Our bodies can heal us
Yes, I am still alive. I haven't been posting here as much lately, obviously, and I thought it was about time I did.
Progress seems to have slowed a bit. I'm not taking that as a sign of anything other than I am obviously getting closer and closer to a final state for what I can expect my penis to look like. Recall from my earlier post 'Healing BXO is like cleaning a house' how you notice large progress early, then when you think you're healed, you look closer and realise how far you've got to go. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. I don't think it's quite fair to say progress is logarithmic, but it definitely slows down, the further you get through this thing.
I decided a little while back that I would deliberately keep my posting schedule back to at most once a month, perhaps even less. It's now just too hard to see any real change over any shorter timeframe. Don't get me wrong, things are still only heading in the right direction, but there's certainly no point to me wasting hours obsessing over it and killing neck muscles every day, or even every week, hoping to see change. It will be happening, and if I had a microscope, reliable lighting, and a predictable history (of activity leading up to it), I could probably see the change happening. But the issue is, I don't. I was thinking about doing a weekly time-lapse photo, but I'm not sure how long I'd need to shoot for before you see any change.
I wanted to take today's post into a slightly different direction from what I have in the past. As you will no doubt have seen from this blog, I have tried a LOT of things to help heal my BXO. Some worked, some didn't seem to, some worked initially then irritated me later. The one constant that I never compromised on is that I absolutely do not allow my glans or foreskin to get urine on them for any prolonged period ever. I do think some of the treatments I used did help things along, but after my recent run-in with Creme Complete, I'm not quite so sure. When that happened, I saw peeling and I thought it was accelerated progress, but it actually turned out to be an irritation. Until then, my theory of 'peeling equals healing' had held true, but this forced me to re-evaluate. I do still believe healing requires peeling, but I now think not all peeling comes from a good place. In other words, the only consistent statement I can deduce is "if you are not peeling, you aren't making progress".
If you recall, I made some slightly critical comments at some posts I read where people (women in particular) attributed the cause of their Lichen Sclerosus to living in an abusive relationship, or to sexual abuse at a young age. I later went on to admit that I do believe there is a link between stress and BXO, and between fatigue and BXO. If you have the time, I recommend you give this video a watch. I now think differently.
Dr Rankin talks about how we do indeed possess the capacity to heal ourselves. Not only do we do this when we recover from colds and flu, but we do it when placebos cause positive results during drug trials. Why? She discusses some of the reasons why this may be.
Recall I used the phrase "The Body can beat BXO" as a title for one of my posts. I said that because I was frustrated with western medicine's view that BXO was something you had for life, and the best you could hope for was to 'manage your condition' with potent topical steroids. But perhaps I was actually doing everything I needed just by convincing myself my body could beat BXO?
Think about this one - how many times have you seen it mentioned that BXO/LS is an autoimmune disease? So, the body has the ability to destroy itself as a result of factors we aren't sure of, it stands to reason the body will also have the ability to heal itself for the same but opposite reasons.
My marriage was incredibly troubled, and had been since 2009. I first recall any kind of BXO-like symptoms in 2011, but I'm sure they started earlier. Nonetheless, I would almost lay my house on the fact that I didn't have any trace of it back in 2009. So, perhaps, after all, something that was clearly affecting my mental state in a chronic way did have an external affect on my body? Another reason I say this, since I separated from my exwife, things have understandably been stressful. Not too long after it happened, I developed back pain of a seemingly unknown cause. I went to see a PT about it, and she was brilliant. She did, however, mention that stress can cause the body to do all sorts of strange things, like cause pain (which has been proven to be generated in the brain). As my stress levels subsided, so did my pain. Then I went through a lot of stress at work and also in my personal life, and the pain returned, and as I am learning to deal with it, the pain is going away again. I'm not saying exercise and avoiding sitting for prolonged periods don't help me, because of course they do. But the 'master switch' for my back pain is heavy stress.
It really does stand to reason that, given I've shown to myself that my BXO is worse when I'm stressed, and that I lived in a prolonged state of being unhappy and discontented with my life, my BXO may have come along because of that. My recent stress may even give an explanation for why my current progress seems to have slowed.
But there's more to it than just 'stress'. She suggests some people get ill because they are living lives they are unfulfilled with. I was. I know I began healing from my BXO while I was still in the troubled marriage, but I also had extracted myself from the situation to some degree and had already started to envisage that a future on my own may be the only way forward in life.
So my point today is, I believe we need to start doing more like what Dr Lissa Rankin says, and start trusting our body's ability to heal itself more. Western medicine won't help you if you have BXO, and if anything, they'll contribute to your stress by incorrectly telling you circumcision is the only option.
