I hear this over and over again with respect to fibromyalgia treatments and every once in awhile I’m told…”different things work for different people”… but I keep wondering…do they? Do they REALLY?
DO different things work for different people? Is that just a blanket statement that applies to fibromyalgia?
Or does it depend on if we’re talking managing symptoms or lasting improvement (possible recovery)? Temporary relief or long-term progress?
I wonder if it depends on what you are trying for.
So let me explain.
First of all, I wonder if people get hung up on the tremendous variety of symptoms as evidenced by this statement about fibromyalgia that I saw not too long ago on social media…”The problem is that fibromyalgia affects so many other things. Symptoms – how many and how much – vary widely from patient to patient.” And then they often make this inference…“So there’s no one therapy or treatment that will benefit the majority.”
Now certainly there’s many many symptoms, so certainly there’s many many things for relief of the many many symptoms. So yes, sure, of course different things work for different people.
For temporary relief of these many symptoms, sure, different things work, there’s probably tons of ways to alleviate pain or fatigue or the various other symptoms…for a period of time…weighted blankets, heating blankets, soaking in a tub, a massage, pain creams, a plethora of meds, CBD, vitamins, natural remedies, etc. etc. And of course these different things work for different people depending on their symptoms, their age, their other conditions, so many factors really, etc. etc. again.
But long-lasting permanent improvement…what about that?
What about long term, solid, here to stay, big picture…progress…yes, improvement(!)…on our overall fibromyalgia? How many ways are there to that!?
Well, I hear people talking all sorts of things under the sun to manage symptoms, but those who are improving over time, some even recovering…I am hearing the same consistent thing coming from them. And it’s the same thing I have discovered, because honestly, at this point with no known cause of fibromyalgia to specifically work on, I wonder if there IS only one approach that puts us on the path of consistent functionality and enduring overall improvement.
I wonder…because it makes sense when I think about it.
Say, for example, fibromyalgia is a “brain thing” which as I’ve said many times before, it has always felt that way to me, right from the start…that my brain is “misfiring” for whatever reason, overactivating pain receptors they say, and sending out wrong signals to my body. It seems to me that this would explain why all of us with fibromyalgia get so many various and ever-changing symptoms that even differ from person to person…if our brains are misfiring and sending wrong signals I doubt there’s going to be much uniformity and consistency involved in that! If something in our brain signals has gone awry, I would think it would be going to be in all sorts of directions, resulting in so many different symptoms across individuals and even within each individual at different times.
And as we start out on our fibromyalgia journey, it’s natural, as we get each symptom or group of symptoms, to try to deal with them as they come, to get relief in the moment. And as time goes on, we can end up going from symptom to symptom, until over the years we are running around chasing treatments for all these different random, often temporary, and generally ever-changing symptoms…for temporary fixes.
And it definitely helps to seek out relief for those all over the board symptoms as they come, make our lives more comfortable, of course…BUT WHAT ABOUT THE UNDERLYING ORIGIN!? What if that is the same for everyone? I mean, SHOULDN’T it be the same underlying origin (and likely some underlying same triggers) for everyone? SHOULDN’T we be treating and tackling THAT?
After all, if there’s a certain origin (which I’m assuming is the same for all of us)…aren’t we all working on the same thing? And wouldn’t working on THAT (and our underlying triggers) be our best shot at lasting improvement and progress? For long term ACTUAL MITIGATION of all these symptoms, long term HEALING-your-body kind of progress, that is…so we don’t get as much of these symptoms in the first place?
So if it’s caused by a “brain thing” as in my example above, and I’ve heard there’s been promising research pointing to this recently, we’re all repairing our brain. Or if it’s caused by a “gut thing”, as I’ve heard there’s been recent promising research on this as well, we’re all repairing our gut. If it’s caused by long term messed up sleep as some say, and personally I wouldn’t rule that one out either, we’re all repairing our sleep. If it’s caused by PTSD as others say, and from what I recently read in the self-help book OVERCOMING Traumatic Stress that would not surprise me either, we’re all repairing our PTSD. Say it’s caused by some sort of deficiency as some insist, well, we’re all working on that too.
Or maybe, it’s some sort of combination of many of these things…maybe PTSD (or any other of numerous possibilities!) has caused such wrecked sleep over the years, that finally the continual stress of this lack of restorative sleep on our brains/bodies just broke down something in our brains. Honestly, so many of these things are intertwined and the possibilities of other potential causes are countless…who knows what root cause will eventually be found?
But whatever fibromyalgia is caused by, all of us that have fibromyalgia, well, we’re all repairing the same underlying thing.
And without a definitive answer as to exactly what this underlying origin is, I’m now thinking, that my “combat mode“, whereby “I would try doing anything I could do to feel as healthy as possible in every other way” that I undertook over seventeen years ago in an effort to just try to feel good enough to keep functioning in life with my chronic illness was maybe the most sensible thing I could have done.
