I Can’t Vouch for a Quick Fix Fibromyalgia Treatment…but a Prolonged Path? I’m in!

It seems like sometimes people are asking me for a quick fix treatment for fibromyalgia.

I guess we’d all love a quick fix.

If you want a quick fix…I’ve had it for seventeen years now, so obviously…personally, I haven’t found it. But then again, I haven’t looked for one…and therein, maybe, lies the secret to my success. Yes, I said SUCCESS.

Because I HAVE found a PATH…sure it’s been a prolonged path that feels like some sort of extended, arduous, inescapable, imposed journey…like maybe finding my way through a dark tunnel…through a mountain…by myself…uphill at times, many slips and stumbles and falls and setbacks, some pretty bleak periods, but with glimpses of light now and then, always challenging and difficult but every once in awhile a corner is turned…and solid unmistakable progress is won.

But for some time now, unexpectedly for sure, and in spite of not looking for a quick fix but maybe because of it, I’ve slowly but surely sensed that I’m at long last…FINALLY…coming out the other side…

So let me explain.

Now I don’t mean to be a downer (bear with me) but as I look around, I’m not sure WHY there WOULD be a quick fix for fibromyalgia; maybe I’ve missed something but I don’t see ANY quick (long lasting) fixes for ANY chronic illnesses (hence the name chronic). And I’ve felt that way from the start, maybe because I’d experienced chronic illness before, but more likely because I’d witnessed a close family member live with MS for over a decade. Right from the start I felt I had a long-term condition that I would need to learn to live my best life with and I fully expected it to be for the rest of my life.

So, and this is totally a personal thing, I haven’t looked for a quick fix because I wasn’t expecting one.

I often notice others with fibromyalgia saying they’ve looked for and tried everything. Well, I know this sounds hard to believe, but outside of an informational book about fibromyalgia that I read early on that gave me a bit of working knowledge, I kind of kept blinders on to most things fibromyalgia.

Truth is, I have not looked for…nor tried…ANYTHING that would be considered a quick fix for fibromyalgia…not once…in seventeen years.

(And I’ve found I haven’t needed to.)

When I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, my life was busy…swamped really, raising three young children while managing the construction of my new house…I was just trying to keep my head above water. I needed to get on with living my life as best I could given my new (fibromyalgia) circumstance and I needed to get on with it immediately. As I talked about in an earlier post, before I even had a diagnosis, I quickly resumed my “combat mode” that had helped so much with my earlier chronic illness, whereby “I would try doing anything I could do to feel as healthy as possible in every other way” to try to OFFSET the illness as much as possible and just try to FUNCTION in my life. And this consisted of doing all those tried and true things that “regular” people (who don’t have chronic illness) do to be and feel healthy and increase their energy…exercise, eat healthy etc. (only I had to struggle to maintain these in the mix while fibromyalgia worked against me every step of the way!).

And to be clear, my “combat mode” wasn’t really about correcting any unhealthiness I had when I got fibromyalgia (as I’ve heard some speculate is a cause of fibromyalgia); no, I was already extremely healthy and active when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I had been for many years.

My “combat mode” was more about what I did AFTER I was diagnosed…about feeling the best I could GOING FORWARD…WITH fibromyalgia…about FUNCTIONING in life with chronic illness.

So I was busy…and I didn’t want to dwell on my fibromyalgia…I didn’t want to be “sick”…I wanted to “minimize it”. I kept the focus on the healthy things I now needed to do (“combat mode”) and on the rest of my life…raising my young family, managing the construction of my house, working on my business, whatever else was going on, “deliberate denial” is how I thought of it…my focus was on almost anything BUT fibromyalgia.

Yes, my focus was on almost anything BUT fibromyalgia, not only in the way I lived my life for the past seventeen years, but also (maybe ironically) in the way I treated my fibromyalgia, although in fact, I was actually doing so much to treat it!

While so much of what I did every day was geared towards being the healthiest I could be to “treat” my fibromyalgia, nothing that I did was ACTUALLY, DIRECTLY, FOR my fibromyalgia. Does that make sense?

