OOOPS.... did you. . . . .

overdo at Thanksgiving? Did you get up very very early on Black Friday? Are you now in extra pain and heavy fatigue?

This is a pre-December warning. PACE, PACE, PACE or you won't have a very merry Christmas due to lack of planning and pacing, lack of rest and lack of getting good sleep.

We who have Fibromyalgia know if we push too hard we lose.... It's time now at the very beginning of December to plan our days.

The Christmas season used to be such a drain on me. Back some years ago, I suddenly realized that I didn't have to make dozens of cookies, tons of candy. My family all has problems with "fluffyness" (except for my thin husband. I quit doing those kinds of things, saving me pain and fatigue. I now make the skinny one a few of his favorites (single recipe) and can then say "I'm done"

We used to have a large tree and packages were wrapped with care. We now have a smaller tree that sits in the family/dining room on the table. We go to the kids for Christmas so I don't need my table. I put a few "little" wrapped packages around the tree and the real gifts are "bagged" which leaves me feeling less fatigue and pain.

We have boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations. I now choose from them and put up only the favorites cutting the time of decorating at least in half.

I do shopping online, gift certicates, cash and very little tromping through the stores. The grandkids much prefer money to getting "stuff" they don't like. The adults like the gift certificates so they can choose what they want to get for themselves.

Guess what? We still have the very same Christmas Spirit, no one misses all the sweet stuff and my house still glows with Christmas Spirit and decorations. I am able to enjoy Christmas without extra fatigue and pain.

I hope this helps you to think about your Christmas season and make plans to pace yourself and do less and enjoy more.

Support Meetings

Wednesday was the local Fibromyalgia Support Group meeting. We had 24 attending. I lead the group with the help of others who are on the board. The fact that these ladies helps is what allows me to continue on as their leader.

We meet monthly for two hours at a local restaurant. They give us our room free if people order lunch. Almost everyone does so that works out great. We have a raffle (2 for #1) of white elephants, handcrafts, things from the garden in the summer, fresh brown eggs, and much more. Everyone who enters will get a chance at winning something. We draw the tickets from a basket. The first drawn have the biggest choices of a prize. Most people pass after winning once.

We have speakers, programs done by the Board members, open question/answer or discussion times. The board meets every two months to plan meetings ahead.

We have a library of books that have been purchased with the raffle monies. We do free handouts with each meeting.

Last month we had 31 compared to the 24 this time. The Columbus Day holiday had kids at home for the mom's and we had competition from the ugly new flu bugs.

Why am I telling you about all this? A support group helps us so much. Sometimes we are hurting so bad that we really don't want to go but when we do, we find ourselves forgetting our pain.

Our meeting is a fun one (no pity party stuff). We learn, we care about each other, we laugh a lot and best of all we are with people who understand this invisible disease.

If you don't have one in the area, you might want to start one. Our paper runs a free ad for us along with the free newspaper nickel ads. Pick a restaurant that isn't too busy that has meeting rooms and ask if they would let you use it free if people order food.

As you get members get others to help you. We have one for the raffle, the library, setting up and taking down, ones to fill in if you can't be at the meeting to lead it sometime in the future. DON'T do it all by yourself as you will burn out.

Let the local doctors know about the support group. Make some fliers with your phone number on them and info about the meeting. Give them to doctors, whenever you come across someone with Fibro. Your local newspaper might do a article about a new Fibromyalgia group.

We find that evenings are too tiring for us to do. I feel bad about the working people but we are not superwomen, we can't do it all.

A good support group is good medicine. Do I get worn out and my body full of pain after a meeting. Yes, I do. But it is worth it to help others like me. I never plan anything for the next day. That's recovery time.

Please let me know if you start a meeting or go to a support group. You'll never know the benefits unless you try it. If you want more info you can e-mail me at
mrs.carol at gmail.com Be sure to correct this before putting into your address book with the @ sign.

Bright Lights

One of the things I've found is that when winter rolls around my spirits go down, down and down. Those gray days really get me. I bought a bright light last month and have been using it daily. It really does make a difference in my mood.

With Fibromyalgia we deal with depression due to the chronic pain and fatigue. Anything that might help us is worth a try.

It sits near my computer so as I am computering in the a.m., I turn it on. After a few minutes I don't even notice it. I usually keep it on at least 30 minutes a day and on some of the dark rainy days I've used it twice in the day.

There was an article in our newspaper which spoke highly of using them just a few days ago. Two doctors from our local hospital/clinic were interviewed.

By the way, the little guy in the picture came into the yard during the day a couple weeks ago. He got tired of me taking pictures of him pawing through the squirrel food and climbed the nearest tree... non the less.. A Holly tree. Bet he had second thoughts about it.

Stretch Stretch Stretch

Happy Fall to you all.

Stretching is a key to relieving pain of Fibromyalgia.

The muscles shorten when tight with pain, stretching lengthens them, relieving that pain. Stretching makes us more flexible which helps when doing chores around the home. Stretching can be fun and easy to do but there are some rules. Don't overstretch, start slowly working up to more stretches.

Put "Fibromyalgia Stretching" into Google and you will find lots of good links for stretching.

Now... I'm off to find some good stretching exercises for me.

Where have I been?