Sensible because as I’ve worked on my overall health (to simply help me function), by doing things that have improved my body’s basic underlying core health, it’s hit many if not all of these potential underlying origins of fibromyalgia as well. I mean, I’ve been exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, working on improving my sleep, and working on managing stress…all of these consistently from the start…and forever improving and refining my routines as I make more and more sense of how my fibromyalgia responds.
And I realize now, over seventeen years later, as I do some quick online searches of the health of some of these parts of our bodies where fibromyalgia might potentially originate, it’s no wonder I have been able to not only function over the years, but even improve. When I do these searches, the things I have been doing keep popping up!
When I search “brain health” I find “exercise regularly”, “get plenty of sleep” and “healthy diet” right up there on the lists. When I search “gut health” I find “healthy diet” the predominant recommendation (no surprise there). And obviously a healthy well-rounded diet is going to most likely go a long way towards taking care of any vitamin deficiency should that be the underlying origin of fibromyalgia as some think. When I search “good sleep” I find “exercise regularly”, “healthy diet” and “reduce stress” among the top tips. When I read the self-help book OVERCOMING Traumatic Stress, it was not lost on me that my exercising to boost my serotonin levels over the years to fight depression and manage stress, as well as my efforts to improve my sleep habits, had certainly played a role in helping me to deal with my PTSD.
So yes, I guess it’s not so surprising then that my overall fibromyalgia has been ever so gradually improving over the years. With the absence of a definite known point of origin for our fibromyalgia, maybe the blanket approach of boosting my overall health as much as possible has inadvertently given me the best chance of hitting that origin and rebuilding.
And all those seemingly random fibromyalgia symptoms coming and going… not only have they happened less and less over the years…but by the way, I’ve found if I just keep working on my overall underlying health each time they crop up, they go away. Not right away…as I’ve discussed in previous posts, it takes a bit of time to focus on whatever I’ve slipped up on (usually stress management or sleep) and for it to play out in my body and make them go away, but I AM able to make them go away…without any ongoing medications. And I’m going to talk about this more in my next post and explain why specifically I think that may be.
But really, in the big picture, this is just common sense at the very least…that someone’s quality and functionality of life would increase as they increase their overall healthiness…being more fit, feeding our bodies with healthy foods, getting longer hours of more restful sleep, reducing stress…this is something that would surely benefit anyone…wouldn’t it?
Think about it.
How could getting healthier not make ANYONE feel better to some extent?
I mean, I can’t think that there’s anyone, anywhere, with or without chronic illness, that won’t at a minimum, feel and function better in their day to day life by improving their overall health.
And likewise, surely improving one’s overall health would benefit ANYONE AND EVERYONE WITH FIBROMYALGIA to increase the quality and functionality of their life with fibromyalgia on some level…wouldn’t it?
Because yes, those of us with fibromyalgia are dealing with so much to overcome, of course…but I can definitely attest to the fact that increasing my overall healthiness HAS tipped the scales in favour of increasing my day to day feeling of well-being, helping to minimize the effects of my fibromyalgia on my life. I guess it’s been a process of building up the good, to feel as good as possible and have as much energy as possible…to outweigh the bad (of fibromyalgia) as much as possible. It HAS helped me to function, unquestionably.
So maybe it’s simply increasing our quality of life by tipping those scales…maybe it’s hitting the underlying triggers of symptoms…maybe it’s quite possibly actually healing the very origins of fibromyalgia.…maybe it’s all of the above.
Whichever it is, I can say it unmistakably seems to be working…and the beauty of it is anyone can do it because everyone can find things to work on to improve their health in some way, no matter what state their fibromyalgia symptoms are in…because the key word here is IMPROVE.
Yes, EVERYONE can do it. And EVERYONE can feel better from it.
Everyone can find a way to improve their diet and eat healthier. Why, I’ve been focused on eating healthy for decades and I still regularly find new things to add to my diet to benefit my health in some way. And some of these “finds”, usually to my great and unexpected surprise, turn out to be really key things in my battle with fibromyalgia! (like walnuts my go-to brain food…or bananas that seem to help me sleep deeper)
And I dare say everyone can find a way to exercise…I know…the dreaded exercise(!)…I so understand…but hear me out. Many with fibromyalgia tell me they can’t exercise and I’ll be the first to acknowledge that exercising with fibromyalgia is fraught with so many difficulties it took me two posts of over five thousand words combined to discuss it.
