Clay Aiken In My Mind

"One morning as I wound an old clock, I thought about the nature of time.
We can't see it, we can't touch it, yet it is there for us every moment of our lives.
What we do with it, how we use it, is ours to choose.
One thing is certain -- we can turn the clock back, turn it forward, even stop it, but time we can't alter.
All we can do is to fill it in the best ways we can find."
thank you BC for this.





This photo of Clay by Fivegoldens is so intriguing to me.






Carolina in My Mind 2004



The following article isn't anything to do with Clay Aiken. The connection is his talent and charismic charm help me in dealing with the mysterious Fibromyalgia syndrome.
Avoiding stress and being able to relax are major factors, and Clay's music and videos are a huge help to me. My blogs are part of my Clay therapy too.

I wrote about fibro in a blog a few years ago. Many Clay fans wrote me for the first time, and became great new friends. Some have FMS too, some have a relative or friend with it. Some are just interested, and that is a good thing.
A lot has happened as to the awareness of Fibromyalgia since then, as well as developments of medication. So far there is no magic pill for me, but who knows what the future will bring!




What is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition of widespread pain and profound fatigue. The pain tends to be felt as diffuse aching or burning, often described as head to toe. It may be worse at some times than at others. It may also change location, usually becoming more severe in parts of the body that are used most.

The fatigue ranges from feeling tired, to the exhaustion of a flu-like illness. It may come and go and people can suddenly feel drained of all energy – as if someone just “pulled the plug”. Fibromyalgia Syndrome (fibromyalgia or fibro or FMS for short) is a common illness. In fact, it is as common as rheumatoid arthritis and can even be more painful. People with mild to moderate cases of fibromyalgia are usually able to live a normal life, given the appropriate treatment.

If symptoms are severe, however, people may not be able to hold down a paying job or enjoy much of a social life. The name fibromyalgia is made up from “fibro” for fibrous tissues such as tendons and ligaments; “my” indicating muscles; and “algia” meaning pain.



(Some day I'm going to get this printed onto a T-shirt!)


WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FIBROMYALGIA

1. FMS is not the newest fad disease. In fact, it isn't a disease at all, and it isn't even new. In 1815, a surgeon at the University of Edenburgh, William Balfour, described fibromyalgia. Over the years, it has been known as chronic rheumatism, myalgia and fibrositis. Unlike diseases, syndromes do not have a known cause, but they do have a specific set of signs and symptoms which, unfortunately for the patient, take place together. Rheumatoid arthritis and lupus are also syndromes.

2. The many physical and emotional problems associated with FMS are not psychological in origin. This is not an "all in your head" disorder. In 1987, the American Medical Association recognized FMS as a true physical illness and major cause of disability.

3. Syndromes strike life-long athletes as viciously as they do couch potatoes. They can be disabling and depressing, interfering with even the simplest activities of daily life.


WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME

internet article sent by a friend

1. My pain - My pain is not your pain. It is not caused by inflammation. Taking your arthritis medication will not help me. I can not work my pain out or shake it off. It is not even a pain that stays put. Today it is in my shoulder, but tomorrow it may be in my foot or gone. My pain is believed to be caused by improper signals sent to the brain, possibly due to sleep disorders. It is not well understood, but it is real.

2. My fatigue - I am not merely tired. I am often in a severe state of exhaustion. I may want to participate in physical activities, but I can't. Please do not take this personally. If you saw me shopping in the mall yesterday, but I can't help you with yard work today, it isn't because I don't want to. I am, most likely, paying the price for stressing my muscles beyond their capability.

3. My forgetfulness - Those of us who suffer from it call it fibrofog. I may not remember your name, but I do remember you. I may not remember what I promised to do for you, even though you told me just seconds ago. My problem has nothing to do with my age but may be related to sleep deprivation. I do not have a selective memory. On some days, I just don't have any short-term memory at all.

4. My clumsiness - If I step on your toes or run into you five times in a crowd, I am not purposely targeting you. I do not have the muscle control for that. If you are behind me on the stairs, please be patient. These days, I take life and stairwells one step at a time.

5. My sensitivities - I just can't stand it! "It" could be any number of things: bright sunlight, loud or high-pitched noises, odors. FMS has been called the "aggravating everything disorder." So don't make me open the drapes or listen to your child scream. I really can't stand it.

