Fibromyalgia Support Group
You're not alone in your pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose and manage. If you're trying to cope with pain throughout your body, sleep problems, general fatigue, or other common fibromyalgia symptoms, you're in the right place. The community is here for you to talk about therapies and share your challenges.
Good morning/day/evening/whatever:-)
Did I sleep? Eh. I'll take it. Did I feel pain? OMG, who set the invisible rats of he** to gnaw me?! FIgured out that my L4-5 is doing its fun "you overdid, so I'm going to give you neuropathic pain all night" thing. While most of my accident damage a few years ago was to L5, the L4 gets in on the action sometimes. All this, btw, b/c I followed doctor's orders to start trying five minutes of yoga every day again. Five minutes.... *sigh* And so basic that I feel like I'm not even doing anything. *double sigh*
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Today's therapy: When the pain hits, stop.
THi sisn't just for "you're doing laundry and the basket suddenly weighs 1000 pounds". This is... "Doing routine stretch". When your body says, "Twang!", you stop. Just... ease off. Back away. Do some slow, calming breathing of your preferred method (YouTube has tons, you all know I'm a box breathing girl), and then try again, but slower. Keep up that slow, steady, rhythmic breathing. At the moemnt of strain, be sure you're *exhaling*, and exhaling all the way. Why? Holding in the breath casues tension in teh body. Weird little neuro-feedback glitch there, but true. The body reads "breath held" as "situation bad", whether our conscious minds agree or not, and so we have to cosnciously keep awareness, or we can unconsciously make things worse. (Who, me?! Never!)
For example, I was going for the "touch my toes" (or ankles, or shins, as my day dictates). That spot in my back went "HEY!" and I stopped, eased more upright, just hugn out there with the breath... in and nice and slow and out and anice and slow and.... Tried again... ver very slowly, and got through that "spot", and that was the win. Which sounds sad, but if you'd seen my lower back and pelvis 5 years ago, you'd know that me touchign the toes is a huge deal, b/c there was re-learning to walk and stuff...
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Today in therapy, then: Stop. Breathe. Just... when it says ouch.... Stop, and breathe. Sometimes I'm surprised by what parts of me are tensed that I didn't notice until I feel that Twang! and stop and just hang out and breathe there. Self-inventory. Sucks, but it works.
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And on that note, the limping lioness has about 100 pounds of laundry to do. (OUr shower guest is gone, but oy, the towels!)
Special hugs and prayers for each and every one of you.... waiting on tests, doctors, spouses, bosses, kids, whatever it is, know that I do read, I do pay attention, and I hold you in puma-purr and heart.
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OK, I finally got on and it keeps 404ing me more.PURRS from the PUMA and stay safe and sane.
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Hiya My internet is changing today and I'm not sure how long the switch over will take, I'm hoping 24 hours at the most, but I'm probably being too optimistic We are changing to another company and going full fibre for the internet. But at least it's changing to the one payment rather than the payment for the home landline phone and a payment for the internet. So I'm not going to be on here...
When you have respiratory issues related to your epilepsy, you learn these things, alas.
SoCal, ai-yi-yi, hope you can fix the door leak quick an deasy.
Precious, sorry your kids wanted to fight instead of help. Not cool. I hope your migraines and flares calm down. What a rough combo :(. I'm so glad Twin gave you that number!! Hang in there.... super duper (((((((hugs)))))))
Miki, I've seen a couple of those breathing / relaxation exercises LOL. There was one our chronic pain group back on Oahu used to practice in the progressive muscle relaxation category. Man, did it make mine more tense and painful. So I dropped it and tried something else. Nothing "relaxing" about it!
Angela, sorry you were up all night. Glad your pain is calming down and yay to no appts today :)
Oh Maynard, rough day at work for you :(.... I hope it goes quickly so you can get home and relax and do something nice for those hands.
Wow, Kel. You never cease to amaze me. Moved more snow, in all that pain and still managed to be positive. :)
Twin, that's a lot to handle all in the morning before work! And you still have a whole day ahead of you. Prayers too that your hours cut back soon. I'm so glad God was looking out for you and had your sis take your mom. You need a load taken off your shoulders.
Bbmom, hope the appt goes well. Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.
SCgal, hope you find sleep tonight. Good luck with that door!
I just tried the therapy by lifting a laundry basket. How many jeans can I lift? Not so many before my low back said no. I'm getting tired of this low back struggle. Leo, glad your unexpected guest has left. Sorry you had so much pain during the night. Good that you got a long nap in this morning.