As I kept living my life as best I could, I also kept continually keeping my eyes open for new tips to contribute to my “combat mode”, that is, to make myself healthier OVERALL. Over the years I’ve found all sorts of things…better more balanced workout routines, specific exercises for my lower back, healthier foods to add in, foods for specific purposes like “brain foods”, foods that help with sleep, foods that help with IBS (and foods that don’t!), healthy teas, ways to manage stress, etc. etc.…all things that would help “regular” people but never any kind of direct “fix” specifically for my overall fibromyalgia.

Right or wrong, sensible or not sensible, I don’t know…I just wasn’t expecting one.

And besides, I liked working on my overall health and all the benefits that came with it, not just fibromyalgia-wise but as I talked about in a previous post, “regular” people-wise too. I wanted to be doing this and I used my fibromyalgia as another reason to compel me to do it.

So I focused on the tried and true regular healthy things, that would help anyone feel better as their overall healthiness kept improving. I haven’t been distracted or went off on a different track, searching for quick fixes. Someone can certainly do both, but I think I personally would have lost the focus and discipline I needed to keep up the persistent routines I have maintained.

And not searching for a quick fix has allowed me to avoid the ups and downs, highs and lows of trying new “magic bullets” that fail, that personally I feel could draw me down into the stress and/or depression/worsening symptoms vicious circle that we, with fibromyalgia, so often teeter on the edge of, as I’ve talked about in previous posts.

And not expecting any quick fix has pushed me to work hard to consistently drag and push myself through these demanding routines (often the last things I feel like, or capable of, doing!) to do the things that over time have turned out to be the actual answer for me. They have been MY ONLY LINE OF DEFENSE (especially as I didn’t take any medications)…I HAD TO MAKE THEM WORK…I DIDN’T EXPECT THAT ANYTHING ELSE WAS COMING. Of course, I had no idea when I started this “combat mode” approach, that these things would make as big a difference as they have and this approach would be all I’d ever need to do!

And as the years have gone by and I’ve seen over time how fibromyalgia has manifested, once in awhile I’ve pondered…how could there be one quick pill or one quick remedy? What one or two or even three pills, or remedy, could handle all things fibromyalgia? Could it fix my back pain one day, my side head pains the next, my chest pains the next, my walking corpse feeling another, my stabbing pains, my daily chronic fatigue, my near constant full body numbness, my periodical dizziness, my twitching, my memory issues, and on and on…a never-ending array of changing symptoms?

This has been a FULL BODY, SYSTEM WIDE thing going on here; it feels like it was a full body breakdown(!) and it’s taken a long, consistent, persistent, restoration of sorts to ever-so-gradually rebuild.

And while the symptoms are certainly full body, personally my fibromyalgia has very much always felt like a “brain thing” to me, right from the start…that is, it seems that it originates in my brain or at least, involves my brain to a great extent. As I’ve talked about in a previous post, over the years my initial instinct about that has only been reinforced…all the key things in the mix of things I find help with fibromyalgia DO have positive effects on the brain.

And if it truly is a “brain thing”, for any quick fix to work, this remedy would therefore be messing with my brain. So personally, and this is purely a personal decision, I’m not so sure I would go for it, even if a quick fix cure was supposedly discovered…not when doing tried and true regular healthy things has been working (well enough), slowly but surely.

And if there WAS some sort of quick fix for say, even the everyday symptoms, what if I’m dependent on this fix, and it is suddenly yanked out from underneath me through means beyond my control…say, a remedy I can no longer afford or is taken off the market? What then? I shudder to think of what would happen if my management of my fibromyalgia was propped up on something that was suddenly pulled out from underneath me. No, no-one can take away my “combat mode” that steadily controls my symptoms, makes me super healthy as a bonus and has gradually improved my fibromyalgia overall!

But don’t get me wrong…it’s not that I wouldn’t have initially liked some quick fix…it’s just that I never expected one.

And seventeen years later, with still no quick fix in sight, I’m pretty thankful I didn’t count on one. My initial return to “combat mode” has turned into a lifelong “health kick” essentially, that along with making my body as healthy as it can be, has kicked in so many more unexpected but necessary changes that have been imperative for not only functioning with fibromyalgia all along the way but actually improving over time as well. It’s turned into a restoration of sorts, of the underlying origins of my fibromyalgia I believe…a long slow process of rebuilding…imperceptibly slow like the minute hand of a clock…but unmistakable nevertheless…and now what I’m recently beginning to wonder (cross my fingers) maybe even recovery!

Yes, like so many things in life, there’s been no magic pill, just hard work.

