Handling The Situation

      The first thing that I would recommend is to try to wean yourself off of medications, prescribed and over-the-counter. It could take a year for the effects of medications to dissipate, such as trigger points. Many don't realize how many side effects of medications are actually associated with or even mimic the effects of fibromyalgia.

      Exercise is critically important. You can start with 25 leg raises on each side while you're in bed, each day. Gradually, after a few months, you can build yourself up to a hundred a day on each side. Don't overly tax yourself.

      Walking outdoors, when the air quality is good, a half hour a day, is good for you, too, even if it's just a few days a week. It'll help you get the stale air out of your lungs, give you energy and invigorate you. My wife walks usually before she goes to bed and it usually helps her sleep much deeper. Always walk with a flashlight, so you don't twist your ankle or trip. And, if there's any kind of wetness outside, you have to be very careful. If there is snow or ice, I would avoid walking in the evening completely.

It's also extremely important to keep your electrolytes up, which regulate your heartbeat. These include potassium and salt. Most people don't realize that they need 2200 milligrams of salt per day. It is also important to keep well hydrated, but don't overdo this, since you can urinate out important nutrients, like water soluble vitamins and electrolytes. Sometimes, if my wife doesn't feel like doing anything, she will heat up some chicken broth and the salt in the broth gives her a lift. Or, sometimes, she'll eat a pickle and, ten minutes later, she'll feel more energized. It's good to know the sources of what you need for your system. Bananas are an excellent source of potassium. Potassium is also a mood elevator. Be aware of the way you feel is an authentic reaction to circumstances or the effect of wrong substances in your diet, or right substances missing from your diet.

      If certain foods cause you indigestion or gas, take a cup of milk before you eat.

Turmeric is very good for pain, but it only relieves pain for about an hour or two. It's not long lasting, but it's also not as unnatural a substance as many that they sell that you have to take only once, but run the risk of poisoning your systems with. Is it so much to take turmeric a couple of times if it means keeping your system clean? You can get tumeric capsules in the health food store.

My wife recently has been taking some ginseng capsules from the health food store. She isn't led by what the package says there, either. She doesn't take a full capsule as they are sold, she found that half a capsule works for her. She takes half a capsule every few days and it is a great mood elevator. It increases your motivation to do things. It's supposed to increase the dopamine in your brain, which is a big help.

      One of the most important dietary changes my wife had made, which she attributes all of her success to, is fresh killed chicken. The chicken in stores does not have the nutrients of fresh killed chicken. You should look on the internet for a live poultry vendor in your area. They exist, and there are apparently more than most suspect. The female chickens are more tender than the males, so try to get females. In choosing them, the females don't have a wattle under their chin, that's one way of judging them by sight. My wife puts the chicken in a Reynolds Brown In bag and cooks it for about an hour. No fancy rubs or marinades necessary, although my wife will use them, from time to time. And she saves the juice that's left over in the bag for the next day to add to store bought broths! She drains it into a cup and skims the fat off, the next day. Heating it up, she can add it to broths or she can add some ramen noodles to the juice and water. My wife usually takes it before she goes to bed several times a week. It's a perfect sleep aid. Chickens are close to turkeys, so they, too, have tryptophan, and that can put you into a deep REM sleep. Remember, REM sleep is the sleep you need, the sleep that, among other things, rejuvenates your muscles, and helps you wake up refreshed so necessary in conditions with fibromyalgia type symptoms. REM sleep known as rapid eye movement sleep, cause you to go into a deep form of sleep where you can work out your problems. It is necessary to feel refreshed. If you don't have REM sleep, your sleep doesn't really help you. A lot of people think they will take melatonin or some other sleep aid, and get the refreshment and rest that they need. They don't. Melatonin and other sleep aids do not provide you rem sleep, it just knocks you out and you wake up tired and unrefreshed. If you rub your eyes during the day, it could be a good sign that you have not experienced good REM sleep.

      When you have a serious case of fibromyalgia, you need chicken or the juice at least three times a week to restore your health. It could take a few months to a year before you feel the full effects of the chicken. If you can eat the chicken liver when it's cold, the next day, try to, because that can be very good for you, too. We put the chicken liver in the Brown In bag with the chicken and it adds a lot of flavor to the juices.

      If you have a lot of very sore muscles, my wife strongly recommends a Homedics professional model massager. The small ones are good for only minor non chronic issues. For fibromyalgia type symptoms, get the heaviest model with many settings in speed. Be careful not to overdo it with the massager, since you can make your muscles sore with overuse.

