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Rebuilding Wellness after a Fibromyalgia or Chronic Illness Diagnosis
Sat, 05/22/2010 - 8:00am
Rebuilding your health after a chronic illness diagnosis is not an easy task. It's a journey that takes self-awareness, dedication, and a whole lot of determination.
But, it can be done! Taking charge of your health is the first step toward finding wellness. When it comes to your personal health management team, become your own team captain!
What treatment options are available to you? Which ones have you tried? Begin a health journal or notebook and write down thoughts and ideas about developing your own wellness plan.
In my book, FibroWHYalgia: Why Rebuilding the Ten Root Causes of Chronic Illness Restores Chronic Wellness, I refer to the three primary tools needed to rebuild wellness as The Restoration Trio. These three steps are equally important: Nutrition, Fitness (Strength Training), Emotional Wellness (Stress-Relief).
Initially, take a close look at how you nourish your body. What foods do you eat the most? Is your diet comprised mainly of healthy, whole foods or packaged, processed foods? Learn to read food labels and find out what's in a product before you buy. Research ingredients that may prove particularly troublesome for those with chronic illness such as artificial sweeteners, artificial fats, and artificial additives, colors, and preservatives. Proper nutrition provides a foundation of wellness on which to rebuild your health and improve your immune system.
Fitness or strength-training also plays a vital role in rebuilding wellness. Begin any exercise program carefully making sure that you worth within your personal limitations. Try low or non-impact activities such as walking, water aerobics, yoga, tai chi, etc. Finding the right balance of exercise takes practice. Take care to prevent increased pain to joints by paying attention to proper body mechanics. If you're not sure about the best way to do an exercise, ask an expert. Find one at your gym, physical therapy office, or even at your local university. Many videos also provide proper instruction on body mechanics and helpful exercises for people with limited mobility.
It seems counter-intuitive, but people with chronic pain conditions DO need to exercise. Yes, it may hurt, but use that pain as a guide. You may find an increase in muscle soreness the following day and some soreness is to be expected. If you find increased joint pain, you may want to take another look at what you're doing. Most importantly, keep going. Keep searching for the right fitness program for you. It is out there.
And then there's stress management -- a complicated topic. Again, become your own team captain and seek out ways to reduce your stress. Are you over-committed with activities? Are your expectations realistic? Or maybe it's your inner-chatter that's hard to manage. What you say to yourself on a daily basis has everything to do with how you feel. You may benefit from keeping a personal journal. Write down your thoughts, plans, or concerns. Putting things in writing is a great first-step toward finding solutions. Another stress-reduction method is to keep a gratitude journal. Writing down the things you're thankful for helps re-frame your thoughts toward the positive side.
Combining fitness programs with stress-relieving activities is a win/win opportunity. Activities like tai chi and yoga can be particularly helpful as they move the body slowly, within your personal range of motion, while creating an emotional sense of wellness and balance.
It's my hope that you take a deeper look at each of the healing opportunities as outlined in the Restoration Trio and begin your own healing journey today.
__________________
Sue Ingebretson is finding herself a successful leader in her latest career as a health educator and advocate resulting from her experience as a person who has found her way to determining and managing chronic illness. Her exceptional book "FibroWHYalgia: Why Rebuilding the Ten Root Causes of Chronic Illness Restores Chronic Wellness" is available on Amazon.com as well as other locations. She is developing many helpful tools with the collaboration of leading programs in California and is an invited and welcome contributor here at Lumigrate.com. Her website is: www.rebuildingwellness.com.
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e-mailThis forum is provided to allow members of Lumigrate to share information and ideas. Any recommendations made by forum members regarding medical treatments, medications, or procedures are not endorsed by Lumigrate or practitioners who serve as Lumigrate's medical experts.
I have now read FibroWHYalgia and shown it to Petie and Karen, my two OT FUNctional friends who I was fortunate enought to finally get to see personally in the last week, and both really got interested in the book and you, Sue.
They are looking forward to getting to know Sue at least through facebook (which they both just joined (you can find Lumigrate's fan pages and join one or all -- there are three currently) and Lumigrate's "Grate Group" (those who write in the Forum areas and follow along on facebook and Twitter). I wanted to start with a THANK YOU for taking the time to register and be part of Lumigrate, Sue!