And tackling fibromyalgia in this way, it sounds simple, maybe too simple…but it’s not…and it is.

It’s not simple because these regular healthy things that I do are producing FAR FAR MORE THAN THE REGULAR BENEFITS to me because they seem to be working on the UNDERLYING ISSUES AND ORIGINS of my fibromyalgia.

The best analogy I can think of is when someone has a “regular”‎ illness, say like a bad cold, they may take medication for the symptoms to feel relief and comfort (a decongestant, acetaminophen etc.) in the moment, however they must drink lots of fluids and get extra rest and sleep to actually TREAT the illness and HEAL their body. The key things are the things they are doing to actually treat the illness and heal their body, the fluids and sleep…not the medicines they are taking for the symptoms, those are just for comfort during the illness (while the fluids and sleep make us heal). If we just took medicines for the symptoms and didn’t treat the underlying illness, it wouldn’t work, we could get much more sick and likely would.

In the same way, over time, I’ve come to realize that my fibromyalgia is not a magical mysterious illness that requires me to be treating all these random and ever-changing symptoms in order to heal.

It’s not random, the symptoms are, but the underlying issues and origins of my fibromyalgia aren’t…they are the same few consistent things.. and these are what need to be treated.

And the simple part?

Well, it’s turned out, these healthy choices I’ve made…they seem to work on these underlying issues and origins…for many many reasons it seems…and they work really really well!

I’ve found that all the things that work for “regular” people, WORK FOR MY FIBROMYALGIA TOO, because as well as helping the symptoms for the most part, often they SEEM TO BE ABLE TO AFFECT THE UNDERLYING KEY ISSUES affecting my fibromyalgia.

The same exercises that benefit “regular” people benefit my body and brain too…and along with them my underlying issues affecting my fibromyalgia, stress and sleep. And sleep…the things I discovered long ago when I researched what impacts our sleep cycles to help one of my sons with an ongoing sleep issue…well, I’ve found they apply to and help me with my fibromyalgia as well, getting restorative sleep being a key underlying issue for my fibromyalgia. The same foods that are healthy for everyone, I’ve found are super beneficial for my fibromyalgia. And depression…I’ve found the same things I had always done to combat depression for twenty years before I had fibromyalgia, are still the same things I’ve needed to do with fibromyalgia, and furthermore, this helps me reduce stress, another key underlying issue. As for IBS…when I started with IBS a few years ago, I researched what anyone would do for IBS, then made some trial and error diet changes…and they worked, slowly, but surely, they worked.

My point is I really just tackle the issues as “regular” people would…no tricks, (okay, a few small ones in the department of how I think, to manage stress), no magic cures, no quick fixes.

Just a lifelong health kick! (I know, I know…insert eye roll on your behalf here!)

Okay, bear with me again, I know that can sound overwhelming. And I’ll admit it’s not easy, it’s tough…but frankly, having fibromyalgia, from what I can see, unfortunately we have only tough alternatives to choose from.

So generally, one thinks of a health kick as a healthy diet and exercise and either is a fantastic start. It’s where I started… I already ate relatively healthy, so I bumped up my exercise to be consistent again and over the years I became interested in finding more ways to eat even healthier…and I looked for other things to improve on and add into the mix as I realized I needed to, sleep being a key example as I talked about in a previous post, and then inevitably, the crucial issue of stress management became obvious as the other issues fell away.

But make no mistake, healthy routines are a slow-going approach to fibromyalgia. While they definitely were imperative in aiding me in functioning and coping all the way along, it took years to see overall long-lasting improvements and what I’m now at long last realizing may be in fact have been a slow rebuilding all along. But I didn’t do it just for my fibromyalgia; I would have been doing this anyways, to improve my quality of life and to keep depression at bay. I liked a healthy lifestyle and I persisted at it because I wanted to be healthier in the moment (even if it often took time to play out in my body as far as my fibromyalgia symptoms went).

And by the way, I’m not so sure someone else’s fibromyalgia journey has to be as long as mine has been. I could have done considerably better on improving my sleep habits much sooner (many years sooner!) than I did and that’s been a key, maybe THE key, healthy routine improvement I’ve made in all my seventeen years with fibromyalgia.

