The broken-leg analogy

In the pre-pandemic times, I received lots of diagnoses for all sorts of chronic pains and illness, and I had symptoms of numerous conditions, including: endometriosis, migraine, histamine intolerance, gluten intolerance, chronic sinus infections, anxiety, adult acne, eczema, and countless others. Then during the pandemic, I got Long Covid. 

It was a “new” condition that somehow exacerbated all of the symptoms I’d had for decades and produced dozens of new symptoms.

For a year and a half I suffered with this condition, often unable to leave the bed for weeks at a time, while doctors told me they didn’t know what to do.
I’ve since recovered, and not just from Long Covid, but from nearly every other chronic condition I had, because, as it turns out, I only had one condition the entire time: my nervous system was broken.

That may not be the best terminology for this condition, but I like it because I think it compares nicely to a broken bone. If I broke my leg, especially if it was a more basic break or a hairline fracture, doctors probably wouldn’t do a lot to fix it. They would likely set it and cast it up; they’d probably give me some painkillers to help me manage the pain symptoms of a broken leg; and they’d tell me to keep my weight off of it so that it wasn’t subjected to unnecessary stress. And then, my body would repair the bone itself. How amazing is that!?

But if I didn’t give my body the physical support, rest, and time it needed to repair the bone, the bone might not get fixed properly. I might keep exacerbating it by placing weight on it, or it might not set properly and I could end up deformed or with a leg that no longer functions properly.

I now believe my nervous system is far more similar to that example than I ever could have imagined prior to my recovery. Over the years, I had countless, small “breaks” in my nervous system. Each was quite minor, and I never suffered “big T” traumas, but no one, including me, ever recognized that anything was going wrong. So I never had the physical support, emotional support, rest, and time that was necessary for my particular nervous system to repair each of these “breaks.” 

As the years went on, more and more things went wrong with my body because my nervous system—which automatically regulates how my body functions—couldn’t function properly itself because it had never been allowed the time and support necessary to repair itself.

Again, this is an analogy. It’s not an accurate representation of how the nervous system works or what went wrong with my nervous system. But I hope it’s a helpful starting point for rethinking the role of our nervous systems in relation to chronic conditions, and I really hope the broken bone analogy can help make it clear that these are real, physical issues. 

None of this was “in my head,” and other people who are suffering these conditions are not just imagining them either.

Moreover, as with x-rays proving the bone is broken, many of these chronic conditions will have real, measurable indicators. But in the end, just like a broken bone, doctors couldn’t fix my body themselves. The more severe the bone fracture, and the more complicated the nervous system problems are, the more we may need to turn to doctors for surgery and/or medication that can help us heal, but ultimately, I needed to give my body the physical and emotional support and the time it needed to fix itself.