Fibromyalgia and Anxiety

Hi everyone, I hope you had a wonderful Forth of July weekend without a lot of pain from your Fibromyalgia. I had a good weekend, spending time with friends and family. I am actually having a hard time getting back into my daily grind again. As far as my Fibromyalgia goes, I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety. I know that anxiety may not be a direct symptom of Fibromyalgia, but I think that a lot of people who have Fibromyalgia also have anxiety. Throughout my Fourth of July weekend I have dealt with a persistent feeling of gloominess or dread that something bad is going to happen. Anxiety is a horrible thing to have to deal with and it most definitly causes Fibromyalgia pain to get worse. I have been treating my anxiety as best I can with diaphraghmatic  breathing, does anyone have any other ideas short of anxiety medications to deal with anxiety? Thanks everyone, have a great day!

Family and Fibromyalgia

Today I found myself in the position of once again talking about my Fibromyalgia to a couple of brick walls (my mom and sister). Okay, to their credit they ask about my fibromyalgia. But, heaven forbid I elaborate on the good or bad day answer. Sometimes I get the urge to talk about my illness. Sometimes I need to vent about what I am going through. Sometimes I want to expound upon the new sources of information that I have discovered about my illness. Fibromyalgia is an illness that has been kept silent for years, but I am not a silent person. I need my voice to be heard. I feel like its my responsibility and the responsibility of everyone who has Fibromyalgia to talk about what life with Fibromyalgia is like. If we suffer in silence, then we are letting Fibromyalgia remain somewhat of a mystery disorder.

Okay stepping down off of my soap box. In reality, I know my mom and sister care about my illness and they care about me. But, if you don't suffer from Fibromyalgia on a daily basis than their is no way that you can trully understand what Fibromyalgia is like. What we as Fibromyalgia suffers need to do, is to keep talking about our illnesses. We need to encourage our family members to ask questions about Fibromyalgia, to research Fibromyalgia on their own, and to try to cut us some slack when we are having a bad day. Don't get me wrong, my mom and sister are very supportive of me most times. My mom makes a lot of concessions for me, like riding in the back seat on car trips, because the front seat is taller and supports my back better. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that sometimes they act like hearing me talk about Fibromyalgia is a burden, which I know it really is. Even in writing this I feel guilty, like I am being selfish for needing to express myself and talk about Fibromyalgia. Has anyone else ever felt like this? I would really like to hear from you.

Fibromyalgia Flare-up

Hi everyone, I hope you have all had a good day. I had a relatively good day. I gave a presentation in my graduate substance abuse class, I am working on my master's in community counseling. I also turned in two papers. Yeah, that is a lot of work to have due in one day. I managed to get through the class portion of my day, but you guessed it this evening I have one those wonderful Fibromyalgia Flare Ups. This post is going to be very short because I need to lie down, but I wanted to write to you about the use of diaphragmatic breathing to combat pain. I found this article today and I think it has a good breakdown of how to engage in diaphragmatic breathing: http://www.the-energy-healing-site.com/diaphragmatic-breathing.html. You might not think that diaphragmatic breathing could work for you, but I can assure you that I have used it to combat my fibromyalgia and I also used it when I had pancreatitus (no I am not an alchoholic, even though most people who get pancreatitus are). Some people compare pancreatitus pain to childbirth. The best way I can describe it is to say that it feels like someone is blowing up a balloon inside of you and ultimately you are going to bust. The reason for my explaining pancreatitus is to show you that diaphragmatic breathing can help alleviate even excrutiating pain. Lamaze for childbirth is all about diaphramatic breathing. I think I have gotten my point accross. At least try it, it won't cost you a thing, and you don't have to learn how to do anything your body doesn't already know how to do. If you would like to step up your breathing exercisizes try a guided breathing exercise like the one in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wFX9Wn70eM. One recommendation, go into this with an open mind and a desire to become calm and relaxed. A lot of Fibromyalgia pain comes from being stressed and staying in a keyed up stance. Thats all I have. Please let me know if you did the diaphragmatic breathing, and if so how it effected you. Sarah