I’ve noticed that a lot of life ‎successes come from just consistently DOING the regular things that everyone knows are good to do, but many don’t do them (I wish I’d done them sooner with my sleep!). Yes, while fibromyalgia adds a whole new level of what often feels like insurmountable barriers to break through, experience has shown me that fibromyalgia is nevertheless no different.

But the good news is that the old standard tried and true have still worked!

No, far be it from me to be the one to dash someone’s hopes…no, hope is what I trade in. And that’s what I’m trying to get at here…once again…HOPE.

It’s not bad news because it may take some time. It’s good news because SOMETHING HAS WORKED!

Sure, it has definitely taken time…but these last seventeen years were going to pass by one way or the other. Where would I be now if I had waited for that cure or magic treatment…or pinned my hopes and invested my time on countless quick fixes…instead of putting my focus and time into consistently, steadily, pushing and dragging myself through my healthy routines, day after day, year after year, even decade after decade?

Maybe that cure or magic treatment IS still coming one day. Maybe it’s right around the corner…or conversely, I sometimes wonder…will it even be in my lifetime? And what could be wrong about working on rebuilding in the meantime (just in case)? Working on improving one’s health as best they can? It has served me well, so well that I don’t plan on changing a thing that I’m already doing…because looking forward I’m thinking (just in case again)…where do I want be in ten, twenty or even thirty years from now!?

But don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean I haven’t looked for things to help!! Absolutely I’ve done that…in a huge way…all the time…but for me, it’s been keeping my eyes open for ways to be healthier overall, to increase my energy level, to feel better along the way…

Yes, I’m sold! I’ve found I don’t need anyone but myself to do this, to battle my fibromyalgia… not my doctor…nor any specialists…I haven’t needed to try endless medications. No, I haven’t needed anyone else…it’s cost me relatively little to nothing, and it can’t be taken away from me! I have the power within me.

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.

At times others with fibromyalgia tell me, I’ve tried what you do and it didn’t work for me.

That’s fair, but what I would say to them is…you’ve only tried what I do if you’ve done what I do for seventeen years.

Because it changes over time and it doesn’t always feel like it’s working that great, from month to month, sometimes year to year. Sometimes it feels like it’s making me worse. But personally, as I said earlier, I was doing these things for other reasons as well, so I persisted through, no matter what, and now I’ve realized they were always working on the underlying origins of my fibromyalgia, the rebuilding.

And it takes doing it consistently over time that is key for rebuilding.

Because I’ve found it’s been evolving…it’s different after a year…it’s different after five years…it’s different after ten years…it’s far different after fifteen…and now especially after seventeen years. Rebuilding has been a hard fought for long term process…a short-term pain for long-term gain type of process…but a process of making good solid unmistakable steady endgame progress.

And I thank my lucky stars that I persisted.

If I hadn’t, I doubt I would have experienced that first distinct solid permanent improvement close to ten years in when I noticed I was embarking on a vacation with my family WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THE PACE of just a regular holiday with my family, for the first time in almost a decade!

If I hadn’t, I doubt I would have realized for the first time, at about twelve years in, as I drove home from a family vacation, that in my everyday life I was living with a CONSTANT, IMPERCEPTIBLE, THIN LAYER OF STRESS that had become such a part of me that I wasn’t even aware of it and that I NEEDED TO TACKLE IT for my fibromyalgia to continue to improve to the next level, as stress is such a key trigger for my symptoms.

If I hadn’t, I doubt that at about thirteen years in, I would have gradually noticed A DEFINING IMPROVEMENT IN MY COGNITIVE SKILLS as far as being able to competently tackle challenging “thinking” tasks again…I had truly thought that ship had sailed.

 If I hadn’t, I doubt that at about fourteen years in, and I guess it had happened so very gradually that I wasn’t noticing, I would have suddenly realized that MY CHRONIC FATIGUE WAS NOW LARGELY GONE!

If I hadn’t, I doubt that at over sixteen years in, I would be amazed to find out, after drastically overbooking a weekend far beyond my usual “fibromyalgia pace”, that I could now manage it just fine without “paying for it” at all, not even for one day afterwards!

If I hadn’t, what I know is real is that I doubt that as I was enjoying an outdoor concert a few weeks ago that as I stood there looking around and taking it all in, I had a quiet, very emotional and teary eyed few moments because I could feel that…

THIS WAS THE OLD ME THAT WAS THERE…

that was back…

and this was a first…in seventeen years.