Healing is a Process. All Body Parts Welcome!

January 17, 2015 by JoAnna 14 Comments

Healing is a favorite topic of mine. There are so many things I could write about it. My father’s mysteriously overlooked back fracture is healing as is his spirit. I am healing, impatiently, from whatever virus caught up with me last week….

I could use both words in the prompt, heal and heel, by writing about healing my heel pain. I’ll run with that for a while.  Plantar fasciitis has been one of those chronic conditions that surfaces now and then as I  get older. My body has gotten better at giving me signals to slow down, rest more, or eat less when my pants get to tight, or in this case to get arch support.

Being such a nature “girl,” I used to love to go barefoot as much as possible. But can’t do that anymore. To prevent the plantar fascia in my foot from becoming inflamed, I have to at least wear flip flops. The pain has been in one heel or the other, thankfully not both at the same time, and flares up every few months or every couple of years. It heals when I  keep lots of support under the arch of my foot, even though the pain seems to come from the heel.

As I’ve gotten older, there are a few more of these annoying aches and pains, and it seems to take a little longer to heal, and then healing has always been a process for me.

Years ago, while in the unhealthy divorce rebound relationship, I took a course in Reiki, to see if I could heal a mysterious female ailment going on in my lady parts. Sounds mysterious doesn’t it?  Does vulvodynia mean anything to anybody? It has nothing to do with cars. It can be extremely uncomfortable and unnerving. I’m going out on a limb here, but maybe it will help somebody. You never know what’s going to come out with SoC.  Anyway, I used Reiki, along with changes in diet, but what helped most obviously was:

1. Getting out of the stressful relationship, and

2. Physical Therapy specifically designed for women

I’m not going into much detail about how the PT worked, but it has to do with the vaginal resting tension being too high. Biofeedback, along with  kegels and muscle relaxation, helped me learn how to let go of that extra tension.

I don’t believe I’m typing this.

But people need to know this stuff! Somebody was just telling me about a relative being incontinent and she had only heard of kegels for the purpose of tightening the vagina after giving birth. People need to know that kegels can also help prevent problems like incontinence by strengthening pelvic floor muscles.

Is this just a female problem? Do men have pelvic floor muscles? Could men benefit from kegels?

I just looked up whether I was spelling kegels right and found this:

http://www.webmd.com/urinary-incontinence-oab/kegel-exercises-treating-male-urinary-incontinence

So, kegels are good for men too! Who knew?

Getting back to healing, though we never really left, my ailments get better, but sometimes it’s a slow process. In the case of vulvodynia, I was holding tension in that particular part of my body, because my body knew instinctively that the relationship was bad for me. My body was trying to tell me, and finally, I listened.

Disclaimers:

1. This post is NOT meant to provide any form of medical advice.

2. This post is NOT meant to promote Web MD.

3. This post was NOT intended to include the word, vagina. It’s a Stream of Consciousness thing. I only planned to write about healing heels.

So here’s a link about plantar fasciitis from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis

This week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday Post was the word heal/heel. If you’d like to join in the fun, visit:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-1715/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!