Weight loss with Gastric Band hypnosis

Well since Christmas I have been having major thoughts about changing the way I feel by loosing weight, after all my clients have had some major successes with weight loss, its now time for me to get on track and loose weight. My weight went over 13 stone over the holidays and each time I looked at myself I thought yuck.

So I got started on the 2nd of Jan, I recorded my session on gastric band and played it each night before going to bed. I am eating about a cupful of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacking on oranges.

I am doing half an hour of hula hooping per day and 1 hour on Dance Central 2, weighed myself on the 9th an and have lost 7llbs. Im off swimming tonight and will post an update tomorrow with my weight loss.

Best Christmas yet

Well, I’m not letting this illness get to me, I have been getting out all my material to ensure that 2009 is the best Christmas ever!  Why don’t you do the same ? Go to www.bestchristmasyet.com and download masses of free information to ensure that you also have the Best Christmas Yet !!

My continued journey with Crohns disease

Amazing isnt it.

I am having a bit of time just now where things arent so good for me.  I have lost confidence in myself, try not to go out, and when I do not too far from a toilet – yes it’s a Crohns flare up.

I am so frustrated with this illness because I want it to stop, I am working on a number of different therapies just now including sacral and Cranial, homeopathy and my favourite self hypnosis.  But I also have to say that I have taken my foot off the pedal trying to juggle EVERYTHING and taken time out for me.  I will be trying to get my confidence back through using these tools and have recently been introduced to the Bowen Technique which also sounds promising!!

 

I am drinking Forever Livings Aloe Vera Gel and trying my upmost to stay positive – I am sure it will come

I will keep in touch.
Warmest regards, ME

Air Balloons and challenges

My Journey with Crohn’s disease

Something else I did recently was to fly high in an air balloon with my husband Chris. We had an amazing flight and could see our hometown from around 30 miles away, which reminded me that wherever you are home is never out of reach.

I was having a bit of a quandary about what to do next, I’m still delivering all Living With CLARITY courses but wanted to add a bit more flare.  I love working with individuals and groups so I thought about opening a health shop which brings me back round to My Journey with Crohns disease.

I am having flair up at the moment probably due to the fact that my beautiful sister Stacey has been gone for almost a year now and I still miss her desperately.  But I have to admit that I am controlling it well by relaxing, hypnosis and following my course Living With CLARITY.

I am going for a short break next week and hope that this will give me the time and clarity to move the Crohns flair up out.

Please keep visiting my blog and I’ll keep you posted.

Warmest regards, Leigh

Wow an Xfactor audition

Leigh’s Blogg

My Journey with Crohn’s disease

Today I did something that I never thought I was capable of.  I went to the Xfactor audition in Glasgow.

It was amazing; I got up at 6am, had a shower and then headed to Hampden Park on my own.  It was pouring with rain and extremely cold but worth it nonetheless. I know that if I hadn’t been on my journey with Crohns I would have given up and gone home after an hour.  But I didn’t. I stayed out on the cold for 5 hours while the television crew filmed the crowds, recorded programme links with Dermot O’Leary and watched a very strange man entertain the crowds.

It was an amazing experience and what was so much better was that the staff were trained on my “I can’t wait card”.  It was so much fun and I even put up with the coldest experience I have had in a long long time (I don’t do cold).

Anyway, I didn’t get through to the next stage but I was so thrilled that I went along for the experience. I can tell everyone now that I will follow my dreams and beat this illness.

I am living my life, having the best time and having a fantastic journey.

Please keep visiting my blog and I’ll keep you posted.

Warmest regards, Leigh

This is it!

Leigh’s Blog

My Journey with Crohn’s disease

Today I made the biggest decision in my life.  To take hold of my future, embrace life and look forward to what it holds in store for me.  Crohn’s disease is certainly staying at bay.  Instead of all the feelings I encounter each day with pain, self-doubt and negative thoughts, I am now able to say YES to life and NO to Crohn’s.

I am remaining on my medication but have reduced the painkillers down to Paracetamol only, not Tramadol or Amitriptyline; no this is only old-fashioned Paracetamol.  And the only emotion that I feel today is excitement, happiness and fulfillment.

I know how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband, two adoring children and a lifetime of happy memories but sometimes I feel that I am full of self-doubt, unenergetic and very lethargic…. well no more, I am NOW a positive, energetic and motivational individual who can achieve whatever I definitely desire and that includes taking my personal improvement plan International and beating this Crohn’s Disease.

