Weird Tricks That Have Helped With My Medical Problems

I wanted to write about some of the weirder things that have actually helped a lot with some of my medical problems. We are all bombarded constantly with ideas that have little to no evidence behind them (i.e. my sister’s husband’s cousin’s boss did this and it solved all their problems). I don’t want this to be like that. Also standard disclaimer: this is not meant to be medical advice. I'm sharing this because it may help someone and some of them are silly so it may make someone smile.

Let’s start with a simple one. I have IBS and have been nauseated often throughout the last 8 years. One thing I’ve found that helps with this a lot is Belly Comfort tea from Traditional Medicinals. It used to be called Eater’s Digest which I would argue is a much better name but I’m not in control of their marketing department. I worked for awhile at a grocery store and everyone I worked with loved this tea. Some of them also had IBS but many of them just had hangovers. Either way the tea was a hit. https://amzn.to/2q93WWc

Going along with my IBS, I often have a lot of gas pain. To help with this I was taught a belly rub I can do to get the farts out. It’s truly changed my life. Now, when I have abdominal pain I don’t have to wonder if my appendix or gallbladder are about to rupture. I just do my belly rub and either I fart and the pain goes away or the pain will move further along my digestive track which lets me know it’s not any sort of organ problem.

My personal favorite is the fix I found for my TMJ pain. I have to play trombone. I quit playing a couple years ago, mostly just because I wasn’t a part of any groups and it’s hard to motivate yourself to keep playing without that accountability. My TMJ pain has gotten much worse over the last few years and eventually reached the point where it was causing me significant levels of pain on a daily basis. I was desperate to find something to help it. I had played trombone a few times several months before and noticed a modest decrease in pain but I didn’t quite put it together that the trombone playing was helping. Once the pain was bad enough that I was willing to try anything to help it I picked up the trombone again. It doesn’t instantly help but if I play at least 2-3 times a week my TMJ pain stays really well under control now. I’d say since starting trombone again I’ve had an 85% decrease in TMJ pain, which makes it well worth the effort. Plus I get to play music, which is always nice.

What weird things do you do?