I'm going to add a link here so people can find you and how to obtain "FibroWHYalgia", as it really is a wonderful book! I read it in two settings right after I got it in the mail, and so I had it with me while I was off to visit Petie and Karen and that was even during Fibromyalgia Awareness Day! So it was like my 'present' for Awareness Day, reading about your story. Then to go on to visit Petie (who has stories about her developmentally disabled son, now 41, and all that went into getting him diagnosed, treated, benefitted through our country's system, working, living --- . And then on to Karen, who you'll see has written her first piece in her Forum "Karen's Korner" which will mostly be about driving and other OT things she works in, talking about attitude and health as she and her family have had many experiences with cancer. So I feel much of you book is appropriate for people with ANY medical 'stuff going on'.
I realized when I was reading the part where you talk about getting empowered as your own team captain that YOU have the exact same way of looking at what I call 'the occupation of health care' as I do, which is reflected in the YOU model on the home page of Lumigrate.com. So I about leapt out of bed when I read it -- I did get up and get a highlighter! Which I used quite a lot through the book, actually. There are some real 'pearls' in there -- and you even talk about pearls of wisdom at one point.
I'd like to suggest that what I did with my patients with fibromyalgia, before getting them started on their exercise program, was to teach them mindfulness meditation. To address that 'quieting the mind' as you say above, and that allows people to find the BEST doctor, which is their internal guide inside of them. "Do I need to _____ (fill in the blank: take a medication, a supplement, explore options or providers)" is a question which a person can reflect upon and then as you suggest journal about it, absolutely! And then when I started patients expercising in the gym at the outpatient therapy clinic I would give them the choice of three things which they could do one or all three that day BUT only UP TO two minutes on each one.
The main focus of the workout was to work on self monitoring of fatigue, teach and reinforce the concept of "pacing" oneself and documenting/recording that and then giving yourself the A+ and gold star for the day for abiding by THAT and NOT the 'typical' thinking of 'you have to do a certain number of minutes or repetitions each day and increase that the next". Some days you only do your breathing and a very easy stretching and "workout" and other days when you check in after your breathing time you're feeling up to doing whatever your bigger workout things are.
I remember as an example my 17 year old gal patient who had been an athlete before coming down with CFS/FMS and she thought a 20 minute walk was a very small workout but that flared her up in the past when she did that. Two minutes x 3 (treadmill, arm bike, eliptical) with rests and stretching and water in between allowed her to get built up to 20 consecutive minutes and then that translated to being able to walk outside longer AND she got a JOB! AND she told them about her need to walk frequently and they let her get up a lot and walk around the office (she worked at a call center). Prior to coming to me they thought they were going to see her never work! So YES, exercise and activity is so important.
And I really liked to read that you just had common sense about eating/nutrition and were proactive about that first. Food is your first medicine, really. I encourage people who read your book or what you've written here, Sue, to keep learning about food allergies and nutrition for fibromyalgia. I know you've done an interview with Deirdre Rawlings, ND, PhD recently (she also did one as part of our Awareness Collaboration efforts with Drs Rand and Spurlock which was wonderful, so I'm looking forward to listening to yours), and I'd like to remind everyone that I'm so very pleased that Deirdre has a whole Forum here on Lumigrate in the Fibromyalgia section with specific information about Foods for Fibromyalgia (which is her website that is specific about fibromyalgia -- she also has Nutri-Living.com for all around nutrition and other holistic things). As I always say, fibromyalgia isn't anything but a bad case of what many more people have going on to some extent (tiredness, sore shoulders, getting more than 1-2 viruses a year or getting very ill from a cold), so I encourage EVERYONE to eat the way us with fibromyalgia do best with.
In closing, I'm copying over the information from your facebook -- here's that link to encourage people to befriend you ... (www.facebook.com/SueInge) AND here's what you say in the 'snapshot' area so people have THAT information to find your website, etc. "I'm a writer and a health & wellness enthusiast. For information about my book, FibroWHYalgia, & about living well with chronic illness, check out my website & blog: www.RebuildingWellness.com.
Twitter: @SueInge, #FB
Book: http://bit.ly/bxc8YB "
As I said, I certainly agree that your book is as much about living with and finding your best health from ANY chronic illness, just as you say there! Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH for coming to Lumigrate and writing, Sue. I hope we all see you back here often! ~~ Mardy
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!