Please keep visiting my blog and I’ll keep you posted.

Warmest regards, Leigh

Continuing through

Leigh’s Blogg

My Journey with Crohn’s disease

It’s already happening, I am on my journey with Crohn’s disease and I am a few more steps ahead than I thought I would be and that’s because I have decided that I am the driver of my journey.  I am the person who drives forward, puts my foot down on the floor and speeds through my journey, safely of course!

This morning I went to the gym, it was so hard and I felt like giving up! But after saying my own affirmation a few times there I was on the cross trainer not only keeping up with the person next to me (a very fit and pretty young lady) but I also felt my legs and arms working harder than ever.  And today Crohn’s disease is staying at bay only three times to the toilet instead of the six that I usually have encountered by this time today.

I will beat this Crohn’s disease so please keep visiting my blogg, ill keep you posted.

Warmest regards, Leigh Payne

My journey with Crohns Disease

Leigh’s Blogg

My Journey with Crohn’s disease

As a child I thought that apart from the little burnt bits of food on my plate, my mum had provided me with a very nutritious dinner.  A mix of meat, potatoes and vegetables, this was my diet along with missing breakfast most mornings and a packed lunch of chocolate sandwiches, packet of crisps, 4 small chocolate bars and some fizzy juice.  We didn’t have so much money but we ate very well or so I though. We concentrated on what went in but not so much on what came out or how it came out.

After leaving home at 19 and moving in with my boyfriend, I changed my diet to healthier food but I still had a binge drink at weekends and would eat takeaways during most weekends.  I gained weight but didn’t feel the need to worry because Chris loved me just the way I was.  I suffered from Endometriosis and eating was my comfort so I would eat 10 or 20 bags of crisps a day.

After my two pregnancies, my weight continued to grow and after trying diet after diet I have maintained my weight between 12 and 13 stone, now on a body of 5’ 3” that’s an awful lot of excess weight to carry around.  I look in the mirror everyday and would wish that the weight would just drop off without too much effort.  However as time went on I felt that even if I could step out of my “fat suit” I would still have difficulty with my weight.  You see going to the toilet has always been a bit of a nightmare for me.  I thought it was mainly due to the endometriosis, however after a full Hysterectomy the pain was still there.  I didn’t think much of the pain at this time because it was nowhere near as painful as the endometriosis, so I continued to battle on with the toilet duties and the pain.

At the start of 2008, I set my goals as I always do, and at the top of my list, yes you’ve guessed it:  I wanted to lose weight, get fit ya da da da, da.  I set out thinking “Yes this is it, my best year ever”.  However I chose not to write it down or focus on it or actually think about the goals I had set at all.  In fact instead of going along with set goals and did exactly the opposite and in April I started a job which I hadn’t planned to have, I had no focus on going back to work as an employed person as I am a therapist but I chose to go completely the opposite way and this resulted in me experiencing one of the most stressful times of my 31 years, and thus I began my journey with Crohn’s disease.

In April 2008 I joined a membership organisation, I had one interview and quite liked the sound of the job but didn’t really take in what they explained at interview. I was happy to be joining a well known and I thought reputable company at quite a high level.  But as soon as I walked through the doors on that April morning, I should have turned around and walked straight back out.  I think now of how I felt that day, I was proud of myself for the opportunity I had created and genuinely believed that this was going to be a great step for me.

I met with my manager very early that morning and she gave me a frank description on what she thought of my role and how I would fit into the team.  She was wrong and doubts started to creep into my mind as she continued to tell me about the “admin” part of the job and how there was a political row burning within the department and how she would like for us to be our own team and away from the other departments.

I thought this was ok but later that day my tummy had butterflies, a real gut wrenching feeling, but I put it to the bank of my mind, thought positively and worked thought my new work. As the week carried on there was so many political rows burning that was afraid to leave my seat incase someone was planting a microphone to catch any of the little secret speeches from my manager who was indeed very good at her job as a political stirrer. She would rile me up most mornings by telling me that someone had said this and someone thought I should be doing that.  By the end of the first week I thought this is mental, surely organisations couldn’t function this way, could they?  So I swallowed my feelings and thought I can make this better and I will.

In the end I thought I would speak to the director in charge of my department and had told my manager that this was my plan, however my the time I got there not only had my manager twisted the directors ear around, he thought that it was me not making an effort!