      If you have a very sore muscle, a very sore joint or a swollen joint, it's usually due to fluid buildup from inflammation. My wife gets frozen turkey legs from the Shop Rite and keeps them frozen and then she wraps them in a plastic bag, ties it in a knot, then she gets a pair of her cotton underpants, wraps them around the meat, ties it in a knot and places it over the area that's bothering her, like her knee or her neck. She keeps them in the freezer for compresses. It works much better than ice, it will always work much better than ice. Crucial here is stabilizing the temperature between the inflamed tissue and what's supposed to cool it. And that depends on thermodynamic properties. The thermodynamic properties of ice are far different than those of flesh! The turkey leg has a closer set of properties and so cools better! The turkey leg is better because it has a bone inside which freezes and keeps the leg colder longer. But don't put it directly on your skin or you can get a freezer burn. My wife uses underpants because they are effective in shielding from the cold, but they also are thin enough to let the cold work. After about an hour, you're going to urinate, removing the fluid that you worked out of the inflamed area. You'll feel better and you'll notice the swelling has gone down significantly.

      Another good thing to have is Jell-O. What many don't realize is that it's made from substances from cow joints. This makes it go directly to your joints to help with what they need to get better.

Another important aspect to the illness is avoiding, if at all possible, people who stress you out or agitate you, because that will tense all your muscles up and make you experience all the much more pain. You don't have to avoid them completely, but you can learn to deal with them better so they don't hurt you. If you can learn biofeedback, that is an excellent source of relaxation.

      And you have to learn that it's not just your mind and body, that there is a spiritual component. There is a direct connection between spirit, mind and body and you need it to get full help with this. My wife is Catholic and she tries to receive the Sacraments frequently.

      Inform yourself well of the nature of what you are taking into your body. Many people love soy products or claim to. In fact, among other things, soy contains substances which inhibits the body's absorption of crucial nutrients! Phytates, common in many soy products, prevent the body's intake of elements like zinc. Soy can be poisonous in amounts deceptively small compared to other substances. Soy milk, which so many swear by, or claim to, is synthetic estrogen and that can be very dangerous to ingest regularly. Many people use canola oil, thinking it comes from a plant called the canola! It doesn't! “Canola” is short for “Canada oil”! They claim the name was chosen to avoid connotations from the fact that it supposedly is derived from rapeseed, but there are other natural names also associated with rapeseed that could have been used. It should be mentioned that canola oil is in wide use in manufacturing biodiesel fuel, too.

      But also be careful of more natural things, in terms of overdoing. My wife took fish oil supplements every day for awhile and ended up with a severe urinary tract infection. Evidently her kidneys had trouble processing that amount of fish oil. This might not happen to everyone but be aware that it could happen. She knew it was from the fish oil since her urine spelled like fish. Many post-menopausal women suffer from urinary tract infections, known as “interstitial cystitis”. We have learned that these infections come about from not completely emptying the bladder. These infections can easily be eliminated by making sure to completely empty the bladder. Also, be careful of herbal supplements, even the more natural unprocessed ones. They sound safe because they're from plants, but not all plants are safe. Some can be very potent or toxic. Pharmaceutical companies use them in their medications. Be careful in using them, be wise but don't be afraid. My wife always takes half of what is recommended to see how she feels the next day. You could be allergic to an herbal supplement.

      A lot of people unwisely take vitamins every day. Many take massive doses, thinking that will help. There is a dangerous misapprehension that vitamins are “nourishment”, that people only need vitamins to stay healthy, so they could eat poor diets but, if they take supplements, they will be fit. But vitamins are not nourishment! Vitamins are catalysts, metabolizers, chemical go betweens. They need something to work on! Fats, proteins, enzymes, sugars. By themselves, vitamins are powerful, reactive chemicals, vitamins alone are strong poisons! They need nutrients to act on! Vitamins do not substitute for eating well! You need to supply what the vitamins in your system need to work on, or the vitamins will start taking you apart so they have something to act on! Taking vitamins on an already good diet can result in your body having more vitamins than it knows what to do with. There is no substitute for a good diet.

      I am not a physician, but Hippocrates wasn't a physician before he started collecting cures and methodologies, but these are things my wife uses to keep the fibromyalgia and other deleterious conditions away. We hope some of these tips will help you and encourage you.