Status
Not open for further replies.

jrk1288

Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2014
Messages
19
Reason
DX FIBRO
Diagnosis
04/2014
Country
US
State
Massachusetts
Hey everyone, I'm new to this group, I was just diagnosed with Fibromyalgia yesterday. I guess I kind of got lucky that it didn't take too long to diagnose because I'd already had a ton of blood tests, scans and specialist visits for fatigue and GI problems that started a year ago (which ended up being a gluten intolerance). I am 25, female, and I have a very active lifestyle-I'm on my feet all day at work, I run/bike, I love hiking and horseback riding when the weather is nice, and I eat a really healthy diet that is low in processed food and sugar. For the past 3 months or so I've had fatigue and muscle aches, like when you have the flu except it didn't go away. I also have trouble concentrating and I'm ALWAYS freezing-I'm always wearing a jacket or a hoodie, even indoors. A few people brought up Fibromyalgia to me when I talked about what was going on, and I was motivated to see my doctor when I was trying to run and getting a stabbing pain in my legs with every step. I asked them about Fibro and I ended up having most of the tender points, so they put me on a low dose of Amitriptyline (I have a lot of trouble with medications, I get like every possible side effect even to things like antacids) and told me to keep exercising and they will check in with me in a month or so to see how that's going. I guess what I'm looking for on here is any advice I can get on how to manage Fibromyalgia without relying on medication and how to maintain my current lifestyle, because I love it and it's not something I'm willing to give up...if anyone can help me that would be fantastic!
 
Hello and welcome to the forum. I would say keep doing the things you love, but slow down a bit and pace yourself. Try to do one activity a day, like horsebacking riding and then give yourself a rest before moving on to the next sport. If you do more and pile them on and don't give your body time to relax then it might make you fibro worse.

Take a day to relax and do things to relieve stress. We all have giving many ideas for relaxing like listening to music or watching movies, bubble baths and doing an easy hobby, reading a good book or just laying down and visiting us for a little while. I have managed to keep going by taking it easy some days so I can do more other days. Hope this helps. :)
 
Hi... and welcome to the forum! I think it may help you to go back over posts that were made here in the past as well as the newer posts. There's a whole lotta support going on here, and you may find some things to help you.

Good luck to you with finding ways to manage without medication. There are many people who make the same decision and just as many who choose to medicate. I say whatever gives some relief in everyone's own case is the right choice and there's advice here for either way.
 
Thanks for your replies! I'm working on doing the things I love, I've already had to cut back on those a lot, especially because work in itself is usually more than enough "exercise" for one day. So I try to do one thing on the days I have off, in addition to cleaning/grocery shopping/cooking (which I need to work on changing because after exercising I can barely push a cart around the store), but that doesn't leave much time to spend an entire day actually sitting around and relaxing. Finding a balance between work, exercise and relaxing has been tough because it seems like there isn't enough time in the day. I've also been trying to go through some of the older posts on here but haven't had the time in the past 2 days to read much-I will definitely do it this weekend though.
 
Hello there! Welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear about your diagnosis :( I don't know a lot about your case (because I believe not everyone experiences fibro the same way), but I really think you should keep doing what you love :) I think it's really important to keep yourself active, because once you stop... that's when things seem to start getting ugly. Actually that's what happened to me :( Just do what you love for as long as you can, so later you have no regrets.

If you don't like the idea of depending on pain killers to get by everyday, then you can find a lot info on this forum about the different alternatives others have tried. Actually I rarely take pain killers...! Only do it when I can't take it anymore, but in general I do just fine! There are so many alternatives you can turn to, you just need to look further :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top