Mindfulness Meditation when Lyme Pain Strikes

Mindfulness is a buzz word that a lot of people talk about.  Our bodies speak through sensation.  Lyme pain speaks of inflammation and infection.  Add Mindfulness Meditation to your pain management tool box to help.

Pain is a hog and isolates your from your body.  Even a burned thumb grabs your attention.  All your other body parts are working fine and all you can think about is the heat and ache.   Lyme pain makes a burned thumb look like a walk in the park.  Lyme pain is much more severe and it crops up in unexpected places and weird time. Mindfulness meditation became a go to tool quick.

During my most painful times with Lyme the sensation was incredibly intense and consuming. It made the simplest things like  pushing a shopping cart or driving a car impossible.  A constant companion for several years pain was all there was. It felt never ending and slowed down time.  Seemingly never ending pain shuts out the light and I started to loose myself.

Early On Lyme Pain

Before my diagnosis I would feel pain in my knees or hips.  I had a pretty narrow focus and didn’t see the episodes of pain as an indication of a larger problem. So, I took mega doses of NSAIDS and other pain killers.  The side effects of the drugs hurt my digestion. That had to stop. Prescription pain killers are not an option for me now and mindfulness helps me shift.

Then the pain got a lot worse and in more places.  I couldn’t pretend that there wasn’t a problem.  I had to own my problem and bring everything to bear to help me get control of my pain and my health.  An eye operation and required me to keep my still at a fixed angle twenty three out of twenty fours of the day.

The urge to move and relieve the pain in my neck was overwhelming at times.  Meditation and mindfulness were a refuge and a friend.  I could focus and get out of my own way when things got really tough.  I spend most of my waking hours in mediation for several months.  The operation was a success and years later I still test 20/20 on vision tests.  I so appreciate mindfulness it saved my sight and my sanity during the recovery process.

Natural Tools for Pain Relief

I use ice, or heat, herbs and homeopathic treatments in combination with a low inflammation diet and mindfulness techniques  to stay ahead of inflammation and discomfort.  I reach into my tool box and get out what makes sense for a situation.  If a joint aches from overuse, I use rest, ice, compression and elevation.  My diet is full of turmeric, and ginger to help me knock down inflammation on an ongoing basis.

Mindfulness an Analgesic for Pain

“Find a place inside where there is joy and the joy will burn out the pain.”  Joseph Campbell

Mindfulness meditation puts us in touch with our spirit, our inner joy.  If pain arises, Breathe with ease.  Remember you are more than this moment or sensation. This can take a few rounds of breath.  Align with the present.  Then turn inward and mentally scan your body.  Find a pain free bit of body and shift focus to that area. Flood that area with light and awareness. Connect with the joy of being embodied. Continue to move awareness into more parts of you that feel good.  Mindfulness plays with time, on the inside things slow down and time expands.  Each moment stretches.  On the outside time flies by.  Can mindfulness help you manage Lyme pain?   You won’t know until you try.  Find a class on line or locally to learn and bring mindfulness into your pain care tool box. I used a CD then took a class.

I try to remember I am more than any pain and take joy in each moment and in each breath.

“As long as you are breathing there is more right with you than wrong with you.”  Jon Kabat Zinn

Everything flows, ebbs and changes.  Pain does too.  Mindfulness supports letting go of past pain and moving through present pain with grace.  As I have healed the intensity and frequency of my body pain has gone way down.  I hope yours does too.