Where have I been? Have you ever heard of a Fibro Cave or Arthritis Cave or any other cave? I crawled in and hibernated for a while. I bet you have all done that at one time or another. Your pain, FATIGUE, etc takes over and you don't want to do anything extra. Every thing is an effort. If you haven't been there, I'm glad. It's not fun.

We have had a wonderful summer here and now are coming into the cold Fall nights. The tree's are turning colors and leaves are beginning to fall. It's a beautiful time of the year in the Pacific Northwest. We have 4 definite seasons, my favorites are fall and spring. Not much of a winter person. Summer is great but requires so much work to keep up with the flowers and yard as I love lots of color around.

Have a wonderful day..... (Oh, the picture is of my little guy, Sparky)

I hear people so often saying that moving to a hotter place like Arizona, etc helps their arthritis and fibromyalgia.

My past few weeks say "phooey" to that as we have had hot weather and I have been in constant flares. Yesterday at a luncheon of 11 women, 3 others were feeling the very same as I. I don't know the answer but I don't think that is it.

Have you ever felt a difference when you have been somewhere else than your home area? I'm curious to know.

Acceptance

I have struggled with choosing another subject and this morning I thought of
Acceptance.

This is one of the hardest things to do after finding out we have Fibromyalgia. I do not believe we can become "better" until we accept the reason for our pain and then learn all we can about it and how to "Live" (really live) with it. It's very easy to try and pretend it's not there until we have another flare. It's hard to find doctor's who give us answers other than a name.

Therefore we have to be our own teacher and find out more information on the illness and coping with it day by day.

We go a few days, or a few weeks or if we are lucky a few months without a major flare and then we start doubting the prognosis again. Our brain chatter is sometimes our worst enemy if it is negative chatter.

The patients who say loud and clear "I may have Fibromyalgia, but it doesn't have me" and "I'm going to learn all I can about coping with it and apply the information to my life so that I can still enjoy each day" are the ones that live happier and with less pain.

When we learn all we can, we learn how to do the following things.
How to Pace my activities
Stretching exercises
How to get good sleep
What foods might make pain worse
What anger can affect pain
Stress and how it affects the whole body

Pamper Me's

My daughter called me a few days ago asking if I would like to have a Daughter/Mom day celebrating my birthday that is coming up next week. I didn't waste any time saying "yes, yes, yes" as I love those days when we can spend time together.

A gift to me was lunch and a pedicure. I have only had one pedicure in my life and it's been years ago. Wow, with my feet and legs hurting from arthritis and Fibro, it was like heaven on earth.

It last over an hour and was so great. She massaged my legs and feet and oh what a wonderful feeling it was. She finished with a "hot rock" treatment on my feet. I have soft skin (after buffing with a grainy cream, oil and lotion) on my legs and feet. I have pretty toe nails painted a lovely pink. I think they look at least 10 years younger and so that makes me having my 60th birthday not my 70th.

The lesson is that we need to do some pamper me's now and then as we are dealing with every day life and Fibro's famous fatigue and pain. It doesn't matter if it is a hair do, a body massage, a pedicure or what ever... it's doing something for you.

This was a day to remember for me... how was your day?

by the way... the beautiful blue jay is chomping away on my suet cake outside the family room window. Having the hobby is making me feel good... never realized we had so many beautiful birds here in our own yard. I'm still out to "capture" a few others .... one of these days. Never thought I'd have a mama duck and her ducklings waddling down my hill either. Despite Fibro, life is fantastic.

I know, I've been MIA lately. Why? Been busy working in my yard and letting some things go. The yard is getting caught up, the warm sun is getting my plants to grow and bloom and life is great. : )

You know that as you work, you think. I got to thinking about Fibromyalgia and the grief of finding out you have this weird disease or syndrome, whatever you want to call it.

We GRIEVE our past life when we could do so many things in one day. We grieve for the body that wasn't sore and hurting so much of the time. We grieve for days without pain.

It's good to grieve but life goes on and one day we need to ACCEPT who we are and how we are at this moment. The old "us" is gone but we can, even now, CELEBRATE the days as they come. There are still LOTS of things we CAN do.... there are NEW hobbies and FUN things to do that do not create more pain.

I have enjoyed so much this spring having my camera, getting a tripod to help steady the shaky hand. I have realized so much beautiful things around me that I never noticed before. The old saying "Stop and smell the Roses" is so true. The BLESSING of Fibro (bet you didn't think there are any) is that we have TIME to stop and smell the roses.

Well, I did it....

I overdid in spite of taking breaks. I bought over 2 dozen trays (some single, some quads) of plants along with the two cherry tomato plants I buy each yer. All but 4 trays have been planted. I need to "tie" my daffodils first and then plant my impatient's around my tree and and in the large barrel by the street.

I also dumped old pots with good potting soil into the wheelbarrow and recycled the pots into the recycle can. Why do we hang on to stuff like this?

I was hurting and sore last night, in spite of a couple of pain pills during the day.

But it was so worth it. I love color. I'll be sharing some of my pictures as I go along.

I've found a patch that really seems to help the sore and knotted muscles that pulsate with pain from Fibromyalgia They are called "Salonpas" and are sold in quite a few stores (Safeway, Rite Aid, Walmart and more). They really help and are very reasonable in cost.