Calming Overactive Nerves

If you feel you have overactive nerves because you are jumpy, anxious, angry, quick to jump to anything, and overly emotional, or you have an illness or condition you are associating with overactive nerves – and you are looking for help, this page is my attempt to share what has helped me.

My overactive nerves were so bad I got fibromyalgia, and as I learned to calm and soothe myself and become a more calm, relaxed, even person, I got healthier. And as I got healthier, I became more calm, relaxed and even. Oh, and happy.

One wonderful side effect of learning how to calm overactive nerves is you can get happy. You’re not constantly getting hijacked by your emotions as a response to things that happen around you.

So, here’s some things that helped me.

1. Valerian Root
I used to take it to help me sleep, and I discovered that it could actually help me stay calm too, if I took a low dosage. It’s a kind of sedative. You aren’t supposed to drive or anything, but it did help me chill out a little bit without feeling sleepy. It’s an herb, so it’s totally natural. You can also try the liquid extract valerian root

2. I also liked Rescue Remedy. This is a bach flower remedy. For several months, whenever I felt stressed or angry or anxious or crazy I would put some under my tongue.

The sales page on it says it is all natural and can reduce stress and help with health maitenance. It can be effective in any situation that causes stress. It’s homeopathic so it’s safe for the whole family. People use it for their kids and pets. It can help instill a sense of calm and control.

It’s supposed to do this through the blend of flower essences that are in it. They all promote calm and wellness.

I also think it can be an effective behavior modification element – it gives you something else to do besides what you usually do. So instead of screaming, yelling, hiding, or blaming, you are going for your rescue remedy and taking some deep breaths while you wait for it to kick in.

I had a friend with a seizure disorder related to stress who always had some of this with her, and when she started seeing flashes she would sit down and take her rescue remedy until they passed.

3. Good Days Tablets for a Positive Mood I took these regularly for many months. I do believe that the mind has much more control over the body than most people know or believe and it’s not just that if your nerves could relax, your mind could stay calm – it’s also that if your mind can stay calm, your nerves can relax.

4. I took up gentle yoga with this super-gentle cd 4 years later, I still do a sequence on this cd a lot. My favorite sequence on it is the one for anger but there’s also sequences for all sorts of stuff, including anxiety.

Yoga has been a very large part of my gradual healing of my ‘nervous issue’. It didn’t happen in a week, and I’m still not done, but I am a 100% different person than I was 4 years ago.

When I first looked for help for all my ‘issues’ one doctor gave me a relaxation cd, and that never worked for me. Yoga works much better because I can move and do something and that helps me quiet my mind and induce a relaxed state. Just laying there and listening to someone drone on never did.

5. Get a new outlook on life – I discovered over time that almost all of my suffering was self-imposed. All of my anxiousness came from beliefs and thoughts that actually aren’t true. This was a long hard road for me, and I’m still working on turning it around, but here’s the books that have helped me the most.

You Can Feel Good Again: Common-Sense Strategies for Releasing Unhappiness and Changing Your Life
Waking the Tiger : Healing Trauma : The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
I Need Your Love – Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead
Ask and It is Given

One more thing, if you have true panic and anxiety attacks, I do recommend the techniques in the panic away products (my review)

So, I’d love to hear from you. What do you think? what has helped you? What’s going on with your life? Thanks, Lisa

What Causes Overactive Nerves in the Body?

Overactive nerves in the body can be caused by many things, and in my own experience, I would say that my overactive nerves were caused by an overactive mind and a hyper-alert state of being.

(If you need suggestions on how to calm overactive nerves, check here)

This mental state of being caused tension in my body too, and the combination of overactive mind and tense body caused my tissues to fill with stress chemicals and scar tissue and be constantly inflamed. This constant state of inflammation and extreme overwork of my entire nervous system and exhaustion of my adrenals combined to create overactive nerves.

