Missed my last post? Read Part 10 of My Highly Sensitive Recovery where I discuss the effects of a punishing lifestyle on a HSP.
To recap from Part 10, I take no medications for pain unless I have a new injury. The ailments from which I once struggled, I’ve now learned how to manage and even overcome them. My once diagnosed COPD is gone. Endometriosis is gone. Chronic sinus infections are gone. Chronic Asthmatic Bronchitis is gone. Some residual asthma crops up around smokers or on heavy volcano fog (vog) days. I haven’t experienced a cold or flu for nearly 18 months (after 35 years of 3-5 major infections each year).
The key is gentle and holistic strategies & whole mind-body self care.
All of these ailments and afflictions have faded from my body.
The genesis of these changes all began when I was introduced to High Sensitivity and realizing that Highly Sensitive People must live differently than then the rest of the population. Not live less, but live fully with better understanding of oneself and more gentle strategies for holistic, whole mind-body Self Care.
Staying in denial can be highly detrimental to HSPs.
I do strongly believe that staying unaware or in denial of the trait of High Sensitivity can be highly detrimental in general, and even life-threatening at worst. In a western world of medications and anesthesia, they can be extremely dangerous to an HSP (speaking first hand from near death experiences and interviewing patients with similar stories). Trying to explain this trait to your surgeon or anesthesiologist is of utmost importance even if many do not listen.
I bring all my medical professionals a copy of Dr. Aron’s suggestions for them (in the back of her first book). I understand that they certainly want a patient to be fully anesthetized during surgery. However, to administer the same amount of medication to an HSP as a non-HSP with the same body weight, can potentially be lethal.
I nearly died … twice.
In my 20’s after abdominal surgery, my blood pressure apparently plummeted and stayed dangerously low. I believe they later said 40/20. They could not wake me up for an abnormal length of time (as my traumatized highly sensitive mother would later share with me in tears). I am uninformed about what they gave me to bolster my blood pressure but it obviously worked. Their explanation to my mother was that “some people are more sensitive to narcotics than others.”
Wow. What an understatement for we HSPs!
Looking for more? Continue reading Part 12 of My Highly Sensitive Recovery where I discuss the long recovery time of any invasive procedure for HSPs.