6. My intolerance - I can't stand heat, either. Or humidity. If I am a man, I sweat...profusely. If I am a lady, I perspire. Both are equally embarrassing, so please don't feel compelled to point this shortcoming out to me. I know. And don't be surprised if I shake uncontrollably when it's cold. I don't tolerate cold, either. My internal thermostat is broken, and nobody knows how to fix it.

7. My depression - Yes, there are days when I would rather stay in bed or in the house or die. I have lost count of how many of Dr. Kevorkian's patients suffered from FMS as well as other related illnesses. Severe, unrelenting pain can cause depression. Your sincere concern and understanding can pull me back from the brink. Your snide remarks can tip me over the edge.

8. My stress - My body does not handle stress well. If I have to give up my job, work part time, or handle my responsibilities from home, I'm not lazy. Everyday stresses make my symptoms worse and can incapacitate me completely.

9. My weight - I may be fat or I may be skinny. Either way, it is not by choice. My body is not your body. My appestat is broken, and nobody can tell me how to fix it.

10. My need for therapy - If I get a massage every week, don't envy me. My massage is not your massage. Consider how a massage would feel if that charley horse you had in your leg last week was all over your body. Massaging it out was very painful, but it had to be done. My body is knot-filled. If I can stand the pain, regular massage can help, at least temporarily.

11. My good days - If you see me smiling and functioning normally, don't assume I am well. I suffer from a chronic pain and fatigue illness with no cure. I can have my good days. In fact, the good days are what keep me going.

12. My uniqueness - Even those who suffer from FMS are not alike. That means I may not have all of the problems mentioned above. I do have pain above and below the waist and on both sides of my body which has lasted for a very long time. I may have migraines or hip pain or shoulder pain or knee pain, but I do not have exactly the same pain as anyone else.


Now to carry on with good things from Clay!









Laughter is the best medicine and this video never fails to make me laugh.

Clay Aiken Classics Medley Sterling Heights
video austinclaymate



Clay Classics SRHP

Thank you and hugs to all for stopping by. I love your wonderful comments.

Technorati Tags: Clay Aiken, Carolina In My Mind, Fibromyalgia, Fibro Fog

173 Revisiting

Yahoo Link to the story:

Clay's UNICEF mission to Somalia

Sign in to rank the story and give it a "buzz up"

The news release article is being picked up by news site all over the net and TV.

I'm going to let Clay have a well deserved rest by doing some revisiting.








One of my earliest blogs was about Fibromyalgia. I was amazed how many fellow Clay fans are battling this weird disease. I made many new friends because of it. One of these dear friends recently sent me a new link/article on it ~ thank you Marian. It's worth sharing.





Fibromyalgia - Ultimately a Disease of Amplified Pain
by Mark J. Pellegrino, MD
ImmuneSupport.com

link to article:

Fibromyalgia - Ultimately a Disease of Amplified Pain

Many conditions can lead to permanent changes in the pain transmission mechanism and result in chronic pain that overwhelms the body’s pain defense mechanisms. One such condition is Fibromyalgia.


Fibromyalgia may not cause destruction along the pain pathways as other conditions I have mentioned can [rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, shingles, multiple sclerosis, for example]. However, Fibromyalgia does cause chronic abnormal changes along all the pathway components and this results in chronic pain via both peripheral (from skin, muscles and nerves) and central (from spinal cord and brain) neurological mechanisms.


The end result of Fibromyalgia’s abnormal changes appears to be a state of pain amplification that cause severe generalized pain. Fibromyalgia is ultimately a disease of amplified pain.


Dr. Robert Bennett has written and presented excellent information that explains why we hurt with Fibromyalgia (e.g., “Emerging Concepts in the Neurobiology of Chronic Pain: Evidence of Abnormal Sensory Processing in Fibromyalgia,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings). If we trace the pain signals through the various parts of the pain pathway (from the nociceptors - or specialized pain nerve endings – to the nerves to the spinal cord to the brain) in people with Fibromyalgia, we find various abnormalities along the way. Many studies have shed light on different points along the complete pain pathway.


I want to briefly summarize some of these different abnormalities and possible problems encountered by Fibromyalgia pain signals on the path to the brain.


