Friday, January 22, 2010

Introduction

Hello Everyone! Anyone!

This is basically a place where I intend to post helpful information about Fibromyalgia, and about how you can help YOU. Everyone is different, as is everyone's particular brand of Fibromyalgia. So the idea is to pick and choose what resonates with you and your particular style of this compound complex disorder. Not everything works for everyone. But the more you know, the better choices you can make.

I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia nearly 12 years ago. After the first month of Flexeril and Elavil, even though they helped tremendously at first, I realized that I didn't want to be raising the doses and become dependant on these or any other prescriptions. I asked my doctor, a D.O., if he could recommend anything natural that could help.

Little did I know that this simple request would open a floodgate of research, trial and error, visits to countless alternative and complementary websites of medical schools such as The University of Michigan Pain and Fatigue Research Center, University of Maryland Medical Center, The National Institute of Health (NIH), medical abstracts from Pubmed.com, WebMd. and numerous other sites. All the while trying this and that, experimenting with different methods of treatments such as Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Massage therapy, Magnet Therapy, Light Therapy.

Much less did I realize that it would ultimately lead to my writing Managing Fibromyalgia- Getting to know your Aggravators (Treble Heart Books 2008), available at my website (along with more Fibro information and other helpful stuff) www.Managing-Fibromyalgia.com, and TrebleHeartBooks.com, Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

Although meditation and deep breathing exercises were already a part of my life back then, I found that when you're in pain it's REALLY hard to empty your mind and breath evenly... try as you might. I needed to be centered enough to get to a place where I COULD meditate. The deep breathing actually hurt sometimes, because my neck and shoulders would clamp up like a vice to where I couldn't move my head!

My doctor ended up giving me trigger point injections just so I could move! That helped a lot. But he said it could clamp up again. So I started doing a few neck and shoulder exercises - very slowly, very gently, two or three times a day to strengthen the muscles. I couldn't move my head far to the left or right or up or down, but I moved it just a slight bit farther each and every day until it became normal again. That was about two months after I was diagnosed, and I am still doing these exercises daily, twelve years later. I'm doing loads of other things too. And as I go along, I'll fill you in.

I have started a Fibromyalgia Support Group in my home town, near Notre Dame, in the heart of the country, and I will be inserting what has come to be called my "Fibro Notes," and other bits of info as I come across it. STAY TUNED.

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