Curable app

[Azayliah]

@Azayliah Would you say that's typical of curable?

I'm not sure how to answer this because I'm not really sure what would be considered typical. But I think that alternatives very similar the kinds of meditations Curable offers could be found for free elsewhere. There are things like creating a safe space in your mind, affirmation-types where you tell yourself things like "my arm is not relaxing as quickly as I would like" (I believe this plays off the idea that our sub ignores the negative term, "not" and obeys what's left... I actually find this one helpful too). As to the written exercises, they mostly seem to be about reframing past pains, negative beliefs, etc., and some of the meditations are like this as well.

@Azayliah... Been meditating and relaxing 7 years now and I'm not "cured" yet. Still longing for actual medical treatment.

Medical treatments don't guarantee relief or healing, and even in the medical world, what works for one doesn't always work for all... if only! If I compare my migraine experience to mind-body exercises, then those exercises are like a prescription drug, and different exercises might be like different types of drugs that treat the same symptoms by working through different pathways. Or, maybe Curable vs. free Youtube meditations could be related to the brand name vs. generic drug (which are supposed to be the same thing, but my experiences say aren't).

But if I were in your shoes, I think I wouldn't pay for Curable. It is probably be much more useful for someone who hasn't tried this sort of thing before than for someone who has been meditating and relaxing avidly for 7 years.

 

[wabi-sabi]

It is probably be much more useful for someone who hasn't tried this sort of thing before than for someone who has been meditating and relaxing avidly for 7 years.

Yes, and that's what gets me. I do the meditation stuff because it helps, but it's also so inadequate compared to the research and cure we all dream of. Mainly I'm upset because I think curable and its pain reprocessing ilk are overpromising to a group of very vulnerable and needy people. Pain management is not the same as curing.

I just want all these bright scientists to find a cure for our disease, because as much as I like meditating- honestly I'd rather not have to! I'd much rather be hiking.

If it helps you more power to you. I think I'll stick with Insight Timer.

 

[jamie13]

Whatever the curable people are trying to cure, it's not what I have. It feels like a very emotionally painful bait and switch.

Again, I haven't been through enough of the program to say it works or anything, but maybe the name Curable isn't the best name they could've chose.

 

[lenora]

Here is a CFS story on that website I shared:
https://www.unlearnyourpain.com/ryans_story

I have NOT read through Ryan's story yet myself, so I don't have any comments. I'm only sharing if anyone is interested.

Does Ryan (I assume the man from Philly is Ryan) ever say how old he is? Yes, I believe that some things are psychosomatic....and healthy or ill we all fall into that trap. On the other hand, there are plenty of really sick people in this world, whether through bad genes, illnesses they contract or otherwise. This is then making a mockery of reality.

Just like watching a depressing movie can make us feel depressed, it's a small comparison, but only that. Tomorrow I may forget all about it. However, depressing events in life, such as losing large amounts of people important to us is truly a reality. It takes time to move on through such an event. Having diseass that were unknown at the time or spending too much time in a hospital b/c of illnesses that can't be figured out or addressed is a reality. Do those who have a heart condition (my father died of a coronary when I was 14....could he have talked himself out of it?) or those who have cancer....these are realities. We have a choice in how we react to them and expect others to react but bad things do occur.

I'm older (74) and I've been seriously trying to recover some aspect of my health for years. I've now accepted that I have many illnesses, will never see recovery, but you know I still get plenty of joy from my life. I don't let certain things get to me.....I've actually accepted illness b/c I have every reason to be ill and I've been that way since in my mother's uterus. Still, I smile, I laugh and I'll be damned if anyone is going to make me feel bad for being ill. Personally, I think I carry it well, as does my husband and our daughters. Yours, Lenora.
P.S. I heartily believe in making yourself feel better, doing as much as possible....but also recognizing limits.

 

[wabi-sabi]

Again, I haven't been through enough of the program to say it works or anything, but maybe the name Curable isn't the best name they could've chose.

I don't mean to attack you or @Azayliah over the app. Please don't take my words in that spirit, especially as I can get rather passionate.

I'm just so beyond frustrated at the approach to treatment this app represents. I think it misunderstands how chronic pain works and overpromises to vulnerable people. Who among us hasn't felt better when we relax, deal with our emotional wounds, and connect to what's meaningful in life? But to package and sell that as a cure for chronic pain. Oh no!

 

[Azayliah]

I'm just so beyond frustrated at the approach to treatment this app represents. I think it misunderstands how chronic pain works and overpromises to vulnerable people.

I understand. I feel the same way about many similar setups... a "doctor" with a list of pills that promises cures, spiritual charlatans claiming to contact the dead for the grieving, diets that guarantee weight loss promoted by people who don't actually follow them, ads claiming that a skin cream will restore your youth, or commercials for prescriptions that say "this will give you your life back!" and try hard to downplay the risks (at least they have to read the possible side effects out loud in the commercials now)... we're surrounded, and it's a good idea to be on guard against that sort of thing.

I'm also not married to the idea of Curable. I can see benefit from it, but if I don't have to pay for it again and can use Insight Timer to help me instead, I'll certainly be happy to save the money! The only problem I can currently see with Insight Timer is that there's so much spread around that it might be overwhelming for someone who doesn't know where to start.

 

[xebex]

Can you say which part of the program helped the most o the techniques you used? I'm quite curious about this, but I don't want to give them my email address and get inundated with endless spam.

I'm also curious about which parts it didn't help for you. Do you have a sense of why?

