[Brian]

I think that some of us have noticed that stress can aggravate PN, but I often wonder how much does stress contributes to the ongoing symptoms of PN as well, going by my own symptoms i have noticed that when i was in a stress full situation my feet and up my legs used to increase the burning, but when relaxed the burning faded away.
So then it might be fare to say that any technique that does relax us should be helpfull in a PN, like breathing techniques, relaxing audio tapes, yoga, hypnotherapy and the list goes on, but i wonder what relaxing technique has the best results out of them all.
I am curious as to how many do practice relaxing techniques and the benefits they get out of it in the long term as well.

[shiney sue]

I really agree with your stress therory,i feel lately more burning,pain,
ect lately in my hands and wrists. Even when i fall alsleep they wake
me up like tonight. I use meditation to relax them,just the way i do
with feet and legs and shoulder area. But it's my hands and wrists
now. i Also believe in yoga,both help to relax the mind,and i feel
help relieve the the tingling,burning,and some not all the pain.

Another is the You Tube,your's the other day were good examples,
because we forgot for awhile the pain. We laughted and told stories,
and forgot for awhile. Yes i believe laughter helps so much,so thank
you for that. Sue

[daniella]

Before this issue I did every kind of stress/anxiety relief in the inpatient and outpatient programs.I think they can help with focus but even these coping ways take practice. I know the first few times I did relaxation tapes it made me more anxious but in the long run it calmed me. I like guided imagery. I'm also trying to find someone to work with me with bio feedback. My current therapist helps me with stress relief but want a specialist in this area. For me things like sitting outside,journaling,crafts,reaching out to a friend help relieve stress. I think by nature some people react to things in different ways. My gramps never gets stressed. Its like what ever happens does and myself I work myself up over the smallest things. How nice it would be to not worry right?
Brian when you feel yourself tense maybe try some breathing and self talk. I'm very big on self talk. I feel my recovery in anorexia after so many years was cause every day even when I felt I couldn't do recovery I told myself I could and wrote positive affirmations and the same with my horrible ocd/anxiety. I would talk myself through to see the rational. I do credit a lot to my therapy team and still do. I often wonder on here if more people would benefit from therapy.

[mrsD]

dissociate oneself from discomfort is very helpful.

My biggest triggers are tomato sauces (some types) and weather changes, mostly heat. I also have more symptoms when I have a cold/virus.

I learned auto-hypnosis many years ago as an aid to creative work (art).
I use this technique to ignore pain. My feet bother me most at night when I lie down. During the day I don't notice them much. When I went to PT for my leg injury--they offered to teach me this...and were surprised I already knew how!

Thanks for reminding everyone!

[nide44]

Teaching oneself to deal with stress is most helpful.
I often find myself in multiple, high stress (for me, anyway), situations and can feel my feet starting to burn like coals on a fire.
Mentally being able to 'zone out' is helpful.
Mental 'mantras' are able to help me control my breathing,
heart rate, & blood pressure.
Disassociation can help control the burning and pain.
It doesn't go away, it just isn't of severe importance anymore.
The worst is at nite, just as I lie down.
Then is when I turn on the clock radio, to FM and a favorite jazz, or classical station (sometimes the boredom of the all-nite BBC works )

[Rick61701]

Hypnotherapy is a very effective and powerful way to eliminate stress (and Pain).

[MelodyL]

I've wanted to bring this up and your title of this thread has allowed me to do such a thing.

I have diabetic neuropathy. Got diagnosed over a year from Cornell. My sugar is fine, has been fine (exept for very occasional highs in the a.m. but has nothing to do with my food). So when I got the burning and the buzzing a few months ago, I started the Methyl B-12. I read all about it, I read that sometimes when nerves heal, (takes a long time for them to heal, I completely understand this), well I read that it might be uncomfortable for a bit as they are healing. I understand this.

Now I know the weather greatly affects my PN. We have had stupid weather, where it drops to 50, then the next day it's 95, and humidity is 100 and you go nuts. So I know that sometimes, my feet will burn. And then it stops. But I deal with it.

But, (and here's the strange part), lately (with the nutty weather), it feels like ants are crawling all over my body. Doesn't happen all the time. But it makes my skin feel dirty. Now this could be because I'm having a reaction to a new soap, or the washing detergent, I really have no idea.

The other night, it looked like it wanted to rain. It was dark and gloomy, but no rain. Then the sun came out. It was like the weather got confused. Well, so did my body. All over my body, the feelings were nutty. Even my hands. They burned for like 10 seconds. Then it stopped. Otherwise I felt fine. No balance problems, everything was absolutely normal. However, my sugar, upon arising that morning was 170. After my shot of lantus, it stabilized. I had been allowing myself a baked potato at dinner time and one of my muffins during the day. I can no longer do that. I notice that if my sugar is going above 130, this happens (and the weather doesn't help).

