Can you still do the same activities?

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Takedon

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My friend used to enjoy playing football. Now, we gather around and play at times but it's really difficult for him, since he experiences random pains all the time. What about you?
 
Well, I had to quit my job. I can't read very well anymore (used to read a couple books every month.) My brain is too tierd, and there is some sort of disconnect between absorbing the words and forming images in my mind. Prayer is also difficult as it takes brain power I just don't have. I used to love to travel, and now it is a mega chore that is intimidating. I have to fly halfway across the country to see my doctor.

Yeah, chronic pain and fatigue take over your life like a virus takes over your computer. Having a virus on your comp limits what you can do until you remove it, and fibro and fatigue limit what we can do until we heal it.
 
My life was totally turned around so.. no. I can barely get the basic things done. But some days are better than others. Got to keep positive :)
 
Nope. I'm actually feeling so sad nowadays because I might not be able to workout the same way I did before anymore. I will have to start walking and save to buy an elliptical machine. No more rough cardio for this girl :( This sucks, because I liked to workout with workout videos... That's too rough for me now, which is saddening, because just a few months ago I could workout and that actually helped me to relax. Plus I could keep my weight down, because mixing workouts it's actually good... so your body doesn't get used to the same workout and you burn less calories. Buuuu :(
 
Not even, my life was turned upside down when I was diagnosed. Stamina is very limited, fatigue is all to common. Like others share, some days are better than others. I too can no longer work, I am now a house husband with a wonderful wife who carries the load, love her for all she does for our family. For me, I want some quality of life where the pain, fatigue, memory, poor sleep, I could go on and on, is tolerable. I try to spend three days a week in the pool and when the discomfort in manageable I take our dogs for walks. I miss all I use to share with my family and grand-daughters. I wish you and everyone on the website a sincere thank you for all the informative information and shoulders to lean on!
 
Thanks for the feedback, people. I think the activities depend on the frequency of the pains.
 
I try to do as much as I possibly can. However, there are things that I am no longer able to do. My body just does not work the way it once did. I hoep to return to some of my activities again someday.
 
Hi - I used to run every day....outdoors in the cold even. As long as it was above 20 degrees, I would bundle up in the morning and run in the dark and watch the daylight arrive. I've run 4 half marathons...all in my 30s. I was diagnosed with fibro at 37 and no, I can't run outside anymore. It hurts my entire body. I can't let the cold air hit my neck because then I will have neck pain all day. But I've adjusted. I joined a gym instead and I do the eliptical, or the bike, or lift weights. I've recently started running on a treadmill....only a mile or 2. I will never run a marathon again, or even run the usual 5 miles that I used to do. Yes, it bothers me, but what can you do? I've learned to accept it. I am not bedridden and am grateful to God for that.
 
Hi - I used to run every day....outdoors in the cold even. As long as it was above 20 degrees, I would bundle up in the morning and run in the dark and watch the daylight arrive. I've run 4 half marathons...all in my 30s. I was diagnosed with fibro at 37 and no, I can't run outside anymore. It hurts my entire body. I can't let the cold air hit my neck because then I will have neck pain all day. But I've adjusted. I joined a gym instead and I do the eliptical, or the bike, or lift weights. I've recently started running on a treadmill....only a mile or 2. I will never run a marathon again, or even run the usual 5 miles that I used to do. Yes, it bothers me, but what can you do? I've learned to accept it. I am not bedridden and am grateful to God for that.

See? This is how you motivate yourself! You just need to ignore the pain and learn to accept it.
 
Hi Takedon,
It is nice of you to worry about your friend, but speaking on behalf of fibro suffereres, sometimes you can't ignore the pain. Sometimes, I will have to skip the gym for a week or 2 or 3 because of a flareup. It's not that easy to just ignore it.
 