Precious, if you are not in a good in your mind, please contact someone. Very important. Sorry for the migraine and all. I hope you feel better.
Hi Miki. Thanks for dropping by. Hope your day is a good one.
Angela, glad your fibro pain is slightly better. A little progress is good. Now for the bronchial stuff. Hang in there.
Maynard, sorry for all of the pain. As I've said in the past...I admire people who work despite fibro. I wish you all could stay home. Take care.
Kel, glad you found something to ease the pain. Bummer about all the snow. We got dumped on royally this week too. I hope you can find someone to take care of your driveway for you.
twinmom, I sure hope your life can get more stable too. What you go through is always a concern of mine. Hope the workday goes by fast.
bbmom, sorry you are feeling so low. I sure can relate to that at times. Prayers that you feel better soon.
scgal, sorry no sleep and all that. My husband is always on business trips too. It's tough to take care of things alone. Hope you sleep better tonight.
Blue, sorry you are so sick. You need your rest. Your hubby was probably right about the NyQuil, but it's no fun to be woken up. Take care of yourself.
I had an appointment with my therapist this morning. One road was a little slick, but it wasn't too bad. My back is hurting...I think from laying down at the hotel. Dang fibro is relentless.
Tomorrow night we are going out with our friends for dinner. Sunday we are getting together with them to watch the Packers. Looking forward to that.
I don't remember if I told you, but hubby has changed his mind, and we are going to put the house up for sale sometime in Feb. He said it just isn't working out to live here anymore, and we will rent a condo or apartment if we can't get a loan on the house we want. I'm sure glad that is finally settled. This stuff has sure been sitting on my mind.
Take care, everyone. We struggle together.....glad we have each other.
I'm going to the Dr in the AM to talk to him about increasing the doses on a couple of my meds. The flashbacks and nightmares are back so the one needs to either be changed or increased. The other one I take for sleep stopped working about 3 weeks ago so something needs to be done about that as well.
Wish me luck and everyone try to get as much rest as you can!!
Yay, Ida! I'm glad he agreed with you :)! Hm, when's the last time you spoke to your doc about your back? What sort of things have you tried in the past?
Precious, that sucks about the nightmares, flashbacks and no sleep! Hope your doc figures something to help you tomorrow! I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you!
socgal, thanks for the prayers. I will pray about your leak. I hate stress. It's when stuff like that happens that I want to give up. It's all so overwhelming. Praying you have a better night tonight.
Leo, you're welcome. I'm praying that darkness leaves you today! I'm so glad you got a nap, your body needed it. :-) I love your wealth of information. I find myself pondering things sometimes and always think Leo will know. haha
precious, I'm so glad you saved the number. It was given to me from a fibro/lupus friend and helped me. It's okay to need help. I'm praying for you always!
thank you so much ANGELA, you are always in my prayers too. I think of you often with everything you have going on.
ida, thank you so much!!!! The fibro is relentless! You have some fun things coming up with friends. yay! We need that sometimes. I hope your pain cooperates and the back gets to feeling better.
My mom got to the place, and they didn't have her ultrasound from last week, where it went nobody knows. So today she got to repeat the process and they have scheduled a biopsy and DNC for next Wednesday at 7:30 am. Not sure which one of us gets the joy of taking her to that appointment. Please God not me. On a more serious note, the stress is going to kill us both if we don't get answers soon. Hugs everyone
I've decided to proceed as if surgery is going to happen. My friend who is going to supervise me afterwards can change her schedule very easily so that issue is out of the way. I just am not up for being an ongoing science experiment. Two members of my family already see this cardiologist and he is fabulous/handsome/and extremely busy. I'm very lucky that my doctor can pull strings and move me to the front of the line. I'm hoping that he can do a temporary fix and we'll deal with it after I get my knee fixed. That's *my* plan. Things will work out however they are supposed to....
I'm still a bit wobbly emotionally (also 5th anniversary of my Dad's death today) so I'm not going to respond to everyone individually. It is amazing to me how we all manage to soldier on no matter what life throws at us. Hoping everyone can make it through the rest of the day and get some quality rest tonight. Thank you to everyone who sent me a hug! It means more than you can possibly imagine.
Anyways, I am okay, just pissed at the husband who wouldn't do an EKG for me (he has the equipment and skills/education). Tonight is basketball! Go Kevin!!
Fantod, I'm sorry about the anniversary (((hugs))). I'm glad you have a friend with a flexible schedule. That's always such a big help.
Bbmom, that wasn't very nice or helpful of your hubby. Poo on him! I hope your mood improves.