Improved Fibromyalgia

Me, trying on hats at Greenfield Village 

The fibromyalgia isn't perfect, but it is MUCH improved!  YAY!

I am walking 45 minutes a day or more, doing sit-ups, other exercises and yoga stretching.

I am SLEEPING BETTER, a major factor in fibromyalgia, although still not perfectly.

What I think has made the difference is my diet:

I avoid:

• sugar, in all forms, but particularly added sweeteners.  I do not eat much fruit.  (I do eat some, but not every day, and very small portions.)  I do eat vegetables that include fruits, such as red peppers, but again, in limited quantities. I also avoid, whenever humanly possible, artificial sweeteners.
• refined grains (no white flour or white rice)
• dairy
• soy
• legumes
• nuts.  (I'm not sure about nut, but every time I test them, I have an insomniac night.  I hate testing, because of the often negative results.)
• desserts--no dessert of ANY KIND
• potatoes (and other high-glycemic foods)
• snack foods (potato chips, corn chips, etc) (This is really a repetition, the reason I avoid them is because they have high-glycemic foods and refined grains)

I eat:

• vegetables (except legumes)
• fish, poultry, meat, shellfish
• whole grains (with NO added white flour or grains)
• occasional small portions of fruit

And I exercise daily, which helps with sleeping, and which is made easier by my improved fibromyalgia, that is, my lessened pain.

A side-benny from my fibro diet is that I have lost weight.

However, I have a recurrence of a very painful medical condition, a fissure. I am writing about it in its own blog, FISSURE.

DANGER: MORE TMI

Do not read if easily offended:

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HELP!  I can't find my asshole!

I have to put a Canasa suppository into my anus every night, and the past couple nights, I couldn't find the opening.  I can't see down there, and it's all swollen and lumpy!  :-(  The suppositories have a very sharp tip and I was pressing and pressing and it wouldn't go in--it was between two lumps--not in the right place.  It hurt like heck!  I finally got it in, but I riled up the whole area trying.

Very TMI (My current "illness")

This is in the category of TMI--Too much information. I am including it here, because this is my "complaint" blog and because people have asked. Don't read if you are easily offended by unpleasant details.


A friend just asked, "What is wrong with you?


I said: There are many things wrong with me.  

But I think you mean, how am I sick.


It is sort of unpleasant and embarrassing, which is why I have not

explained more. 


My husband and I both had some intestinal bug that is going around (here).  It causes diarrhea.  I had it for six days, and, I took some Pepto Bismo after a while, because it was so bad.  I took it near the end of the six days and it caused bad constipation, which ripped my rectum.  I have an anal fissure.  It is very painful.  The doctor says it was caused by the combination of the irritation from the diarrhea followed by the sudden constipation.  It has been bleeding a lot and hurts badly.  I have to sit in a tub of hot water or on a heating pad.  Or both.  I cannot travel until it has healed.


If this is TMI (too much information), I apologize (but since you

asked  . .  .   )


I have been taking some medication and treatments.  The first few days it actually got worse and the bleeding increased.  But now, each day, it seems to be getting incrementally better.  The increments, so far, are very small.


I really want to be better in time to take my trip to NY to see my

children and grandchild.  I am also going (hopefully) because a poem of mine was chosen to be made into a giant poster to be displayed on kiosks in Syracuse NY and they are having a celebration the night of the 18th.  That was why I intended to go that day, after the opera on the 17th.

This is the second time this has happened to me.  Once it has

happened once, the risk increases for it to happen again.  The

medication that finally helped last time was Canasa.  Nothing else

worked.  My friend has suggested honey.  I haven't tried that yet.

Crackle

Crackle
Insomnia # 120628

Extra arms and legs appear in my bed,
like heads of the Hydra, every time I turn.
They pile like cordwood
against raw skin. Wherever I put them,
they sear, as if the flame
for which they were cut
burns hot already within them.
I twitch, exhausted, but not sleepy.
My body twists into a mobius strip,
a single surface of angst. Electricity crackles
and snaps down my spine, leaping from vertebrae
to vertebrae. My left foot circles and rears
like a stallion. When it leaps from the bed,
and drags the rest of me, protesting, with it,
out into canyons of darkness, I light the night
with the lantern that throbs
from my skull.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Sleep Link

The transit of venus revisioned

The BBC had an article on sleep a while ago, which I just reread, and I've read the same information, maybe not as well put, before, elsewhere, I forget where.  The gist of it is that it may be normal and healthy to sleep four hours, get up for an hour or two, and then sleep again for four hours.