I am still able to do a lot. Some of it may be out of stubbornness more than anything. I don't want Fibro to win. I still run, slowly, but i run about 4 days per week. If I can't run, I walk. Unless I am in a bad flare, I feel better when I run. This week has been bad for me so I have not run as it will make it worse. I have run 2 half marathons this year. As long as I rest after I am usually ok, but if it weren't for Savella I am not sure that would be the case,
 
Like all the other posts, I do as I am able...fibro has affected my ability to excercise, work, play.....work and friend commitments are hard as you may feel up to it one day but not know if you will be up to it on the day you have committed to something. I am currently not working so as to assist my sister in caring for my elderly mother. My sister is ready for a break and I want to help her but it's freaking me out because I don't know how I am going to manage my mother's care (whether it be living with me or in an elder care facility) and going back to to work...sometimes it's the all over "I've been hit by a mack truck pain" and sometimes it's the fatigue....I'm an early riser and the last two days I've taken a 2 or 3 hour afternoon nap...my sister doesn't understand why I'm napping....but we all know too well that unless you experience fibro you can't explain it to someone who doesn't have it. I really miss being physically fit...I seem to eat more because of the fatigue...guess it's brain's way of trying to give you energy.
 
No, fibro has definitely made my life miserable. Nobody really understands how bad it really is. I want to live, but the thought of no pain and not having to deal with is peaceful to think about at times. I can't perform basic daily tasks, if it gets much worse what will I be able to do at all? Definitely not the same as before. I just care a lot less about everything.
 
Indeed, as others have said, it has severely limited what I am able to do. Before things were bad I was a hiker, horseback rider, martial artist, waterskier and many other things besides. Now I am limited to doing Tai Chi and spending most of my time resting because I don't have the energy or pain threshold to do most of the things I used to do. I need to rest frequently, often have to cancel plans due to pain and/or fatigue, and wrestle with the tasks of daily living like making food, cleaning my house... all of those things. I am unable to hold a regular job because I have yet to find a job where I can just go on days that I feel good.

The limits to my activity are difficult and debilitating, but what's worse is how people treat me. They think I'm lying; they think I'm lazy; they don't understand why I'm tired. My husband, who is disabled as well, finds it difficult to understand why I am constantly unable to do simple things. He doesn't understand why something as "simple" as going to church on Sundays leaves me exhausted for the rest of the day to the point where I need to sleep for several hours after church in order to recover.

As far as "ignore the pain and accept it" goes if you had an icepick in your hips (both of them) and your back felt like you had someone slamming it with a sledgehammer someone telling you to just "ignore it" would earn them a punch to the nose. I can handle pain. I have a very, very high pain threshold. I nearly carved off one of my fingers with a knife and was able to function well enough to perform first aid on myself and orchestrate my trip to the hospital. I also tore my meniscus and did severe damage to my knee and was able to drag myself inside and up a flight of stairs without assistance while maintaining a clear head. Having a high pain threshold does not make me able to be "normal".

While I agree that, to some extent, learning to operate while in pain and pushing through pain is a good thing doing this is exhausting on all faculties. Being in constant pain is not something you can just live with without repercussions. Even though the pain is "not caused by anything" we can figure, it still exists. It is still taxing on the body because your body is responding to things. It's dumping endorphins into your system to combat the pain (and endorphins interact with the brain the same way morphine does). When your body runs out of the endorphins it leaves you feeling exhausted because all that pain your body was busy making you not feel all took a toll on you whether you were conscious of it or not.

If you were to treat this the same way you'd treat any other illness... well telling someone who has cancer to "just ignore the pain" isn't going to work. Telling someone who has carpal tunnel to "just ignore the pain" certainly won't help matters. Telling someone who has clinical depression to "stop being sad"... none of those mindsets help. In fact, it just creates a bigger gap between you and your friend because it makes you sound callous. And it demonstrates a lack of understanding that you are dealing with a legitimate disease and condition. "just ignore the pain" doesn't provide any helpful insight.

Wallowing in your pain and never learning to handle it isn't healthy, but expecting someone to ignore it is worse. My two cents.
 
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I couldn't have said it better. Wow. That's so true.
 
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