Raindrops of Sapphire
Lorna

Gua Sha With The Hayo’u Method

You may remember that I spoke about Katie Brindle and The Hayo’u Method in a previous post, speaking about rituals and breathing techniques that you can do to control stress and health issues. I went in depth about the illness I have been through since I was a baby and how we have been working together to undo all of the damage that’s been done. As I’m documenting the journey, the next thing I’ve been learning with Katie is how to do Gua Sha. What’s that? Let me tell you! Gua sha, translated from Chinese into English means to scrape the skin with a blunt object (Gua) to release blood circulation and redness (sha). It’s an ancient, traditional Chinese medical treatment in which the skin is scraped to release unhealthy elements from injured areas of your body and stimulates blood flow and healing. When you Google this, it does look incredibly scary at first due to how red your skin can go and the fact that some of the stagnant blood comes to the surface and lasts for a few days. I want to say before anyone runs away though, it does not hurt at all. It feels very similar to rubbing a rounded jam jar lid over your skin, so it’s more like a pressure and a massage than anything painful. The only time it can be sore is if you hit an area that’s tender to begin with (which you aren’t supposed to do) or if you get right on a bone, so I avoid those areas and concentrate on tissue. Katie has released two different Gua Sha…

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Lorna

My Health & The Hayo’u Method

I’ve shared a lot with you in the past about my health and as the months go by, I think it’s important to keep you updated on how things are changing for me and progressing. I got the lovely opportunity to meet Katie Brindle, the founder of the HAYO’U Method and speak to her about my life, my issues and more. Katie is a Chinese physician (read her story here), but her focus isn’t just on acupuncture or a lot of weird herbs like most people think Chinese medicine is. Katie works with us to help us understand our bodies, how to combat stress on our own and really take care of ourselves. She doesn’t want us to become dependent on a physician to ensure we get better, the best thing we can do is self healing and learn the techniques Katie teaches with her HAYO’U Method. Most people my age will have a few ailments and stress, which can be self treated with the methods that Katie posts about online (see them here), but for me, my story is a lot more complex. I got to chat with Katie and speak to her on a personal level, much more in depth, about how my life has been since I was born and what problems I have encountered which have led to my health being the way it is now – and what I found out was incredible. Things you don’t even think about or realise are connected and my story is fascinating to me, so I want to share the whole thing with you, in a series of posts…

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Lorna

5 Lazy Ways To Stay Healthy

I’m touching on a subject that’s very close to my heart at the moment – health. You all know that I’ve struggled over the past year with different problems on top of the M.E and trying to do the normal ‘eat healthy and exercise a lot routine’, which just isn’t something that I can do. I wanted to put together a list of 5 lazy ways to stay healthy, just little changes you can make during your day to make sure your body gets the best it can from your current situation. If you’re ill and unable to do much like me, or if you don’t have much enthusiasm at all to go out and run a marathon like some do, these tips will help in the short term. Of course there are other things you can do to stay healthy like wearing sun cream, don’t eat endless amounts of junk food, not smoking, not drinking too much alcohol etc, but I wanted to touch on a few purer elements that make a difference to your life and your health on top of that. I hope you like it! Drink Filtered Water One of the most important things you can do to stay healthy is drink water. Water is the single most important thing that we need to put into our bodies in order to stay alive (besides air), without it, we will die, so make sure you drink plenty of it to keep yourself hydrated and your cells fed. Filtered water is the best, so be sure to do your best to make sure it’s clean and filtered, ready…

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Lorna

From Nothing To Something

As it’s M.E awareness week right now, I wanted to touch base on the subject that the charity is focusing on at the moment, and that’s isolation. With most chronic and debilitating illnesses, isolation and loneliness often follows it and it’s something that isn’t discussed very much at all. People are usually more interested in the symptoms and how you are physically feeling rather than the slow impact the isolation and being shut off from the world can actually have on you, so I wanted to tell my story on it. A year ago, as you know, I finally revealed to you all that I had the illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or M.E for short as that’s quite a mouthful). You can read my full story on it here, but in a nutshell, I was diagnosed when I was 14 years old after being really ill for a year. Due to being exhausted and feeling so unwell all the time, it meant I found it a struggle to get out of bed most days and even just function, which then in turn meant I missed most of my last year of school, and overtime my friendships with people diminished. I don’t hold grudges or anything about that as when you’re young, your friendships with people are usually school based and involve going out and doing fun things, and since I couldn’t socialize anymore, it just went away over time and I lost contact with everyone as I was pretty much useless. I became a hermit and only found comfort and solitude inside my house as I was so exhausted all the…

