After Clear Passage

I thought I should post about how things are post-Clear Passages. It's been a month now since I went, so it's about time I took a quick inventory of the changes (or lack thereof) to my body.

First, the pain factor. Every month I used to get bad pain along my sigmoid colon (see, I learnt where the pain was while at Clear Passage - before I'd just say, uh, at the left side of my abdomen). This pain would usually last 5 or 6 days, and would be there premenstrually. In fact, the RE and the acu both blew it off as being relevant to anything because it was not during my period (thus presumably wasn't endometriosis), and was not a classic PMS type thing. But I knew it had to be related to my cycles because every month like clockwork it came back and went away at the same times. At times it was maybe a 6 out of 10 on the pain scale. It would be relieved somewhat by a bowel movement, but basically it was there all the time, and was quite distracting. This last month, I had some minor pain the day before my period came, and the first day of my period. Maybe a 2 out of 10 on the pain scale. And it didn't last all day, either, so I'd say I got at least a 90% improvement.

I used to have neck and shoulder pain constantly. Sometimes worse than other times, but it was pretty much always there. I still have the shoulder pain, and the big knot of muscle in my right shoulder has not gone, but then Clear Passage didn't work on it as far as I can remember. The neck pain is different in quality. It is lighter, and more just like it is tight because of stress. Maybe a 50% improvement in the neck, and maybe 10% improvement in the shoulder. However, I had a massage yesterday, and my massage therapist commented that my neck felt a LOT better to her, and in fact when she was working on my neck it didn't hurt at all. And didn't crunch, which it used to do. Yes, I have never found massage to be relaxing really, as I go for pain relief and it hurts when I am being worked on. So to actually be able to have a pain-free neck massage made me feel good.

As for the belly, well I used to occasionally get pulling pains as I stood up. Haven't noticed any of them since having the therapy. But I never really had that much of a pain issue in the belly so it's hard to make good comparisons. I have noticed that I can put my finger in my belly button and move my belly button around in circles without any pain or tightness. It previously didn't really move at all, and certainly not in a symmetrical fashion. My belly is still pretty squishy all over - no hard bits of scar tissue. And the saline sonogram didn't hurt at all - usually when someone is manipulating my cervix it is pretty uncomfortable, but nothing this time.

Another interesting development is that I pee a lot less often. I no longer have to go every hour, and do not get up in the night to pee. That's always a bonus! I am mostly peeing when I really need to go, not when my overactive bladder thinks it might be nice to go.

So, all in all, I am feeling pretty confident that they really did something for me, and really freed up some stuck areas. It's nice to think that I'm going into this IVF with an extra boost of help. I have to admit, I have not been good at doing the exercises I was supposed to do, but I am going to try again this weekend to do some. And as for Kegels, hmmm, yeah, haven't done them either. Wait, I'll do one now...OK, one down, many more to fit in!