While I was growing up many adults around me were violent and angry much of the time. This put me on constant alert. Unkowingly, I adopted their ways of being; bitter, angry, blaming, resentful, mean, fearful and anxious.

These types of mental states put an extreme toll on the body. Every time I felt angry or resentful or anxious my adrenals were squirting stress chemicals into my bloodstream. My body couldn’t clear all these chemicals out so it was constantly storing them in my tissues, including my nerves and the coverings of my nerves.

Eventually, my body reached a state of constant inflammation that it couldn’t recover from without help, and my brain reached a state of constant overload. All it knew was thinking, thinking, thinking. I would try to think my way out of everything.

Phew. Eventually, I reached a point where I realized I couldn’t go on for one more second the way I had been going. I was falling apart mentally, emotionally, and physically. I had fibromyalgia, constant pain, and a miserable outlook.

That’s when I started looking for ways to calm my nerves and my mind.

I found restorative supplements, stretching, self trigger point massage, what I call emotional sculpting, and guaifenesin.

The stretching, trigger point massaage, and guaifenesin were to calm and heal my body and restore blood supply and healthy tissue to my nerves. The emotional sculpting was to calm my brain and my nervous system.

Things are different for me these days. I’m much happier. My nerves are much calmer. It took me 5 to 6 years to totally figure it out, and I still learn every day, but I was doing it without a map.

Here are specific susggestions on how to calm overactive nerves

2 Things You Must Do to Treat and Cure Fibromyalgia

• The First thing you must do to Treat and Cure Fibromyalgia is: Get Happy

Get happy? This may seem like a weird thing you must do, right? And what does getting happy have to do with treating and curing fibromyalgia anyway?

Everything.

Let me explain why, in my experience, getting happy, or working to get as happy as I possibly could, was the single most important thing I did to get better from fibromyalgia.

Essentially, in my opinion, fibromyalgia is caused and perpetuated by chronic tightening and shortening of the fascia. Fascia is a connective tissue that covers every muscle, muscle fiber, nerve, and organ in the body.

This chronic tightening and shortening is caused by many things, but chief among them may be stress chemicals.

When you are stressed, your body releases stress chemicals. When your body releases stress chemicals and it can’t clear them all out right away, it stores them in your tissues and your fascia.

When your fascia is crammed full of stress chemicals, every inch of it is really painful, your bodily processes don’t work right, and you are always tired (because your body is always trying to clear out the stress chemicals instead of resting or digesting or doing it’s other things).

So, if you get happy, immediately you will stop laying down more stress chemicals. This is really important. If you can stop laying down more stress chemicals your body will start winning the battle it’s been waging to clear more stress chemicals than it is storing evey day.

Another perk of getting happy is the opposite of stress chemical release: helpful chemical release.

Stress chemicals are a biochemical response within your body that occur when you are feeling negative emotions like anger, fear, despair, worry, anxiety, and depression. The negative emotions don’t cause the response, they just indicate it.

There are biochemical responses that occur when you are feeling joy, love, happiness, enthusiasm, and interest also. These good chemicals, help heal the body.

So, when you get happy, you are both stopping the laying down of harmful stress chemicals and starting the circulating of helpful, feel-good chemicals. Any time period that you can sustain great happiness in will be a healing time for your body.

• What do I mean by get happy?

I believe that happiness is under my control. I used to believe that circumstances and events around me determined whether I was happy or not. Because I believed that, it was true, and I was often not happy.
Now that I have made a commitment to being happy, and looked for things that make me happy, and TRY each day to think thoughts and pay attention to things that will give me that *feeling* of happiness, I am happy a lot more.

I’ve had to let go of a lot of my old thoughts and beliefs about things that made me unhappy too. This is a pretty complicated subject, and one that I am still working my way through, so I will just advise you to check out the work of other people. Here’s my favorite book on learning how to get happy via your thoughts.