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Lorna

Health Update

It’s been a little while since I updated you all about my health, and I had this post scheduled in for Sunday but unfortunately haven’t been able to do any work. I caught the flu on Friday night and have been suffering badly with it since. The usual shivers, sweats, temperature, sickness, body aches, cough… But it’s developed into a viral tonsillitis too and I lost my voice a couple of days ago and have the most sore throat, which is made worse with my cough. My voice has come back a little bit, but all it is is croakiness unfortunately and it’s really bad. I’ve just been in bed for days now, trying to rest and get better. I’ve been extremely off my food too so haven’t been eating much at all, but have been drinking lots of warm water and honey, taking my cold and flu tablets and trying to eat protein, fruits and vegetables, but it’s very tough. This is the worst I have felt in a very long time, so much so that it’s impacted my work. Adam and I had a weekend planned of a trip, outfit shoots and product shoots, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled and we both had to stay in. I actually ended up catching the flu from him, so we have both had a terrible weekend. He’s a lot better now though, but as with every illness I get, its length and intensity is always made worse because of having M.E. as my body isn’t strong enough to deal with it properly. I can only hope that the flu…

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Lorna

Health Update – Pneumonia

Unfortunately I don’t have much great news in terms of my health lately, which some of you may know already if you follow me closely on Snapchat (@LornaRaindrops). On Friday 20th, I started to not feel very well at all, my glands in my neck were really swollen and sore, my throat was sore and hurting, I had a headache and I generally felt unwell. This lasted until the Sunday and those symptoms went away and developed into a cough, body aches and feeling really horrible. My cough was getting really bad and it was constant, it wouldn’t stop at all, so every minute I was just barking all the time. I hardly got any sleep on Tuesday or Wednesday so trying to function with the M.E (which I need at least 7 hours sleep a night with) and cope with this was really draining. On the Wednesday night I had got so bad with the coughing and the strain, I ended up having a nose bleed and my chest was burning and painful. I decided I needed to go to the doctors and she did all her checks and came to the conclusion that I have a type of chest infection based on the crackling in my lungs which are filled with mucus, a temperature and the rest of my symptoms. She wanted to sign me off of work but as I’m self employed and work for myself blogging, I’ve had to carry on as much as I can, in between resting loads. I’m on a mixture of antibiotics for 7 days, a cough medicine which helps bring up…

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Lorna

A Fashion Blogger With M.E – Exhaustion & Tiredness

The effects of exhaustion and tiredness from M.E In my series of posts about living with M.E, I wanted to touch ground on exhaustion and tiredness. So far I have covered the general basics of living with M.E, anxiety and depression and also temporary paralysis, but it’s now time for me to talk about one of the main symptoms of M.E and how it effects those living with it. I did want to say first off though that I’m really encouraged and overwhelmed by the amount of support you are all giving me and I’m so glad that I’m able to help some of you going through the same thing at the moment. I’m working closely with a couple of M.E charities too to help spread awareness for it and you can read an interview I did on M.E support by clicking here. It’s been lovely knowing so many of you are so supportive and at the same time you aren’t treating me any differently, which is what I had hoped for. I’m still me and even though I’ve decided to make having M.E public, it doesn’t change how you know me and I’m thankful for that. One of the things that every single one of us who has M.E will say is a huge problem is exhaustion. It’s one of the symptoms that everyone gets and it’s not just your average tiredness where you need to rest for a while to feel better or get a good nights sleep, it’s much more than that. Someone described it once as it feeling like running a marathon with flu or I…

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Lorna

Interviewing Lindsey McKeon on Life and Health

An enlightening interview with Lindsey McKeon on life, living and health I’m doing something completely different for today’s post and that’s an exclusive interview with the amazing Lindsey McKeon. Lindsey is a huge inspiration to me as she’s such a grounded, strong minded woman who has managed to really enjoy life and understand it from such a clear point of view. For those of you not familiar with her, Lindsey is an actress from New Jersey, whom you might know from Saved By The Bell if you used to watch it, or numerous other titles. I was very much inspired when I came across her blog post and set of videos with Chris Evans. This series was titled ‘getting inside Chris Evans’ head‘ and he answered her questions on enlightenment, thoughts and more, so I definitely recommend that you check that out as that’s helped me a huge amount on my life journey too and my goals to happiness and understanding. I’ve taken the book recommendations and I’ve been reading Lindsey’s own personal blog frequently as she always inspires me with her writing and passion for life. I found out not that long ago that she has also been to my home town of Bath and loved it here, so that’s a bonus! I got the chance to ask Lindsey some really important questions to me, about managing health and illness while making sure you stay on the right track mentally. How important the nutrients you give to your body are. How she deals with being an empath and being surrounded by other peoples emotions and energy. What her general…

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