NOCICEPTORS - Pain originates from the nociceptors


Trauma is a common trigger of Fibromyalgia. Tissue injury - damage to the muscles and soft tissues – activates the nociceptors. Some studies have suggested that microscopic injury occurs in specific parts of the muscles (for those who want the medical names: muscle spindles, intrafusal fibers, and calcium pumps).


Localized tissue injury probably activates arachidonic acid (a biological protein), which turns into “bad” prostaglandans (called Cox-II prostaglandins), and cause inflammation and pain.


In addition to trauma, autoimmune factors may be another pain nerve activator. Perhaps autoimmune processes create compounds which act as irritants and activate the nociceptors chronically to the point where they become “permanently” sensitized and irritated. As a result, biochemical, hormonal, and red blood cell changes occur that interfere with the cells’ ability to receive adequate supplies of oxygen, glucose, and other nutrients. Blood flow, energy formation, and the cells’ electrical and neurological harmonies are all disrupted.


Since the nociceptors remain “faulty,” the electrical and neurological balance remains abnormal, and nociceptors continue to be activated. Pain-producing neurotransmitters are released and accumulate as long as the nociceptors stay activated at the peripheral level (skin and muscles, especially).


These persistent pain signals we experience may be interpreted as an itching, burning, swelling, or tingling at one end of the spectrum, or – at the other end – knife-stabbing, burning, or throbbing. One nociceptor can signal different pain signals and sensations depending on its level of irritation – the more irritated it is, the more severe the pain.


These changes can become permanent and cause the nerves to become sensitized to the point where they are easily activated to send pain, even in the absence of any noxious stimulus.


In other words, persistent pain signals can spontaneously arise from peripheral nerve endings and bombard the rest of the pain pathway. So, instead of waiting for outside stimulation such as trauma, pressure, temperature, or touch to signal the nociceptors, these nociceptors send pain signals on their own, without any outside help. This “spontaneous” pain is what we complain about the most!


NERVES

The nerves, especially the sensory nerves and the autonomic nerves, “wonder what is happening” because they are getting bombarded by all of these signals from the nociceptors. At first, they try to diminish these painful signals by using accommodation and gate mechanisms.


However, the signals persist and they, too, undergo a sensitization process. They become hypersensitized and react with an exaggerated response instead of a normal or diminishing response (accommodation). Now we get even more pain, numbness, swelling, burning, and other sensations.


Some of the hypersensitization may be mediated by nerve growth factor, which has been found in higher levels in Fibromyalgia. A high nerve growth factor may indicate the nerves are trying to regenerate or repair themselves. But instead of repairing the nerves so they act normal again, the opposite seems to happen. Nerve growth factor is probably enhancing the nerves’ abilities to transmit pain to the spinal cord. More pain results, not less.


SPINAL CORD – Amplification, wind-up, allodynia, Substance P, generalization


At the spinal cord level, the Fibromyalgia begins to take control.

It is here that additional changes occur to perpetuate the pain and spread it to different levels. When pain generators first start firing, the spinal cord pain processing centers may act at first like a dry sponge and easily soak up all the signals. Our bodies may have many pain generators at any given time, but if they are slowly and intermittently firing, drug sponges can soak up the signals and not cause any bothersome symptoms.


From time to time there may be an acute exacerbation of a problem leading to a lot of pain signals being generated, and if a lot of pain signals are dumped at once into the spinal cord sponge, only a little bit gets absorbed and a lot gets passed through and perceived as acute pain.


In Fibromyalgia, however, the different pain generators continue to send signals and eventually the dry sponges becomes a wet sponge and it can’t soak up any more. The additional oncoming continuous signals will spill over the wet sponge, and this leads to persistent pain.


The two main changes that occur at the spinal cord include:

Pain amplification (by specialized nerves called NMDA receptors)

And loss of pain filtering (by the diffuse noxious inhibitory control system).
Spinal cord nerves are bombarded by continuous stimulation from the peripheral nerves, causing a progressive increase in electrical signals to be sent up to the brain. This phenomenon is called “wind-up,” and is the neurological mechanism for the amplification of pain.


Once this wind-up phenomenon occurs, a central sensitization results in which various types of sensory signals - not just pain - will arrive in the spinal cord, become amplified, and be sent to the brain as pain. The spinal cord becomes more sensitized to sending pain, lots of it. Once this happens, the spinal cord is not able to properly sort out and filter various sensory signals.


