How My Daughter Became a Motivational Speaker

"Last week, I got a phone call out of the blue from my old principal. He called, saying that the superintendent of our school district specifically asked for me, because he wanted me to come speak at the teacher assembly. He thought my graduation speech was by far the best of all the ones he saw this last June, and he in-fact he said that my speech was his "favorite speech ever!"...

Link: "How I Became a Motivational Speaker"

Phase 1-Physical Therapy: Patients with Lyme Disease, ME/CFS and/or POTS

Physical Therapy- Phase 1 

Check Vital Signs

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease - Chronic Fatigue Immune DeficiencySyndrome

Fatigue is one of the most common reasons people seek consultation with health care providers. 

Recently the Institute of Medicine released a report suggesting that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)  and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) be reclassified as Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID).  This has raised many questions and concerns about the new classification being too broad, as pointed out here. There is no known single etiology for ME/CFS, but current research coming out of the Stanford ME/CFS Initiative is pointing towards immune system disruption. Because of this I actually prefer the term Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS). Honestly, at this point, I don't really care what they call it, as long as it is recognized by the Medical/Scientific Community and we start looking for a cure.

Thoughts on Living With a Disability

Other than the few weeks following my C-section, I've never been disabled. My perspective on disability comes from my best friend becoming a paraplegic when we were in High School, living with a child with a chronic illness, providing physical therapy to many patients with varied diagnoses, and one special lady that changed my perspective on life many years ago. 

Over the years, I've treated 1000's of patients, and one thing seems to stand out in those who do better-It's a sense of optimism. One of the biggest frustrations with Chronic Fatigue, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Fibromyalgia is not knowing the cause. I do believe we are on the verge of discovering biomarkers for these illnesses, but currently there is no definitive blood test or imaging technique to tell us the cause of your illness. Many CFS/ME patients go years without help but it's important never to give up hope. This feeling, that things will get better, seems to be the driving force in so many of my patients. 

10 Tips for Managing Chronic Pain at Home

10 Tips for Managing Chronic Pain at Home: 

(Advice from a Physical Therapist and Mother of Child with Lyme, ME/CFS & POTS)

Defining Pain
Most Chronic pain suffers hate rating their pain, but health care providers need to know. Sometimes we refer to the "Pain Assessment" as the 5th Vital Sign (after Temperature, Pulse, Respiratory rate, and Blood pressure). When we're treating you for pain, your rating is the only way we can gage whether a patient is making progress or not. It's more difficult when trying to quantify how much pain a child is in. I find the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) works better than telling someone to "rate your pain on a scale of 0-10."