Hi everyone, I hope you have a good day with only mild fibromyalgia pain and none of those nasty flare ups that we all dread. I started working out for the first time in a few days today. A couple weeks ago I thought I was going to start working out and did the Jillian Michaels yoga meltdown dvd and about killed myself (the workout was tough, but the fibromyalgia flareup was what really brought me to my knees). I have determined Jillian Michaels dvd's to be something that I am going to have to work my way up to. The last time I really started working out and did it the right way by working up to more and more workouts, I did Leslie Sansone's Walk At Home - 5 Mile Walk (With Fitness Band). During the first couple weeks, I only did one or two miles at a time, never using the fitness band. I slowly worked my way up to where I could do the whole thing. Believe it, I was walking 4 and 5 miles a day. I felt great until I stopped doing the workouts (mainly due to the fact that I am a lazy bum). I now have to go back and start building up again. Today I started with one mile (or maybe a little less, my sister called mid workout). Tommorow, I hope to do two miles. I will stay at two miles for a week or two before moving up to three miles.

The reason I am posting about my impending workout plans is because exercising helps to cut down on fibromyalgia pain. It's hard to believe that moving more could bring about less fibromyalgia pain, but its true. When the doctors first told me I had fibromyalgia, they told me that I should start working out and I thought they were out of their minds. I was in so much pain, that moving literally made me throw up (sorry to be graphic) at times and they wanted me to workout. Of course, during the initial stages of my diagnosis I didn't work out, but when I accepted my illness, I started trying to fight it. When I started fighting my fibromyalgia, I started exercising. When I started exercising I could see a marked decrease in  my fibromyalgia pain.

Like many of you I still don't like to exercise all the time. I have to force myself to exercise when I do by remembering that "high" you get after a good sweat session. I also have to remind myself about how much extra energy I have when I workout and how I have more days in between flare ups. In the end, I usually end up working out about three days a week even on weeks when I am not doing my best. So my challenge to you (the reader) is to get up off the couch and walk at least ten minutes. You don't have to buy Leslie's dvd to get a good walk in, even though I recommend it if you want to get serious about your walking. You can walk around your backyard for a while, or take your dog for a stroll in the park, you can even go walking in the mall, just get up off the couch and start moving. When you first start moving its going to be hard, everything worth doing is hard, but stay commited and I promise you will see results. If you have already started exercising and it has helped you, let me know what you did and how much it impacted your overall health.

Until next time,
Sarah

Treating Fibromyaligia with Food!

Hi everyone, I hope all of you are feeling well and not currently having a flare up. I have been doing okay for the last few day, thankfully. Recently I have been thinking a lot about how my diet effects the way that I feel. I have a cousin who also has fibromyalgia and she gave me some paperwork on the disease to look over. She also informed me that she could see a marked difference in her fibromyalgia symptoms when she ate a lot of processed white flour products (bread, cereal, donuts, anything that tastes good really!). I had never noticed it before, but in paying attention to how foods effect my body in the last while I have found that she was spot on. My fibromyalgia pain is usually located around my neck, shoulders, and upper back for the most part, but when I lose control of my eating and take in a lot of stuff that is bad for me, my knees start to hurt to. When my knees start hurting, I know its time to start eating better (Isn't that crazy?). In the last week I have started following the weight watchers program very losely. I have went over my daily points by a little most everyday. While I really would like to lose a few pounds, I mostly do the program because it forces me to concentrate on what I put into my body. I know that I feel better when I ingest fruits, vegetables, and whole grains as opposed to when I eat a lot of junk food. 

I have done some research on possible good and bad foods for fibromyalgia and I thought I would share with you what I have found.  

Bad Foods
Aspartame: yep, we need to avoid this artificial sweetner b/c it can exacerbate our symptoms (and I don't think anyone wants to deal with anymore pain than we already have, thank you!)
Food Additives like MSG: Found in a lot of chinese foods and packaged foods (Check the ingredient list on your prepackaged meals to make sure none of these chemicals are in the food your eating!)
Sugar, Fructose, and Simple Carbs: okay, okay, I'm not going to ask you to cut out sweets entirely (I know I can't do that, my sweet tooth rules my life!) but please try to cut back some for your health's sake.
Caffiene (including coffee's, tea's, cola's, and chocolate: Once again I am only asking that you cut back on these (I know I can't live without some caffiene, but I have reduced my intake significantly!).
Yeast and Gluten: can be bad for some people, this is one group that I haven't tested to see how they effect me. But, if your interested or have done some testing with these please leave me a comment and let me know how it went.
Dairy: effects some people, I don't think it effects me, but it is something to test.
Nightshade plants (Tomatoes, chili and bell pepers, potatoes and eggplant): I haven't tested these either, again if you have had any changes due to leaving these foods off, please leave me a comment and let me know how it went and what changes you experienced.

