Living with fibromyalgia

If you are reading this on a computer screen, chances are that you would have clicked your mouse at least a couple of times to navigate through this content. And in most cases, the finger used to click would be your index finger. Now imagine doing this repetitive movement every few minutes, day after day, year after year and you can easily infer that your fingers are at an increased risk of repetitive stress injury (or RSI) due to mouse overuse. The common name given to this painful condition is  Mouse Finger .  The 'Finger' in Mouse Finger usually leads a person to believe that the pain is restricted to the fingers alone.  However, from what I have surmised after reviewing anecdotal evidence and medical literature, it commonly presents as a cluster of symptoms in the finger, wrist and the forearm. Perhaps that explains why there are no easily available research studies pertaining to Mouse Finger alone. Most of the research studies consider these symptoms as a part of

I know your time is important. So let's get right to the main points first and save the details for later. Here is what you need to know about disability insurance in the US. Disability Happens More Often Than You Think According to the United States Census Bureau, nearly 1 in 5 people are disabled . This does not include invisible disabilities which are estimated to be 10% . And then there are temporary disabilities that can prevent you from working for several months to a few years at a time. With these figures, as a conservative estimate, there is a 33% chance that you will be requiring disability insurance at some point in your life . It Happens to Women More Often Than Men According to the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention,  24.4% women report on disability as compared to 19.8% men. Employer Paid Disability, More Often Than Not, Does Not Help in Times of Need  Employer paid disability is governed by ERISA law. According to this arti

In this Dragon NaturallySpeaking tutorial , I show how you can use scripting to automate your routine tasks and can significantly improve your productivity . For the purposes of the demo, I have used the task of adding a contact to your address book in Microsoft Outlook as an example. As in prior tutorials, I have used stop scrolling start scrolling down 2017 (a third party tool built on top of Dragon NaturallySpeaking) along with the Dragon naturally speaking premium version 13 on Windows 7 in the demo. The YouTube video is provided below. The main command that I use is KnowBrainer's " New Mouse Command ". This command records the position of the mouse for that particular application. So when I say " New Mouse Command Convert Sender to Contact ", KnowBrainer/Dragon Naturally Speaking will create a macro called " Convert Sender to Contact " where it will record the position of the mouse for the application Microsoft Outlook. When I

As a patient with chronic pain , I have to try out different painkillers and antidepressants to manage my pain. Most of these medications, especially the antidepressants, have side effects that include increased dependence and, therefore, can cause withdrawal symptoms . Depending on the duration and the dosage of the medication, these symptoms can range from a mere inconvenience to brutal and long-lasting  health problems. I myself faced tremendous difficulty while trying to wean myself off an antidepressant called amitriptyline . Like many of its counterparts, amitryptiline also has drowsiness as one of its side effects. Consequently, insomnia as a result of withdrawal from amitriptyline was a major problem for me. From a high of 75 mg, I was able to reduce the dosage to 25 mg at the rate of 5- 10  mg every fortnight without much trouble. However,  reducing dosage from 25 mg onwards was a nightmare - no pun intended. I started experiencing disturbing vivid dreams that made

Magnesium in its various forms has been considered an effective remedy for constipation. Natural Vitality's Natural Calm is a variant of Magnesium Citrate that I have been using now for more than 10 years to deal with chronic constipation. Possible Causes of Constipation Most of the information on the web talks about constipation being caused due to lifestyle problems like bad diet and lack of exercise. Accordingly, the treatments that are suggested are: - Include more fibre, - Drink more water, - Increase the level of exercise. However, constipation can also be caused due to Functional Disorders . For example, people can experience constipation due to Pelvic Floor Dysfunction ( Anismus )   Slow Transit or IBS . Constipation is also a common side effect of medications for a variety of medical conditions. For example, for Fibromyalgia patients , painkillers like ( Tramadol, Vicodin, Methadone, Morphine, Fentanyl et cetera) and antidepressants

Shoulder Tendinitis is a common cause of shoulder pain. A more accurate term for it is Rotator Cuff Tendinitis . It means that one or more of tendons that make up the rotator cuff are inflamed. In my experience, even though this is not a serious injury, it is often debilitating and takes a long time to heal. I have had three recurring episodes of shoulder tendinitis in the last one year. I tried a variety of treatments but in the end, Kinesiology Tape  along with frequent icing proved to be the most effective approach. Article continues after the ad Here is an account of my experience. The initial symptoms I developed shoulder tendinitis for the first time in my life due to shoulder pull ups . I was doing the pull ups as a part of a physiotherapy regimen to help me become functional after multiple years of disabling neck pain. Since I was also suffering from chronic abdominal pain, I was unable to lift any weights. So in order to rebuild the up

It was messy, but it is finally done and over with! On December 22, 2017 the tax reform bill , or 'a giant tax cut ' as President Trump calls it, has finally been passed by both houses and has been signed into a law. It is not immediately obvious how the tax plan impacts patients with chronic illnesses. Views in the media are often tainted by the political prism through which the commentators tend to look at this issue. Plus there is limited discussion of the specific provisions that can affect patients with chronic illnesses. In this post, I am outlining some of the major provisions of the final bill that may affect chronically ill patients. Bear in mind that I am not a professional in accounting and taxation . However, I seem to have had more than my fair share of tax problems and as a result, I have become overfamiliar with the IRS website and publications. Article continues after the ad To make it easier to wrap our brains around this complex piece