As a result, different sensory signals such as touch, pressure, temperature, and joint movement all become amplified and sent up the pain pathways, resulting in pain signals instead of the appropriate touch, pressure, temperature, or joint motion signals.


This defect in pain transmission where there is increased sensitivity to all stimuli – even those which normally do not evoke pain – is called allodynia. Unfortunately for the person with Fibromyalgia, the spinal cord is now “wired” to interpret nearly all sensory signals as pain – severe pain! We can still appreciate touch, pressure, temperature, joint movement, and other non-pain signals, but pain contaminates these signals, and we feel the pain.


Another key change at the spinal cord level is an increased formation of Substance P and other neurotransmitters.


Substance P’s primary role at the spinal cord level is to transmit pain signals and to sensitize the spinal cord so it is readily available to transmit pain. When Substance P reaches high concentrations (as it does in Fibromyalgia), it can migrate up and down the spinal cord, away from the initial location of the pain signal. As a result, multiple levels of the spinal cord undergo sensitization and send increased pain signals, leading to a “generalization” of the Fibromyalgia.


This spreading of pain explains how one can develop generalized Fibromyalgia from an initial regional area of pain. A common example of this occurs following a motor vehicle accident where a particular body part, such as the neck, was injured. Over time, the pain begins to involve the mid-back, low back, and ultimately the whole body, even though these areas were never injured. The Substance P-induced spinal cord changes can explain this migration of pain from the neck to the entire body.


BRAIN

Our poor brains have no chance, do they? Any pain memory stored in the past will be re-awakened by this process. Fibromyalgia is notorious for causing previously injured areas to hurt more once it develops. This previously injured area may have settled down and become essentially pain-free, but the pain memories remained, although inactive. Thanks to the Fibromyalgia pain amplification process, the inactive memories are reactivated.


The pain centers of our brain, the limbic system and the cerebral cortex, are continuously fed these amplified signals from the spinal cord. Changes occur:

Serotonin levels decrease,
Brain waves change,
Sleep stages are affected,
Blood flow and glucose [blood sugar] metabolism are affected.
The brain gets overwhelmed with these pain signals and spends a lot of attention and energy monitoring the pain. Fibrofog occurs. Emotional components are “attached” to pain, including fear, depression, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and helplessness, which can further amplify the pain.


In patients with Fibromyalgia, functional reorganization (brain plasticity) in both sensory and motor portions of the brain has been observed, and appears directly related to the chronicity of the pain (Dr. H. Flor, 2003). These brain changes may be viewed as pain memories that influence how painful and non-painful signals affect the body’s sensory and motor responses. The brain makes these changes to enhance its ability to perceive pain – brain amplified pain.


This type of abnormal brain plasticity can be measured. Doctors Richard H. Gracely, Richard A. Harris, Daniel J. Clauw, et al. at the University of Michigan Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center have published studies which demonstrated abnormal “hyperactive” areas of the brains and abnormal “quiet” areas of the brains in Fibromyalgia test subjects who underwent functional MRIs. This provides objective evidence to support brain plasticity with both hypersensitive amplified pain, and turning off the ability to inhibit pain.


FIBROMYALGIA PAIN SUMMARY

To summarize, Fibromyalgia changes our pain pathways. It may start off as a peripheral irritant, but eventually it becomes a self-perpetuating process that affects the entire pathway from the nociceptors to the brain. The main problem, in a nutshell, is amplified pain.


The amplified pain is the result of our nervous system gaining the ability to magnify pain and losing the ability to inhibit pain. What comes in at a signal of a “1” does not end up in the brain as a signal of a “1” as it would in people without Fibromyalgia. Our pain signal of a “1” gets amplified and magnified, and by the time it reaches our brain, it is a “10”!


Other non-painful signals get thrown into this pain amplification pathway and arrive at our brain as pain signals. Even tiny subconscious pain signals can get amplified, or the nerve pathways can automatically “fire away” without any obvious noxious stimulus to cause spontaneous pain.


These are not your everyday aches and pains, these are severe pains that cannot be ignored. This severe, chronic pain can completely disrupt one’s life. And by the way, while all of this is happening, we continue to look completely normal on the outside.






Let's revisit more of Clay's journey

Falling, montage by Yollie950




Please check the previous blog for embedded videos and links to Sessions, Yahoo, etc.

SALLYROX Crossword: Clay's Songs