I do get up in the night and paint because I can't sleep, feel wide awake, but usually it is after laying awake for an hour or more at bed time.

I do sometimes wake up and feel wide awake also.

I wouldn't mind the getting and sleeping again, if I could still get enough sleep, and if it didn't get me out of sync with the rest of the world.  By which I mean, my family and community, my friends and so on.

I need to avoid "panicking" when I find myself awake at night. The anxiety keeps me awake when I might otherwise fall asleep again.

Last night I was laying awake and I said to myself, looks like another bad night and a little while later, I noticed I was falling asleep, and I woke myself up by being so excited and happy!

DUH!

But then I was relaxed about it and did go to sleep.

I woke up multiple times alter, but was feeling relaxed enough to go to sleep again.

Getting a good night's sleep helps with fibromyalgia and IBS!  If I don't sleep well, it's harder to accomplish things and I tend to be cranky and reactive.

(The image is from the transit of Venus across the SUN, but I have repurposed it here for a night scene.)

fasting gain

I am extremely bummed out because I've fasting for two days for a colonoscopy, and I GAINED WEIGHT!  AND I walked more than normal.  What's with that?

The good news is that my fibro is a little better.

Brave Benny Delays

Brave Benny Delays

I feel as if I am "making excuses" or "complaining," but it is true!  :-(  I haven't worked on my Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet book for a long time.  No wait, that's not exactly true--I haven't succeeded in doing any VISIBLE work on BBAA!  :-(

The other day, maybe three days ago now, I spent an hour and a half, maybe two hours, working on a layout sheet for the book, and I was within a hair's breadth of being finished with it, and the computer crashed and the file completely--and all my work--was gone, and since that time, I have not had time to sit and work again.  

Yesterday, ML came to dinner.  I spent the day racing around cleaning, shopping cooking, making desserts etc.  I didn't get any personal work done, except after dinner, during conversation, the paper testing. And so on--I won't go into it all, but something has happened every single day.  Belle Isle, Cranbrook, Graham's piano Lesson this morning.  AK!

complaints and resistance

1)I'm tired of complaining, but I always feel tired and cranky and can't seem to stop complaining.  :-(

2)When I really want to do something, or think I do, and make a commitment to it, I thin no longer want to do it, or part of me doesn't or is resistant or drags its feet.  :-( :-( :-(

--

I didn't trust it for a moment
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
 
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
 
-- Lala, 14th century Persian poet

Mary

Murphy

I put on my dirty clothes early, since I was expecting a package and thought I had to sign for it, and after a while,  I wanted to wash up and put clean clothes on, and finally got sick of waiting and decided to wash up, and I looked out the window—not FED-X truck.  I stripped and started washing up, peeked out the widow and there came the Fed-X man with a big box on his shoulder and I dashed in the bedroom and through on a dressed dashed downstairs, but he had left—I didn't have to sign for the box after all. 

--

I didn't trust it for a moment
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
 
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
 
-- Lala, 14th century Persian poet

Fibromyalgia Today

Fibromyalgia pain

I suffer from Fibromyalgia.  This painting is me, suffering.  The grey blue represents the exhaustion and depression that is linked with it.

Symptoms include joint pain and general pain, tiredness, a bad smell.  when it gets worse, I got miofascial when I hurt ALL over, not just the area of the joints and then chronic fatigue symptoms.

The good news is that my fibromyalgia has been improving.  I still have flare-ups, but at my worst, I am usually better now than I used to be at my best, although I still depressed by the whole cycle.

Here is what I think has helped me:

1)Sleeping better.  I got a CPAP machine which I have a love-hate relationship with. I still have insomnia and my fibro is worse on my insomnia days.
2)Eating better:  it may be different for different people, but I have to avoid SOY, DAIRY Sugar, white flour and keep legumes (beans etc) to a minimum.
3)Exercising regularly really helps me!  I walk and do stretching exercises.  I move around.  If I sit too long or do anything else too long, I stiffen up--I think this is part of what gives me insomnia.