Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue

[Bawbee]

Hi folks,

Have started a new thread because I made a technical error or two trying to reply to Linnea.....thanks Linnea for the encouragement about small incremental steps being important....Ive had fibromyalgia for c40 years and although I had to stop work I still managed a bit of a life. Then chronic fatigue set in ....now that is scary...I can walk continously for about a minute, but ive got to start somewhere and cfs is tms so that to me makes it feel much more allowing and who knows when it could change for the better kinda feel about it.
To get back to Dr Schubiners book....Im getting a lot from it .....and as i write about my childhood asking my husband and close friend the questions in the book and finding that my okay childhood was maybe not so okay.
My arm and neck make a lot of writing tricky so every day I record how I feel on my ipad....I keep a set of affirmations ive made for myself and sarno reminders.

I feel theres less info about tms explanation for fibro and cfs around..but Dr Schubiner has a great book list and one of them is Freedom from Fibromyalgia by Nancy Selfridge MD......its all underpinned by Sarno theory and she writes alot about the chemicals of emotion etc,,,,, and the importance of movement for fibro people.....And suggests thqt 'inactivity allows pain- generating chemicals to initiate'.
I also like that she emphisises that when we move and keep active we are doubly attacking fibro giving mody/mind a strong message that you know the symptoms are temporary and reversible.

A lot of fibro people need to stand up for themselves and now we literally cant stand up for ourselves. This Dr Schubiner calls the brick through the window since ringing the door bell didnt work.
Another recommendation by him is a book by Brene Brown...theres a fab TED talk by her on you tube about being real and vulnerable
I know it may sound very simplistic, but so much of the material and work we have to do seems to boil down to do we live our lives from a place of fear or love...and self love ist.
i would love to hear of anyones success with Chronic fatigue syndrome.
Excuse typos but im not here to be perfect and its more important to save my neck. BB

 

[Steve]

I was never diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome but I can tell you I often felt exhausted years ago. 3-4 strong cups of coffee couldn't keep me awake when I was fatigued, and I regularly snoozed the alarm 5-10 times before getting out of bed.

During the last 10 years, I've dramatically increase my energy by seismic shifts in 3 areas:
1) I changed my diet so that it's about 75% fruits and vegetables, mostly vegetables. I eliminated dairy, sugar, and fried foods and cut way back on empty carbs (like any not-whole grains, white rice, potatoes of all kinds, alcohol, etc.) and meat products. Until one has tried this (say for 10 days) it's hard to imagine the benefits. There are books that describe the initial and periodic cleanse I did (such as Raw Food Cleanse) and even a movie (Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead), which is followed by a more doable ongoing diet.
2) I get 45 minutes cardiovascular exercise (just fast walking) 5 times a week
3) I changed my work habits so that I always do the most difficult, emotionally uncomfortable tasks first. I find my unconscious would much rather me sleep than work on these and was willing to produce feelings of exhaustion as much as necessary to that end. Once I knock these tough tasks out of the way, I suddenly have much more energy.
I'm usually up by 5am now, sleep 6-7 hours per day, have lost 15 pounds, cut my cholesterol by 30% and greatly increased my work results. Several friends of mine have had similar experiences. (The ideas came from a Tony Robbins seminar.)

I don't have fibromyalgia but did have a very nasty case of RSI the doctors said would take 2 years to heal. Like you, I thought typing might hurt me (my arms vs. your neck.) The best therapy for me was to confront the lie of TMS head on - doing the most uncomfortable thing first - typing. After 2-3 weeks of this I'm up to 4 hours on the computer daily and feel MUCH BETTER, physically and mentally, than when I was typing nothing at all. I also quit all time- and money-burning PT exercises and the worthless anti -inflammation medication. In short, I communicated emphatically to my brain that I was healthy, had no disease and that it would not stop me from living my life. Thank god I didn't listen to traditional doctors or worse yet, my pain, but rather Dr. Sarno and the good people of this forum (see for example http://tmswiki.org/forum/threads/is-quitting-pt-exercises-a-must.124/).

 

[yb44]

Another book you might consider is Rob Kelly's Changing Limited Beliefs. He mentions CFS in the section on illnesses. Read the reviews on Amazon. He talks about how low self-esteem and social anxiety play their part in how we develop our belief system. I was shocked to discover just how low my own self-esteem really was but I have been gradually working on improving this.

I haven't suffered from CFS as such but did go through a spell where I was very tired for a period of time. It hit me when I decided to start a brisk walking regime. I put it down to all sorts of physical stuff but now I know better.

Ironically I was searching the Internet about fibromyalgia last night because I met someone recently who was severely disabled and originally assumed to have had a stroke. Tests proved otherwise but there has been no medical explanation. There were several traumatic events that happened in quick succession, however. I stopped breathing for a few seconds when I realised there was a possibility of this being PPD but I wasn't at liberty to suggest it.

 

[BruceMC]

I remember a lead technical writer at a telecommunications company I worked at who came down with chronic fatigue syndrome and wound up so tired out he could only work a couple days a week. The rest of the time, home on disability once he'd been diagnosed. However, there were several things I noticed about his background that were, I know today, obvious red flags. For one, he had received a terminal MA in English from a large public university in the Northwest. That means he flunked out of the Ph.D. program even though he probably worked himself into a lather. Also, he once mentioned that when he was a kid he was too scared to talk to anyone. And he had worked like a fiend previously in the telecom company. Did not get into any socializing with his co-workers; only worked and worked and worked. Then, it started to happen: 'Yuppie disease' (aka CFS). Don't know what happened because I split after a couple of months because I could see that management had brought me in to "knock him off", which didn't make for a very friendly workplace to say the least! From what I now know about TMS theory from Sarno and Schubiner et alia, I can see how that technical writer had a whole set of psychological issues that finally blossomed into CFS. It's interesting to note though how as you learn more about TMS theory and personality traits how many people in your immediate environment you can easily identify who have MBS issues. My over-achieving perfectionist technical writer co-workers was certainly a case-in-point! By the way, he must have snapped out of it because he ultimately went to another telecom start-em-up where he did get a lucrative stock option. Let's hope he mellowed out then (but probably not!)