Tips and Tricks for avoiding Fibro Flares

Fibro Flares suck. They hurt and they interfere with life. After I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue, my first priority was to learn to how to deal with a fibro flare when it happened. And they were happening all the time. After discovering how little could actually done to end a flare, I decided to start looking at ways to prevent them. Here are the tips and tricks I've learned:

1. Pick my positions carefully. The position I sleep in, sit in, and walk in - the wrong position in any of these could cause a flare.
2. Soft, comfy tennis shoes with good support are non-negotiable. If I will be walking longer than 1 block the bulky shoes go on. I fought this one for a long time before finally deciding that my ego is less fragile than my head.
3. Walk early and often. I try to get a walk in first thing in the morning. Starbucks is 1.5 blocks from our building so it's the perfect incentive to get myself up and moving. Then, taking the puppy next door to the park in the afternoon keeps my muscles from getting stagnant and tight.
4. The right pillows can make or break my day. I have 3 that I depend on. One is super fluffy that I use for side sleeping. The second is a special pillow that my mom made for me. It's a regular pillow that we sewed a circle in the middle of. It supports my neck and the sides of my head when I sleep on my back. The third pillow is used to support various parts of my body, depending on how I'm sleeping.
5. Sleep!!! Do whatever it takes to get enough quality sleep. I take Melatonin at night to help me fall asleep. And I made Alex put a dark sheet over the window in our bedroom so I could sleep in later.
6. Rest. I stop often during the day to take breaks. I need physical and emotional breaks during the day.  Adrenaline is a powerful drug and if I allow my stress level to rise even a little, the adrenaline interferes with my ability to relax my body and evaluate my physical well-being.
7. Change positions regularly. I try not to let any one muscle or spot on my body take too much pressure. It seems so bizarre that resting my leg against a wooden table can cause a fibro flare. But all it takes is one area of nerves being overexcited for my whole body to react and protest.
8. Stretch and relax my tight spots often. For me that's my neck and jaw. And I probably stretch them every 30 mins or so.
9. Pay Attention. During the diagnoses process, I used a pain scale that differentiated between pain you can feel (level 3), pain that interferes with your life (level 4-6), and pain that is actively preventing you from living (level 7-9). Or bad, worse, and worst. I can live with the bad pain. It isn't ideal, but I can function and almost ignore it. But, once a pain is interfering with my life, I need to take action to stop it from becoming the worst pain. This means constantly scanning my body to see if I'm subconsciously adapting to a painful spot, or watching my emotional responses for uncharacteristic behaviors that could indicate fatigue.

Do you guys have any helpful tips or tricks for preventing flares?

New Exercise Routine, Take 2

Yeah. So. Um. That exercise routine I wrote about in my last post? Yeah, that didn't stick.

And, uh, the 2 months it's been since I last wrote? That would be me subconsciously trying to avoid facing up to my, uh, what should I call it... Failure? Disappointment? Overconfident Overplanning?

Regardless, after actually engaging in a different (though pulled from the same articles) exercise routine, I can definitely say:

If I'm going to start something new, it better be simple as hell.

Now, every day is the following: Elliptical, Push-ups, Rows, Glute Bridges, Wall Sits, Planks. In that order.  And, every day I'm just trying to do a little more/harder/longer than I did the day before. So far it's working out well. The first couple of days were painful - as in, migraine, sick to my stomach, runny nose painful. I'm still going, but am definitely popping more Aleve than I like. (As someone who has had many rebound headaches, I'm pretty nervous about OTC medicating 2 days in a row.)

Back to my routine... It's pretty sad right now, but at least I'm doing it & working to my capacity. Here are my numbers as of today:

• Elliptical - 5:46 mins, .3 miles (I alternate between doing longer times/distances and doing the same distance in a shorter time)
• Push-Ups - so modified!! - I do wall push-ups at a 30 degree angle, not even knee push-ups yet! - 2x10
• Rows - 2x10 with 54 lbs
• Glute Bridges - 2x 00:20, 1x 00:30
• Wall Sits - 3x 00:20
• Planks - modified on elbows and knees - 3x 00:20

Here's to gaining strength!!