Chronic Mom’s 10 most popular posts of 2016

It’s time for Chronic Mom’s popular posts of 2016. 2016 has been an interesting year for me. I’ve finally been healthy enough that I’ve been able to put some effort into my blog (6 kidney stones and a gall bladder removal couldn’t even stop me), and because of that, it has grown significantly. I’ve loved being able to reach more people and being able to interact with those going through the same things that I am. If it weren’t for the support of the people I’ve met on the internet, I’m not sure how I would handle life with chronic illness. I’m so grateful to anyone who has read my blog or communicated with me, I wouldn’t be here without you.

Here at the beginning of 2017, I’ve decided to take a look back at the top Chronic Mom posts of the year. I was surprised by a few that were on the list and surprised that a few didn’t make it.

This has long been my most popular post, partly because if you have a sense of humor or if you appreciate sarcasm it’s really funny. The other reason is that it offends a lot of people who don’t read beyond the title or who don’t get sarcasm. I love sarcasm, and I feel like this post is some of my best work, so I’m happy to see it’s still the most popular post.

2.

In 2016 the “war against opioids” and the “opioid epidemic” hysteria really kicked into gear. I’ve heard so many stories of people in pain being denied pain medication because of the new crackdown and it broke my heart. I myself experienced being treated like a criminal for being in pain many times. This year I suffered through multiple kidney stones, gall stones, and eventually a gall bladder removal. In several of those incidences (including the gall bladder surgery), I was denied pain medication because I might be an addict. I had been to the ER too many times with kidney stones (it doesn’t matter that they were each documented by CT scans), I was clearly a drug seeker. Judging by the response to this post, I’m not the only one in pain who is fed up with people in pain being dismissed.

3.

I wrote this post at the beginning of 2016 in response to my wildly successful post “5 ways Fibromyalgia makes you awesome.” Ironically (because it’s never happened before) I was accused of being too positive and painting over the reality that is living with Fibromyalgia. This post was my response and it was almost as popular as the original. I love that I’m not the only one who thinks that living with a chronic illness can not be all positive all the time.

4.

This was an old post that increased in popularity for no reason I can discern. It’s actually not a post I’m proud of because it’s about the difficulty in getting diagnosed with Lyme Disease, but barely mentions Fibro. I hope do redo it this coming year because there are too many patients getting misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia when they really have Lyme or they have both illnesses.

5.

This was such a fun post that I think I’m going to make it an annual thing. I always have a running list of chronic pain things that I need, so why not share that list with everyone else? FYI I did get this heating pad (affiliate link) for Christmas and I really do love it.

6.

Because it’s me, of course I had to write a sarcastic version of the previous post. There are so many things that people with chronic illness would really like that they can never have. My number one wish will always be to have a normal body, but it’s never going to happen for me.

7.

Sarcastic humor is clearly my strong suit. Like many spoonies I get so tired of being told how I can cure my illness, and I’m apparently not the only one.

8.

Fatigue is one of the most difficult symptoms to deal with. There are ways to deal with pain, but fatigue is not something you can fight. The harder you push yourself the sicker you’ll make yourself in the long run. I’m always looking for helpful strategies to help deal with fatigue and I’m not the only one.

9. 5 tips for faking chronic illness

 

Sarcasm again, I sense a theme. Healthy people seem to think that faking an illness is really easy, but it’s a lot harder then they think.

10.

There are a lot of myths about Fibromyalgia, and many of those myths are what bring people to my page via google. I do my best to debunk these myths as much as possible