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Originally Posted by chickadee2
I have no idea if I have firbromyalgia but sometimes I wonder, and don't know how the doctors can diagnose it. I am tired a lot, and sore a lot, and stiff muscles. Some days worse than others. Thank you for the tip on the fish oil! I bought some about 2 years ago, from Norway - orange flavor. Recommended by a friend and it's been in my fridge this whole time - do not ever use it. I should check the exp. date and start taking fish oil! That was a great tip!!!! I know it's good for your heart, didn't know what else it could help!! I am not on any blood thinners but that's good to know how it can affect you. Funny you mention the water because I have just recently started using our YMCA pools. One is warm water - but it's smaller and it's the one the kids use for swim lessons and has glass walls where parents observe through. So I use the larger pool, never crowded, cooler water but has lap lanes. I am not a good swimmer, I go one lap and have to pause and catch my breath. I am only going about 3 days a week for starters - and of course Tgiving coming up. And they do have a hot tub and sauna. I wanted to go into the sauna the last time I was there but I could tell a man was in there and I would have felt strange. I'm so glad to know that someone else is using a pool and loving it. Have you lost much weight thru water exercise?? I have a long way to go. Oh, btw - do you still take the glucosamine at all? Thank you so much for taking the time to post!!!
Doctors should diagnose fibromyalgia by a combination of diagnostic criteria and exclusionary testing. The main diagnostic criteria are "tender points."
This explains them, and their location
http://www.health.com/health/gallery...635,00.htmlare
Some doctors are using tender points as the definitive diagnosis (11 or more and you have fibromyalgia, 10 or fewer and you don't), and it really shouldn't be, because other disorders can cause the same pain/fatigue profile, and if the doctor happens to see you on a great day, you might not have tenderness in all or any of those points. The doctor has to see you when you're flaring, and has to exclude other disorders (such as lyme disease).
A clinical diagnosis can take months of testing, but some doctors have a "treat and see" approach. I've heard that when lyme disease is possible, that you really need more than one test (I've had two or three), because an initial test can sometimes turn up negative.
For mild cases, the testing may not need to be nearly as extensive as mine was. My case was so severe though that I was sleeping up to 20 hours, couldn't drive because I was falling asleep at the wheel.
While I had pain in 16 of the 18 trigger points, my worst symptoms by far was the fatigue. The pain was terrible but it was the fatigue that kept me from working. I had a lot of experience working in even severe pain (sure it slowed my brain functions down, but I had a job with somewhat flexible hours and I could stay late or even work at home to compensate), but no one can work while asleep.
Doctors are getting better and better at diagnosing fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue (most doctors now consider these to be on the same spectrum of disorders. Fibromyalgia is the usual diagnosis if there is pain involved, even if fatigue is the primary symptom. One doctor even said to me that "fibromyalgia is chronic fatigue syndrome with pain, and chronic fatigue syndrome is fibromyalgia without pain).
I'm not on glucosamine at all. I've gone back and forth with myself over that. Sometimes I think I should take it as a precaution, but mostly I can't justify spending money on what I haven't found helpful.
I don't know what to say about exercise and weight loss, because exercise alone has never helped me lose weight (I just get hungrier and eat more). However, I think exercise has been extremely helpful to the weight loss, but only if I'm also using some form of calorie and portion control (I don't have to "count" calories, but I have to count something. Usually I've followed some form of exchange plan, because I find that easiest).
Diet-wise, I've found paleo and low-carb diets (with lots of nonstarchy veggies) extremely helpful for my pain and energy levels. I really had a hard time finding the energy to exercise on higher carb diets.
Eliminating wheat and drastically cutting sugar and grains (even the natural, whole-grain ones) makes a HUGE difference in my joint pain and inflammation. Now, I can even see it in my face and wrists (if I eat a slice of pizza or even a whole-grain dinner roll, for example, by the next day my face, wrists, arms, legs, and ankles are visibly swollen and I'm usually up 3 to 6 lbs in water weight gain. This is true even if I stayed in my calorie-limit, so it's not excess food or calories causing the water retention, it's the grains).
So I'd recommend a pain and symptom journal (Healthminder is a good one. You can check out the "see inside" feature on amazon.com to see if it's something you could use, or use it to inspire your own).
It really helps you find flare triggers. For example, I learned that weather affected my flares - but BEFORE the weather actually changed. I would have a severe flare right before the weather changed (hubby says I'm more accurate than the weather man - he tells his friends that if I suddenly start acting VERY different, whether suddenly feeling horrible, or suddenly feeling FANTASTIC that it's time to take cover, because there's going to be a big storm).
We suspect it's barometric pressure related, but tracking barometric pressure throughout the day has never been on my priority list. Instead, I do track weather trends. Every day I check to see what the weather is going to do, before deciding what I'm going to be doing. The hard part is when I feel great, and we see it's because a big storm is coming. Do I stay home so I'm prepared when the flare hits, or do we go out and run errands and try to "beat the storm" knowing I'll probably crash when the storm gets closer (often we'll run out, do the errands, and when I get home I get into comfy jammies and get into bed - with a book if the flare isn't uber-terrible, or with the electric heating blanket if it is).
Exercise helps, but not DURING a flare. Pushing myself during a flare just makes me feel even more drained. Sometimes it's hard to know how much to push and how much to rest.
One thing that's very helpful if you do have fibromyalgia (though I think this is true of all types of arthritis - sometimes fibro is considered a type of arthritis even though it clinically isn't) is that gradual changes are much better than pushing physical limits. If you're significanlty more uncomfortable than your "normal" that's probably an indication that you're doing too much.
This was hard for me to learn, because our entire culture sees exercise as something that you have to work very, very, very hard at or you're doing it wrong. If you're not sweating hard, feeling like you're about to drop dead, why you're just not motivated.
I couldn't do that kind of exercise. In fact, water exercise was so comfortable, that I had to set time limits in the pool - especially in the warm water pool. The freedom from gravity and pain made me feel invinceable, so I wanted to stay in the pool for hours and hours. One two hour session triggered an insanely bad flare (it wasn't a crazy amount of exercise either, I was treading water gently for most of it).
I knew I'd overdone it when I got out of the pool and my legs felt like lead. I barely had the strength to get dressed (hubby had to drive up to the entrance, because I couldn't even make it to the handicap parking lot stall where our car was parked).
I've had a few such learning experiences over the years, but my strength and stamina have greatly improved. I think the biggest contribution to weight loss though has been in my mental outlook. Exercise (even the sad little bit of exercise I can do) makes me feel stronger, more confident, more capable, less stressed, more committed to health not just the number on the scale...)
To be honest, I do think the exercise has done more for my overall health and happiness than the weight loss itself. The weight loss is more of a side-benefit. I suspect this because the first two years of this journey to better health I lost no weight at all, but it's during this time that I experienced the most health benefits.