Before working for this organisation I had worked within a very large blue chip company and with out being pretentious I was well thought of as a good team player, consultant and person.

So after this I decided that I would get on with my work and not bother playing any more dramatic games.  I came to work everyday, worked through my admin role and left by 6pm.  Everyday though I would have pain on the right side of my abdomen, it didn’t matter when it was, morning, afternoon or evening sometimes the pain was so intense that I thought I was in labour with a baby again.

4 weeks into working with my nightmare organisation I went to the doctors because the pain hadn’t eased, they prescribed some antibiotics for a urine infection and sent me on my way.  Later on that week the pain was going through to my back, so I called work and took the day off. This time however my doctor thought the infection had gone into my kidneys and sent me into my local hospital for a surgeon to check me out.

I stayed in hospital for a week, was sick, diarrhoea 20 times a day and the inability to lift my head from my pillow.  The doctors couldn’t  find anything wrong with me and apart from being a little bit anaemic my bloods and tests were inconclusive.  I thought “this is just stress and on Monday I will hand in my notice” but this was not to be because on the Friday the surgeon found some ulcers and inflammation on my colon and suspected it might be Ulcerative Colitis.  During the Colonoscopy I didn’t feel much, a little bit of tugging for the biopsy but otherwise I wanted to go home to look after my family.

The next morning I was sent home with a clinical diagnosis of Crohn’s disease and a prescription for a whole load of medication including steroids and Asacol.  I didn’t know what Crohn’s disease was, all the doctor told me was that anything I read on the Internet was everything that the doctors knew.  So I spent the next week finding out about Crohn’s, how did I get it, how had it developed, where could I get some help, as I said before I am a therapist and have a wealth of knowledge on certain pain management remedies but not for the pain that accompanies Crohn’s.

I went off sick for 4 weeks at my doctors request and had a chat with my manager about handing in my notice, however she advised me not to even think about work and would speak to me on my return.  So I put it at the back of my mind and carried on trying to work out how to deal with this pain.

As time went on the pain continued to stay at the right side of my abdomen, however the steroids started to work and within two weeks I felt the change, free of pain, no stress from work and my family were doing very well and looking forward to our holiday at the caravan.  We have the caravan just an hour from home so I took my mum and five children for a holiday.  For most this would sound like a terrible nightmare, going to a caravan with 5 children under seven but for me it was my rest and salvation.  The week before we went I had a strange letter posted to me from work advising that my employers wanted me to see an Occupational Therapist.  I had no issue with this and toddled off to see them a few days later. I thought this was pretty normal and had no idea of the whirlwind that I was going to be embroiled in.

The Occupational doctor advised both me and my employer that Crohn’s disease is a serious chronic illness and that 4 weeks sick is quite acceptable: I even allowed them to access my medical records.

Now that this was sorted I went for a break.  During my time away my little boy had a serious temperature of 41 degrees and was admitted to the local hospital for Tonsillitis.  It was probably because I was so unwell that I also caught Tonsillitis and we cut our holiday short thankfully because the week I went home on the 7th July was week that has changed my life, my families life and shattered our future, because in the early morning of 9th July, my beautiful little sister was killed in a car accident at just 23 years old.   She left two children behind and a devastated family.  I didn’t have a clue where to turn and the pain in my right side started from the moment that I heard my tragic news. I vomited all day, went to the toilet about 30 times and thought that my heart a going to fall though my stomach and break on the floor in a million pieces.

We couldn’t believe what had happened, how could we get through this, how could we bury her or leave her alone in that cold hospital room.  Pain etched through me at every turn, I knew then that the Crohn’s was back in full pelt because every time I acknowledged the fact that I would never again touch her skin, hear her laugh or smell her perfume, I would vomit or have diarrhoea.  I battled against my feelings, my bewilderment and my pains to help my other sister, brother, mum, dad and children to get through the bleak days after she died.

I went back to the doctors and was prescribed Azathioprim and some Prednisalone, to take the pain away certainly from the Crohn’s disease, they had no medication to remove the pain from my heart and I would have taken any thing just to be strong enough to support my family.

As time went by the police liaison officer escorted us home and immediately other family and friends were there, trying to help put or lives back in some sort of order.  But it would never be same again so we had to look at our new future.  Not in a depressing, moody way but thought about how my sister was at rest and she would never endure any more pain.

