Discover a structured Fibromyalgia protocol to manage symptoms effectively, including treatment plans, therapies, and lifestyle strategies for improved quality of life.
“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery-always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud”, Virginia Woolf To live a life in a state of high anxiety, boarding on panic is common among those of us with fibromyalgia. We anticipate pain, fatigue, muddled thoughts, and a myriad of other symptoms almost every waking (and sleeping!) hour. It has become a habit that often seems unable to be broken and…
“He’s (sic) the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines”, Benjamin Franklin This is not a blog about doctor bashing. I have been so fortunate for many decades to have a physician who does not suggest unnecessary tests and is sympathetic, highly intelligent, and comforting. Rather it is about the run around that many people with chronic pain experience as they ‘doctor shop’. Physicians do not want their patients to suffer. However, often they…
“Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone”, Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale is famous as the woman who developed modern nursing. From May 6-12th we celebrate ‘National Nurses Week’ in honor of her birthday which was on May 12th, 1820. However, her birthday is now also celebrated as ‘International Chronic…
I have had Fibromyalgia since mid-2006, acquired during a long bout with a viral infection in my central nervous system. I used Neurontin, Percocet, Cymbalta, and Lyrica in the following 4 years to manage my pain. While on Lyrica I slept a lot and ballooned up like a, well, balloon! I did get off of Percocet, though, and had no pain. Despite that wonderful result, I went off Lyrica and back to Neurontin, using Tramadol…
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear”, Mark Twain All of us with fibromyalgia suffer from repressed emotions and are coping with overstimulation and sensory processing sensitivity. Never has it been so challenging as it has been in the past months with the chaos in the world that we hear of almost no stop in the media. What is to be done? We can’t continue to watch the news on a regular…
“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom”, Bertrand Russell I believe that those of us with central sensitization, that is, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, or to call it by another name -“post-traumatic stress disorder”, all suffer from chronic anxiety/ fear. These terms are, in my view, interchangeable. They can keep us imprisoned without recourse and in a state of hopelessness. In fact, the US Department of Health and Human Services has developed a new name…
“With hypnosis, we can help people modulate perceptions in ways that are therapeutically helpful”, David Spiegel For those of us with chronic pain and/or a myriad of other distressing physical and psychological conditions the practice of ‘changing our brains’ through relaxation and exercise regimes can be overwhelming. Mindfulness meditation is one way that we can work with our minds to improve our daily lives, but it takes time and discipline. What if there is a…
” There are many other (besides testosterone) behavior-eliciting hormones fundamental for human well-being, including estrogen and progesterone in females”, Carl Sagan The question arises about why fibromyalgia is more prevalent in highly sensitive women and men. The debate about nature/nurture has not yielded specific answers and for a while, I have thought of it as a moot point. As a nurse/sociologist I have leaned toward the impact of the social environment in early childhood. But,…
” To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit”, Jack Kornfield In the newspaper today there is an editorial written by Jane Brody titled “More specialists explore treating pain without drugs” (The Globe and Mail, L5, September 15, 2017). She cites the conditions that drug-free options for pain can help with, such as fibromyalgia, news of which was…
” What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process”, Lady Gaga There has rarely been such public awareness of fibromyalgia as there is now that Lady Gaga has become public about her own suffering. While there are thousands of those of us who suffer from the debilitating pain and…