness / lightheadedness

  • High glucose: dehydration + electrolyte imbalance
  • POTS: blood pooling, heart rate changes
    👉 Can feel almost identical

3. Nausea / stomach upset

  • High glucose: slows digestion and irritates the gut
  • Your conditions: autonomic dysfunction can also affect digestion
    👉 Nausea, bloating, or even diarrhea

4. Headaches / migraines

  • High glucose: inflammation + fluid shifts
  • You already asked about migraines → big overlap
    👉 Can trigger or worsen headaches

5. Brain fog / confusion

  • High glucose: affects how your brain uses energy
  • Your baseline: fatigue + meds can already cause fog
    👉 Hard to tell apart sometimes

6. Rapid heart rate / “off” feeling

  • High glucose: dehydration → heart works harder
  • POTS: heart rate spikes with position changes
    👉 Feels like your system is “out of whack”

7. Weakness / shaky feeling

  • High glucose swings (especially if dropping from high):
    👉 can feel like a crash, even if not true low blood sugar

🚨 The tricky part

Because there’s so much overlap, it’s easy to assume:

“This is just my normal condition acting up”

…but sometimes it’s actually:

blood sugar being too high

So now I’m like how many times when I was so nauseous in bed was it POTS or high blood sugar?

It kinda feels like what do I believe. Okay I blackout from POTS. Yes that true. And I have eye issues with vestibular migraine. And I’m obviously exhausted with chronic fatigue but also that can be diabetes.

My niece has type 1 diabetes she’s only 5 years old. But now it’s all she knows. I think if she can do it I can do it. But she doesn’t have the over thinking side of it. The trying to stay away from sugar and it causes more depression, the fear of needles, ALL the other conditions I have.

Lately well for a while now, I’ve been using to use something to be able to sit up or go to something like out to dinner with hubby. I would need alcohol or soda. But now either are options!??? Am I going back to those 5 years where I could barely leave the house cause I couldn’t be upright for long enough to do anything!?

NO, I refuse to go back to those times.

Now that I’ve gotten a lot of emotions out let’s do what Teresa does best find the positives.

My dad texted this “I have been praying hard for you and maybe this latest challenge is an insight towards healing? Maybe the sensor needed to collect data needed to move the needle in the right direction and it will fix something. I still have hope.”

My mom texted

There is HOPE cause there’s one stationary belief that I have and that’s having God fight these battles with me.

I hear this song Battle Belongs.

“When all I see is the battle, You see my victory
When all I see is the mountain, You see a mountain moved
And as I walk through the shadow, Your love surrounds me
There’s nothing to fear now for I am safe with You

So when I fight, I’ll fight on my knees
With my hands lifted high
Oh God, the battle belongs to You
And every fear I lay at Your feet
I’ll sing through the night
Oh God, the battle belongs to You”

One thing I noticed today was sometimes diabetes awareness has a butterfly and a butterfly 🦋 has always been my own sign of HOPE.

So for now let’s take deep breaths, keep praying and hoping.

Love, T

Health Journey

On June 26th A Year

Teresa Love

Today marks a year.

A year of being sick.

A year of feeling alone.

A year of people not understanding what I’m going through.

A year of willing and wishing to get better and each day it stays the same.

A year of prayer to get better and for something good to come out of it.

A year of tears and crying sessions.

A year of planning things and then having to cancel because I am still sick.

A year of having to stop going to church.

It’s been a whole year. I am not normally a person who remembers dates but I do have a few in my life that really stick out. Christmas: December 25th, My birthday: October 21st, My cancer diagnosis day: October 18th, and the day my episode started last year: June 26th.

This day, June 26th, has been on my mind for a while now. I kept putting goals in place. Last July I was thinking, “I will totally be better by my birthday in October.” Then I wasn’t. Christmas is in 2 months, “I have to be better by then.” Again it didn’t happen. These “goals” made me feel like a failure, like I couldn’t “make myself better.” Like my faith wasn’t strong enough to get me through this difficult time. “I can’t be sick for another month this is crazy,” I kept telling myself. I was almost in a dazed state of confusion that this was still happening.

Then my episode hit the 6 month mark and I was so ready for it to be over. By this time I had been away from church for 6 months, hadn’t been able to leave the house much, finished all the Netflix shows I could think of, and was just ready to “start my life again.” Start my life again? That implies that I stopped living when I got sick. I “died.”

But I DIDN’T die, I am still here. I am still breathing.

Sure, my life looks very different than it used to. But I can use my mind in anyway I want and I CHOOSE to make my own decisions. If I want to be artistic, I can. If I want to text my friends, I can. If I want to tell my mom a long, step by step story of exactly what happened in the show I am currently watching, I can. The bottom line is I can’t control what gets thrown at me but I can control the outcome. If I am too tired to do something one day then I can choose to do it  another day.

It’s all about decisions. As much as we think our days are all mapped out, I am here to say they are not. Even someone who works everyday doesn’t know if something will happen and they can’t go to work that next day. We never know.

That’s why for my life I choose to live in the PRESENT. I base my decisions on the now, and not push and hope looking at the future because in all honesty I don’t have that luxury right now.

Live in the Present.

Health Journey

Emotions

Teresa Love

It’s crazy how much your emotions can effect your physical health. Like if you are worrying about going somewhere, your body can make something wrong to the point where you don’t have to go anymore. Even if someone is worried that they’re pregnant the stress of that can stop their period. When someone has anxiety it can create more symptoms from the worrying. It’s crazy!

For me emotions affect me so strongly. If I have a really negative day where I am just crying and really upset about being so sick then my body can feel so sick and heavy like I can’t even get out of my recliner all day. But when I force myself to get up and go outside it slowly helps. Like the other day I was so upset, I was even being rude to my mom and all she does is help me. I decided I didn’t want my day to be ruined so I went outside sat down in the sun, played worship music, and just breathed in the calmness of nature. I was able to stay out there for a few minutes before I started to burn (pale skin).

Just that little motion of changing my surroundings, shutting my mind off besides talking to God, and just really focusing on all the beautiful things around me. I listened to the mourning doves cooing. Felt the warm breeze hug me tightly. Saw all the vibrant colors, I felt like I was seeing the world for the first time in a while. Like in Twilight when Bella becomes a vampire, how ever single detail and all the vivid colors she sees.

Emotions are strong. Even stronger than logic sometimes. But nothing or no one is stronger than the Almighty Father. We are in His gorgeous creation.

I think sometimes we focus on all of our own problems and what’s going wrong, we forget to “stop and smell the roses.” If you can find one little super small thing that is positive in your day and focus on that you will be surprised on what the outcome could be.