But at the same time, I have others with fibromyalgia telling me they find all sorts of ways, against all odds, to get some sort of exercise and movement. Some simply stretch, some walk using walking sticks, some get their movement doing their jobs, their work is their exercise. My favourite is my good fibro friend who dances in her bed to “Fight Song” for exercise when she can’t get out of bed. And whenever my own body stiffens up in pain from sitting inactive for awhile, I often remember how, years ago, I’d seen a close family member who was wheelchair bound from MS having family members move and exercise her body. I now understand why…because her body still needed the movement…so I get my stiff aching body up and I move.
Making exercise (and movement) work can take many different forms for many different people. I started with what I could manage and built up slowly…but one can stay at the same level…whatever works for them. We have to work on finding whatever exercise it is that we can do and that we feel will overall benefit us in some way. Yes the movement definitely benefits me by loosening up my stiff body and combatting pain levels but I still feel the boost in serotonin and endorphins that I get that combat depression and are a huge stress buster (and I’m sure help me sleep better) will always be the reason that above all else compels me to keep climbing on my treadmill and not quitting till the workout’s done. Sometimes now…I just start…see what happens…see if I can manage…whatever I can do. And I often surprise myself.
Hell, a couple weeks ago when I was in a flare and having trouble just standing one day because of deep core back pain, I wondered if I would be able to do my usual treadmill workout the next morning. But the next morning I was able to straighten up and my body felt secure enough to climb on my treadmill and give it a try. Surprisingly I was able to complete the entire workout, no problem…and then felt better for it all day as it had taken the stiffness out of my body and helped combat my flare!
And sleep…that so-crucial-to-our-health but seemingly elusive thing for those of us with fibromyalgia…well, from my research, I honestly can’t believe there is anyone who can’t work on (and find) ways to improve their sleep. I have been researching and reading about how to sleep well for over twenty-five years. I started by stumbling upon a leading book of a foremost sleep expert almost twenty-five years ago as I searched for answers to sleep issues my son was having. I’ve continued to read every article etc. I’ve come across since then, both for my son and then for myself after I got fibromyalgia. I have found countless ways to continue to improve my sleep over the years and even with all this knowledge I STILL come across new gems every once in awhile that prove to really help.
And I can’t emphasize enough how worth the effort every little gain has been not only for my day to day functioning (I was finally able to largely leave my chronic fatigue behind close to five years ago!) but to my long term healing through attaining restorative sleep.
Yes, all of us can always find ways to improve and when that is our focus, we don’t feel so defeated by roadblocks or setbacks because our mind-set is so much more positive and this new more positive mind-set helps to lessen our depression and stress. Yes, getting my mind off my fibromyalgia and focusing on my healthy life instead has been one of the best things I could have ever done to help manage my stress level, a key trigger to manage for mitigating my overall symptoms. I feel proactive and powerful and that’s the way I need to feel to fight my fibromyalgia…I’m owning my health management myself!
These tried and true things to build our health, heal our body, we ALL know these. We can ALL work on them and we can ALL feel better to SOME EXTENT from one or more of these things.
It’s probably why it helped me function and come through a ten-year stint with chronic severe endometriosis decades ago with my life and career intact, in fact, thriving. Maybe it’s why a family member of mine who has MS tells me she consistently does these same things and so far she has been functioning full steam and living symptom free for many years.
Maybe it’s a good approach to function with ANY chronic illness.
That’s all I was trying for, when I started this fibromyalgia journey over seventeen years ago, the goal has always been (and still is) to function the best I can given that I have chronic illness, to mitigate symptoms, to still get to live my life as much as possible, to increase the quality of my life. Anything else is a bonus. Never in a million years did I expect this kind of long lasting solid (possibly permanent) improvement over the years that I’ve ever so gradually experienced. I was just trying to stay afloat, to feel better to whatever degree I could…to offset the bad…with good, as much as possible. I never expected to actually outweigh the bad with the good. But that is exactly what has happened. By far, my (fibromyalgia) life is now far more good.
I guess what I’m trying to say is stay open-minded and have faith in your own personal power and ability to fight. Don’t underestimate the power of these old standard, regular healthy things…to make a real difference…and to heal.
So sure I still take advantage of temporary fixes here and there…I put some pain cream on my back and shoulder this week while I waited for my lifestyle changes to kick in and reduce my symptoms for the longer term…but I never feel like I’m looking for a needle in a haystack of temporary fixes to manage my overall fibromyalgia.
For what I know is real is that I’m ALWAYS consistently working on the underlying factors driving my symptoms and quite possibly the very origins of my fibromyalgia. No, working on being as healthy as I can be does not feel like an aimless shot in the dark. It feels like I am using my own power to take control of my fibromyalgia.
And for those who say, “it doesn’t work for me”, I say, make it work. Look for ways to make it work. I’m a big believer that there’s always a way to do anything in life…we just have to find it. Don’t quit until you do. You just may surprise yourself too.
And maybe next time you hear that phrase, “Everyone is different and different things work for different people”, you’ll wonder too.
If it depends on what you are trying for.