The app helped with the muscles spasms that were incredibly debilitating and actually causing me to crash very quickly after being upright even though I could lie on the sofa all day, talk and chat, watch tv and compose music. IMO the muscles were spasming in an overprotective and unnecessary way and actually making the injury they were trying to protect worse and more painful. Since I have got rid of the spasms I have been able to be upright more then 1 20min session a day - on a good day I can be upright for 30 mins every hour.

What the app hasn’t helped with is the injury itself though I do feel it has dulled the pain a bit and allowed me to recover faster after being upright.

This injury I do believe is similar to CCI, I believe I have an unstable thoracic spine caused by lax ligaments caused by god knows what - something to do with the immune state ME puts me in.

I should note that I also used EFT, somatic experiencing and radical acceptance techniques (which are similar to curables process too possibly more effective overall) I don’t have any emotional trauma either. This is simply about calming the nervous system and teaching it not to overreact. I found these techniques more beneficial than simple meditations and visualisations but something that was helpful that curable really push is visualizing the muscles unwinding, as if they were twisted bits of rope untwisting.

And this didn’t just happen over night it took a lot of practice over many months and you could say years because I’d been trying it for 2 years (with little glimmers of hope here and there) then this year it finally clicked how to d it and improvement took abiut 4-5 months.

I should also say that I developed my own form of somatic experiencing based on curable but so it suited me. Which was basically Lieing with the pain, allowing it to just be and not run away from it in my head, not judge it and nor fear it. Learning not to fear it was the hardest but most helpful thing. The more you fear it the more your muscles tense up.

Curable helps you to understand that just because you have pain doesn’t mean that the pain is proportionate to the problem which is a huge help. I can’t remember if this is in the app but it’s part of the TMS theory that’s curable is based on. This has been proven with MRIs of people experiencing the same stimuli in totally differnt ways - people with huge bulging discs experiencing no pain people with “minor” issues in extreme pain. My gyno even told me that the pain his Endo patients experience is not relative to how badly they are affected. He’s had patients with severe debilitating pain and stage 1 endo and also patients with stage 4 endo and very little pain.

Now my problem is very complex and debilitating but it doesn’t have to cause me as much pain as it was I am eternally grateful for learning these techniques.

I am not sure I’d have got the improvement I did using curable alone but all these techniques together have certainly and hugely helped.

 

[Tella]

To the author: thanks for this and how r u doing now?
no it’s not in our heads. But it IS in our brain. It’s a dysregulated nervous system.
Most diseases are lifestyle diseases.
cfs is when u are overwhelmed by stress and trigger is the last drop: that’s why it’s not a virus for everyone.
plenty have recovered from cfs and most who do, do it when they understand this

pls keep us updated. Thanks

 

[femtosecond99]

It’s quite sad to read most of these forums. I get it. Absolutely. It’s depressing and no it’s not in our heads. But it IS in our brain. It’s a dysregulated nervous system.
Most diseases are lifestyle diseases.
cfs is when u are overwhelmed by stress and trigger is the last drop: that’s why it’s not a virus for everyone.
It’s astonishing to me how people don’t get that it IS scientific and not woo woo? Why does everyone ignore a very rea thing that’s used in all real clinical trials (!!!) such as placebo? Lol. Cos people don’t want to hear about it. There’s such thing as a nocebo too.
plenty have recovered from cfs and most who do, do it when they understand this and stop waiting for a magic pill
As if one just waits for ‘research’ all their lives and sends very real signals to the Brain that the body is broken and incurable - trust me, or rather trust science - that’s exactly how they will feel

Yes, this is absolutely true, and it's essentially how I managed to fully recover 20 years ago without using any treatments other than what I figured out by myself. But I can't discuss it here (or on most other forums) because it makes too many people angry and upset. But it really shouldn't...it's just how the brain works, and isn't anything magical, scary, or patient-blaming. I totally understand that it's not easy to recover, and it was very difficult for me too. But the main difficulty I found was actually getting good information about the illness, and I eventually just had to look at the science myself. Even back then there was enough info out there to figure out pretty much what was going on with my body. The problem is there is so much misinformation out there as well, kind of like with covid. So my advice to anyone wanting to recover is to be open-minded and skeptical, do your own research, and talk to other people who have recovered. Above all, take anything written in a forum, or by any ME association, with a large grain of salt. Look at the science yourself and don't trust anyone else's opinion on it.

 

[Tella]

Yes, this is absolutely true, and it's essentially how I managed to fully recover 20 years ago without using any treatments other than what I figured out by myself. But I can't discuss it here (or on most other forums) because it makes too many people angry and upset. But it really shouldn't...it's just how the brain works, and isn't anything magical, scary, or patient-blaming. I totally understand that it's not easy to recover, and it was very difficult for me too.

But the main difficulty I found was actually getting good information about the illness, and I eventually just had to look at the science myself. Even back then there was enough info out there to figure out pretty much what was going on with my body. The problem is there is so much misinformation out there as well, kind of like with covid. So my advice to anyone wanting to recover is to be open-minded and skeptical, do your own research, and talk to other people who have recovered. Above all, take anything written in a forum, or by any ME association, with a large grain of salt. Look at the science yourself and don't trust anyone else's opinion on it.

Yessss! Congratulations! But what’s upsetting is if it’s an open forum surely nobody should bash anyone sharing anything. Like I don’t bash if u post that u think eating a spoon of spinach would cure u. U would be wrong but I won’t bash u. But many pwme are so desperate they cling onto every story and treatment APART from the one which makes u take responsibility for your own health. I’ll dm u!

ah well couldn’t message u as profile closed but maybe u could then share here how u healed n how u were before …if u dare…. Or message me to chat

 

[femtosecond99]

ah well couldn’t message u as profile closed but maybe u could then share here how u healed n how u were before …if u dare…. Or message me to chat

Sorry, I've fixed that now.