23 Comments

So many of us experience chronic illness, I think your Newsletter topic is incredibly important and a valuable niche.

The trauma of Covid-19 and a healthcare system in decline has also worsened our mental health in times of financial pressures.

Never before has our healthcare system or support system been so challenged. With aging populations, comorbidities, Long-Covid (4 million out of the labor force now with that), obesity, deaths of despair, opiod crisis - we are in tough.

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one of the things with Parkinson's is there is no definitive test, just a symptomatic diagnosis, which means, what?? mostly nothing I think. you have this set of symptoms and therefore you have a disease. Maybe, maybe not,

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Excellent Article! Thank you for the reminders!

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I particularly appreciated this final note: “develop our sense of having a right to be, the knowledge that we are enough as we are, and that we have no points to prove;” – – I’ll be working on that one!

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Gary, I believe in on at outward curve after a lifetime of chronic low level grief and depression. Your list here is so affirming. Aside from a couple of technical actions (such as regarding fascia), I can now identify how I’ve integrated so many of these into my life over the last decade in particular, since I first began to realise there was a major issue. Thank you again for your work here.

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Jan 7, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe

Gary, after following your posts since 2018 I just want to say how in awe I am if your dedication to exploring your situation in such a rounded and curious way. Seeing you grow through your articles - has been truly heartening, it’s visible in your face, you use of language, the way your articles are presented, your writing - hats off to you. Having been an avid reader around my passion for my profession, first a physio, then craniosacral therapist, evolving into a movement/hands on/somatic exploration fusion of a thing, I would say your ability to assimilate and re-present information in such an articulate and useful way is a gift. Just wanted to say… :)

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Oct 29, 2022Liked by Gary Sharpe

Great post, many thanks...just a wee addendum, prof Gary...it seems to this ol'mechanic, surprisingly, that many Healers, as well as patients, often refer to their ills as 'MY'(insert ailment)...geez, after a bakers dozen of m/bike crashes,ladder /roofing falls plus rArt,pleurisy,3rd deg burns,CO poisonings,paralysis,etc, it has never entered this addled brain to OWN all these accidental/ karmic stupidities.Y'all can go a lot farther by travelling light,eh? cheers

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Oct 9, 2022Liked by Gary Sharpe

Hi Gary , I somehow have stumbled across your post today and have read so much. I feel it's just what I've needed . I'm suffering from chronic disease and suffering with dreadful pain and symptoms . I am quite fed up with the typical responses I've had over the last few years in trying to diagnose what exactly it is I have. In the meantime it has dramatically become much worse and never thought my immune system would be in the mess it's in. I agree with so much you've written.

I do believe that so much of my pain and whatever it is I've developed is from trauma, constant stress and so much dissapointment for far too long.

So many diseases similar to one another and like Parkinson's it is I feel really only a guess . I hope I can find out the answer to whatever it is I have but in the meantime will follow and try and put in practice much of what you have suggested that can help chronic disease I have so much enjoyed reading it all. Thanks so much , Chrissie

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As a fellow spoonie, I really appreciate your diligence in finding solutions for yourself and distilling the information you learned to help others along a similar journey.

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I like that you are doing this. Just read this one post and I am impressed.

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deletedNov 27, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
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