In August it was my daughters 8th birthday and we had long since decided that no matter what, our children would not be sacrificed to our pain, that they would enjoy life and be given exactly the same care that we provided them before my sister died.  In the morning of her birthday, I went out with my mum, I was able to go and do a bit of shopping because they medication was helping me and each day I felt stronger.  My husband called me on my mobile while I was out to tell me that an official letter had arrived from my employer and that I had to meet them on Monday for a disciplinary meeting.  I was so taken aback by this, stunned and again the pain slowly crept in, I tired to take big, slow breaths to stop the cramp from my stomach, this was my daughters birthday and my illness was not going to spoil it.  I went into the toilet at the supermarket vomited and washed my face; I would deal with the work issue on Monday.  This was my daughter’s day.

I forgot how good I was at acting because not only was the fact that I had lost my sister on my mind, I also had to deal with some work pressure and having family of 23 for dinner.  I kept on smiling through the pain all weekend.  The stomach cramps continued to overcome me and no matter how much slow breathing I did or EFT tapping there was no way this pain was moving.  I ended up at the doctors for my second treatment of steroids first thing on the Monday morning.

In the end I handed in my notice, I felt that my employers were pressuring me to resign, after all they were employing me and I was unable to work for them.  After three weeks of negotiating they agreed to accept my notice. I felt angry, hurt and very low at this point, I went back to see my consultant and was given a prescription for Azathioprim and more steroids.  Azathioprim is an immune suppressive which was supposed to put the Crohn’s into remission.  It didn’t and therefore for the last few months I have been having a very joyous relationship with this illness.  Let me give you an update on what has happened in the last year.  And let me also show you how I am going to change my life style to ensure that 2009 is the best year yet!

January 2008 – set my goals but no focus
February 2008 – Was under financial pressure to earn money for my family
March 2008 – Went for one interview for what was to be the job from hell
April 2008 – started a new job, found t wasn’t right for me and started having the most amazing painful cramps n my stomach
May 2008 – Admitted to hospital for a urine infection, after several tests a colonoscopy was conducted and consultant found ulcers on my colon, took biopsies to confirm Crohns disease
June 2008 – Continued to have stomach cramps, although on steroids and Asacol
July 2008 – Lost my beautiful sister in a car accident, the pain was so raw in my heart, that I found it difficult to function with this pain and the pain on the right sight of my abdomen
August 2008  – Given a disciplinary, another first for me, oh boy was I in pain, given another load of steroids
September 2008 – Starting to feel a bit better, offered Azathioprim from consultant, really thought this would help
October 2008 – Back to work as a therapist, but still the pain would rip through my stomach at different times of the day, Crohns doesn’t give you any warning it hits the bulls eye with full force and impact
November 2008– I turned 31years old, my nephew was born with right side angioplastic heart, another painful challenge for my already energy and positive depleted family, but we coped, held or breath and prayed for the best outcome.  And it came, he was strong enough for an operation at 12 days and a life saving shunt was inserted and he is a fighter, is his Auntie looking after him or what?
December 2008– learned another way of coping with this pain – Reiki, I was attuned to Reiki 2, and felt again that this would help.  This was to be another painful month, first Christmas for my mum and dad without their beautiful daughter, I know that they wanted to lie down and wait for the holiday season to be over, but they couldn’t, because my sister had left them the most beautiful gift, two daughters who were now my parents responsibility.  But this was also the end to what had been the most challenging year for us as a family

2009

I decided at the start of this year to set my goals again, to ensure that I did not make the same mistakes this year, I had to concentrate on my goals and this meant going back to basics.  And so I have been working through my own course Living With Clarity.  This is a programme that I have been working on for over four years. I have been delivering it one to one with my clients and have no idea why I chose not to follow it in 2008, but this year I know I have to if I want to change my life.

This year I am focused on the journey I have to endure with Crohns disease and this means seeking alternative help as well as traditional medication.

I have wrote all my goals down in my workbook, I have pictures of them and try to look at them once a day, I am booked in with a Kinesiologist, a dietician and a Gastro specialist and each night and each morning I focus on the day gone by, how I would have changed it and what I am looking forward to tomorrow.

I will be updating you on my journey with Crohns so please continue to log onto my Blogg and in the meantime, have a look at my website www.leighpayne.uk

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Warmest regards, Leigh Payne

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