To learn more, read the article where I got the information Fibromyalgia and Diet: 7 Foods to avoid!

Good Foods
Lean meats, poulty, whole grains (unless you are cutting gluten), fresh fruits and vegetables.

I hope I have provided you with some useful information, until next time, take care all and here's to hoping for fewer flare ups!

Sarah

My Story Continued...

Hi again all, I will begin where I left off with my story last night. I ended up leaving my first "grown up" job to go back to school. I hold a Bachelor's degree in psychology and I was working as a claims taker for the Virginia Employment Commission (there is no connection between the degree and the job). Working with the mentally ill is something that I am really passionate about, therefore I had to make the leap of faith and leave my high paying job to go back to gradschool. Making the decision to quit my job and move three hours away from my family was not an easy one, but it was inevitable. The other thing that was inevitable was lots of fibromyalgia flare ups. During my first semester away at grad school, I hurt almost 24/7. I was having to adjust to school, being away from home, and living alone (which involved doing everything for myself..laundry,dishes, etc.). I also started teaching a class for the first time, and every day for the first few weeks of the class, I would get massive butterfly's before going in to teach. Butterflies=nervousness=pain. Half-way through my first semester I hit rock bottom. I found myself crying every day. I thought to myself, that everything would have been easier if I just didn't have to deal with the pain. Again, I started the "why me?" stuff.


During one of those particularly hard evenings, I picked up my laptop and started searching online for anything that might help me come to terms with what I was dealing with. I stumbled upon a fibromyalgia website (unfortunantly, I didn't write it down) that talked about acceptance. I didn't realize it at the time, but before that night, I had never trully accepted that I had Fibromyalgia and that it was not going away. I had been clinging to the hope that I didn't really have Fibromyalgia and that if I just made all the right decisions and/or waited long enough my pain would go away. That night, sitting on my couch, in my apartment alone, I accepted my fibromyalgia. You would not believe how much of a difference that acceptance can make. This brings me to where I am now, I am in my third semester of graduate school. I still feel pain everyday (I still have fibromyalgia afterall!) and I still have my moments when I get down and I want to cry or throw things (not literally, at least not all the time!) but I am making progress. In future posts I will fill you in on what I am doing to try and make living with fibromyalgia a little easier. Till next time!


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My Story

I will begin by introducing myself. My name is Sarah Lyall. I am twenty-three years old and I have suffered from a combination of Fibromyagia and IBS since I was sixteen. Back when I first got introduced to the world of autoimmune disease, IBS was the main concern. I was on a class trip to Disney World when my intestines decided to malfunction and the rest is history. I went through some very trying times in coping with life with IBS. I stopped going on school trips, stopped spending time with friends, and even entertained the idea of not going to prom (yes it was that bad!). Thankfully, with time, my symptoms started to get better on their own (thankfully because the doctors sure couldn't do anything to help me). Fastforward till after undergrad, when I got my first "grown up" job. I was twenty-two years-old, but my seventy-two year-old grandma was more spry than me. I was experiencing pain all over my upper body, my neck and shoulders just ached (sound familiar anyone?). I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't exert myself at all. I use to do tae-bo (a type of kick boxing) when I wanted to lose weight and then, all of a sudden, walking across the floor became taxing for me. I was so tired all the time. I went to several doctors (including a chiropractor who tried to kill me), but I got nowhere. My family doctor finally declared that she couldn't help me and started writing me Vicodin. I was not happy about being given Vicodin, so I went to The University of Virginia medical center looking for answers, it was there that I heard the word Fibromyalgia for the first time. It's an ugly word isn't it? The doctors told me that I had fibromyalgia, there was nothing they could do for me, but that I should go home and start excersing. I made it to the elevator before bawling my eyes out. I went through a few weeks of the "why me?" process before deciding that I wanted to live. When I went back to work my boss gave me a pitiful look and another co-worker came and told me that his wife had Fibromyalgia and that she had taken to her bed and he urged me not to do the same. My coworkers were even supportive when I took a little to much of the vicadin that I had left over and came to work doped out. But, it came down to the fact that I had to choose to live with Fibromyalgia or let Fibromyalgia take over my life. I chose to live.

That is how my story starts, I will update you about where I am currently at next post. Just a quick warning this blog is not for people who are inherently down about themselves, or maybe it is just for them, because it is about living and fighting Fibromyalgia and having hope.