So as of yesterday, no more baked potato at dinner and no more muffin during the daytime. This morning my sugar was 124. So for me, that's okay. My goal is to get it too 100. This will take some time I know this.

But I am very new to this whole neuropathy thing. I thought it was only in my feet.

Now lets' talk how stress affects it.

I was having a good day two days ago. Felt fine, no burning, I take my b-12 5000 methyl, Some days I put two under my tongue.

Well, two nights ago, my son called us up (he's a gambler and lives 3000 miles away and has aspergers disorder). I have learned to disassociate my thinking from my son's problems. It's the only way to survive. His behavor has been atrocious and I am a person who believes that people with addictions should be completely accountable for their actions and their behaviors. I've been to enough support groups to completely understand this.

So here's my son calling me on the phone saying "I have a proposal for you, I'd like to move back home". In 30 seconds, my feet were on fire. I could not believe this. It's like my whole body went absolutely bonkers.

Even the thought of him walking in my door makes me ill (please do not think bad of me, believe me I have my reasons to feel this way).

So Alan got on the phone and we found out he wants to move to Oregon (he says ) because of the clean air and no sale tax. He wants to come here, pay us rent and save money, then move out again and go to Oregon. (We have since read in the paper that Oregon is the only state that allows physicians to write prescriptions for terminally people to end their own lives.

We cannot allow our son to come back home. This is not going to happen and we carefully and gently made him see that. There was no fight, no exchange of bad words. We ended very nicely.

But my body was going crazy. It's 3 days later and while it's calmed down, I know my body was reacting to my son. Years ago, it used to spasm. I used to have chest spasms and bladder spasms (all from stress).

I've been so much better (even dealing with Alan's stuff), but it's peaceful here.

I cannot believe that one phone call from my son would trigger my body to react in such a way.

How can I heal my body?? Also, do you think that the b-12 is making the nerves heal, and that's why they flared up??? See, I'm not sure what happened.

Thanks, Melody

[Aussie99]

who keep alot bottled up inside. the reason I do this is I realised, at least in my family situation (parents included), that talking about feelings got me absolutely nowhere.

So for years now I have learned to deal with my own feelings, and I do not discuss them. I also handle my career the very same way. I keep things bottled up. I am in many ways fearful of confrontation so I have self taught avoidance.

The most release and the most I have ever shared in the last 20 years is probably the 2 years I have been on this board.

Well back to my thoughts now. I think that when something really stressful,worrisome,shocking, scary, or happy is going on in my life, I tend to keep it to myself. But there are physiological changes going on inside my body during these times as my brain is trying to make sense of things.

I easily loose sleep, and my sleep cycle is delicate to begin with. I stay up late at nights thinking. My BP raises and tries to stay up. I get headches and my eyes hurt. I go off my food quite easily, and lastly my muscles start aching and I get spasms.

The body/mind connection is remarkable. Whatever seems to be going on in my head, be it good or bad although I am not discussing things with other family members, I am causing changes in my body that initially I am unaware of.

I think what happened with your son caused changes and altered your body chemistry in some way that set off your burning feet.

PS. I don't think anyone would judge you as to why you don't want Frank to move back in. First, it's your home. Secondly it's your son, and lastly it's your decision to make.

[MelodyL]

Thank you my dear Aussie!!!!

Melody

[Brian]

Yes Sue i do think that laughter is another way that helps some when dealing with pain, that was the exact reason i posted those Youtube video's, i was so glad when i read the responses.

Daniella, i too wondered how many here would benefit from it as well, my own PN is really going well these days, only slight burns every now & again, i do know how to do self hypnosis using a breathing technique, i admit i am a bit out of practice now, but was heavily into it going back a few years and it can be very powerful tool.

MrsD, my triggers were to much sugar or products made from high concentrates of sugar like beer, lemonade, icecream, rises in temp and if stressed was added to any of those things, it was a bad mixture.

Bob, i haven't a clue why, but the time of the day didn't make any difference to me, yet i have heard so many pn'ers say that their pain was always worse at night, & yeah, some of those all night talk shows on the radio were a blessing really, sometimes there better than a sleeping pill

Melody, i have gone through a fare bit of healing and what i experienced was a lot of flare ups along the way, about 4 years of it, pretty good now though.
Strange you mentioned about " ants crawling ", last week i had the exact same feeling that i could have swore that ants were crawling over my feet, but when i looked down there wasn't anything there [ i thought i was going nuty ] or more silly than i already am , we are getting the weird weather too, i think we can expect some not so normal reactions from our small nerves.
An emotional upset can trigger PN symptoms, boy, know wonder you got upset, jeez, who wouldn't ?.
I am no expert, but i would suggest that perhaps it could have been the phone call that triggered your flareup, seeing you said your feet started to go mad soon after the call, but they felt good beforehand, but its really impossible to say for sure as its the same symptoms appear whilst healing.