Earlier this year, I declared war on Fibromyalgia and I said I would keep you updated. To be honest, I feel a little bad using such strong words against my condition. Fibromyalgia is not the enemy. In fact, it is more of a friend. How could I call it anything less when it has brought me so close to God?

Nevertheless, my fibro-friend needs to lighten up a bit and learn to work with me a little better.

Would you like to know how it’s going?

Well, slow. That’s to be expected. You want to ease fibro into new things. If you sneak up and surprise it, you’ll regret it.

When I think back, I felt best when I was taking care of myself nutritionally. Quality vitamins are important for a body. That is where I started.

I spent lots of time researching what might be the best supplements for my physical and mental needs. Here are some needs I considered:

• Energy
• Muscle recovery
• Joint health
• Immunity
• Brain function
• Digestive health

I looked online and considered some of the well-known, more expensive nutritional supplements. After comparing prices, ingredients and reviews, I decided to go with what I could find at GNC. They had everything I was looking for with good quality, but a better price.

I began feeling a difference within a few days. I felt great within a couple weeks.  So, I knew it was time to take on something new.

This is when trouble usually comes. When I am feeling great, I believe I can do anything. Then my body tells me otherwise. So, I have to be careful.

My something “new” was to become more consistent with exercise. A fibromyalgic body should do half the work and have twice the rest. I once read that the best way to introduce exercise is to add one segment at a time over a long period. That means that you begin with posture. Once you feel confident that you have a strong posture, you can move on to stretching. After about a week of that, you can add a warm-up to your routine and then low-impact exercise a week later, and so on. It sounds like a good plan, but it is one I have never succeeded in. It is too boring and too long of a process. I have never felt like I was accomplishing anything with that plan.

This time, I decided to build up time of exercise. I started with a very short five minute routine I found on youtube with the plan of adding five to ten minutes a month, up to an hour. Even that plan sounds slow, but it is important to give a sensitive system time to adjust and strengthen.

Once I got to ten minutes, I was feeling pretty good about myself and also, a little impatient. (That’s my biggest problem in this process.) So, one day after a workout, I invited my neighbor to go for a walk. Our walks are long and leisurely, but still are a lot for me. I did not take into account that I also needed to go shopping that day and that I would be teaching ten children in Bible class that night. Oops. That set me back quite a bit. In fact, it knocked me out of commission for a few days.

Lesson learned? Be thankful for feeling good and be content for where I am.  Also, think ahead. I may feel good now, but what does the rest of the day have in store? (That should be an automatic question for most fibro-warriors.)

Now it is March and I am still feeling pretty good. Of course, I have a long way to go. More changes are to come. In fact, I am in the process of changing my diet now. I look forward to telling you more about that next time!

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