Peace brothers.
Progress seems to have slowed a bit. I'm not taking that as a sign of anything other than I am obviously getting closer and closer to a final state for what I can expect my penis to look like. Recall from my earlier post 'Healing BXO is like cleaning a house' how you notice large progress early, then when you think you're healed, you look closer and realise how far you've got to go. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. I don't think it's quite fair to say progress is logarithmic, but it definitely slows down, the further you get through this thing.
I decided a little while back that I would deliberately keep my posting schedule back to at most once a month, perhaps even less. It's now just too hard to see any real change over any shorter timeframe. Don't get me wrong, things are still only heading in the right direction, but there's certainly no point to me wasting hours obsessing over it and killing neck muscles every day, or even every week, hoping to see change. It will be happening, and if I had a microscope, reliable lighting, and a predictable history (of activity leading up to it), I could probably see the change happening. But the issue is, I don't. I was thinking about doing a weekly time-lapse photo, but I'm not sure how long I'd need to shoot for before you see any change.
I wanted to take today's post into a slightly different direction from what I have in the past. As you will no doubt have seen from this blog, I have tried a LOT of things to help heal my BXO. Some worked, some didn't seem to, some worked initially then irritated me later. The one constant that I never compromised on is that I absolutely do not allow my glans or foreskin to get urine on them for any prolonged period ever. I do think some of the treatments I used did help things along, but after my recent run-in with Creme Complete, I'm not quite so sure. When that happened, I saw peeling and I thought it was accelerated progress, but it actually turned out to be an irritation. Until then, my theory of 'peeling equals healing' had held true, but this forced me to re-evaluate. I do still believe healing requires peeling, but I now think not all peeling comes from a good place. In other words, the only consistent statement I can deduce is "if you are not peeling, you aren't making progress".
If you recall, I made some slightly critical comments at some posts I read where people (women in particular) attributed the cause of their Lichen Sclerosus to living in an abusive relationship, or to sexual abuse at a young age. I later went on to admit that I do believe there is a link between stress and BXO, and between fatigue and BXO. If you have the time, I recommend you give this video a watch. I now think differently.
Dr Rankin talks about how we do indeed possess the capacity to heal ourselves. Not only do we do this when we recover from colds and flu, but we do it when placebos cause positive results during drug trials. Why? She discusses some of the reasons why this may be.
Recall I used the phrase "The Body can beat BXO" as a title for one of my posts. I said that because I was frustrated with western medicine's view that BXO was something you had for life, and the best you could hope for was to 'manage your condition' with potent topical steroids. But perhaps I was actually doing everything I needed just by convincing myself my body could beat BXO?
Think about this one - how many times have you seen it mentioned that BXO/LS is an autoimmune disease? So, the body has the ability to destroy itself as a result of factors we aren't sure of, it stands to reason the body will also have the ability to heal itself for the same but opposite reasons.
My marriage was incredibly troubled, and had been since 2009. I first recall any kind of BXO-like symptoms in 2011, but I'm sure they started earlier. Nonetheless, I would almost lay my house on the fact that I didn't have any trace of it back in 2009. So, perhaps, after all, something that was clearly affecting my mental state in a chronic way did have an external affect on my body? Another reason I say this, since I separated from my exwife, things have understandably been stressful. Not too long after it happened, I developed back pain of a seemingly unknown cause. I went to see a PT about it, and she was brilliant. She did, however, mention that stress can cause the body to do all sorts of strange things, like cause pain (which has been proven to be generated in the brain). As my stress levels subsided, so did my pain. Then I went through a lot of stress at work and also in my personal life, and the pain returned, and as I am learning to deal with it, the pain is going away again. I'm not saying exercise and avoiding sitting for prolonged periods don't help me, because of course they do. But the 'master switch' for my back pain is heavy stress.
It really does stand to reason that, given I've shown to myself that my BXO is worse when I'm stressed, and that I lived in a prolonged state of being unhappy and discontented with my life, my BXO may have come along because of that. My recent stress may even give an explanation for why my current progress seems to have slowed.
But there's more to it than just 'stress'. She suggests some people get ill because they are living lives they are unfulfilled with. I was. I know I began healing from my BXO while I was still in the troubled marriage, but I also had extracted myself from the situation to some degree and had already started to envisage that a future on my own may be the only way forward in life.
So my point today is, I believe we need to start doing more like what Dr Lissa Rankin says, and start trusting our body's ability to heal itself more. Western medicine won't help you if you have BXO, and if anything, they'll contribute to your stress by incorrectly telling you circumcision is the only option.
Peace brothers.
Comments
Post a Comment