• The Second thing you must do to Treat and Cure Fibromyalgia is: Bodywork

If you could get perfectly happy and stay happy you probably wouldn’t need bodywork. Your body could clear itself out completely and totally heal itself eventually. I completely believe this, based on my own experience.

However, it took me a long time to learn how to truly get and be happy, and it may take you a long time too.

While you are learning, it’s really nice to have something physical to do that can show you very concrete results within in fairly short time.

For me, also I am extremely appreciative that I took the opportunity to learn the language of my body and figure out how to help my fascia.

This means that anytime I have an ache or a pain, I can just feel it and know what’s causing it and what will help it the most. This also means that any time I get hurt, I have a better inner knowledge of how hurt I really am.

For example, I recently fell while crossing a rope bridge and I badly wrenched my wrist when I caught my full body weight with just that one hand. After the initial pain subsided I was able to ‘listen’ to the sensations within my wrist and know where the injury was and how to help it. (it needed complete rest for a couple of hours and a little bit of self-massage in a specific place). The wrist was 95% better within one day and completely better within 2 weeks.

This is the kind of knowledge that anyone who takes the time to learn self-bodywork to reverse fibromyalgia will develop. This is what I want for you. It’s like having an owner’s manual or instruction booklet to your own body.

• What do I mean by bodywork?

There are two main types of bodywork that I do: Stretching, and Self-Massage

Both are completely effective and both complement each other.

In my opinion, there are 1000 things that you could do that would help heal your fibromyalgia, like stretching, yoga, pilates, self trigger point massage, deep tissue massage, shiatsu, watsu, bowen work, rolfing, biofeedback, progressive relaxation, needle therapy or many more.

I have tried dozens of things, and the two that have stuck with over the years are restorative yoga and self trigger-point massage. These two give me the most ‘bang for my buck’. They help me the most and are the easiest to do and stick with.

I like stretching for daily, full-body maintenance of my wonderfully loose and good-feeling fascia, and I like trigger point massage for spot-treatment. Say I am having pain, I can figure out where the pain is coming from and treat that area with self-trigger point massage, and within minutes I can reduce or eliminate that pain.

Just as a note here, when I first started healing, I did a lot of trigger point massage every day and I still had a lot of pain. My muscles had to be mostly healthy before just one session of self-massage would make them feel good – so don’t get discouraged if you don’t have immediate results right away.

So that’s it, those are the two things I have found that you absolutely must do if you want to get treat and cure fibromyalgia – there are many ways to do these two things. Just get started with ANYTHING and see where it takes you.

I like to recommend my book because I discuss many different tools and ways to do these two things, but never stray from them. These are my focus: Get Happy, and Bodywork.

Truths About Fibromyalgia

Let me outline my beliefs about the truth about fibromyalgia in case you haven’t read much of my stuff yet.

• Fibromyalgia is a body state in which much or most of your fascia is glued together, chronically tightened and shortened, and full of stress chemicals, scar tissue, and trigger points.

Fascia is a type of connective tissue that covers and cradles every muscle, muscle fiber, nerve, and organ in the body.

Some experts think fascia may be one long, continuous sheet that connects the top of your head to the tip of your toes and everything in between. (this is how tight hips can give you a headache or make your feet hurt)

• Fibromyalgia normally develops after years and years of repeated and continual injury to fascia, but while your body is still mostly healthy, you may not notice much pain or issue.

This is why some people seem to develop fibromyalgia suddenly. Let’s say, over time, they’ve developed some fascia issues like headaches or occassional stiff necks or knee pain.

These small issues alone may not bother them too much or they may not know what to do about them, and then they could have an illness or injury or pregnancy that is a tipping point or a ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’, and now they always have pain.

• Nothing will cure your fibromyalgia tomorrow. Fibro took years to develop and it may take years to reverse. It shouldn’t take as long to reverse as it did to develop.

It took me about 25 years to develop full-blown fibromyalgia, and it took me 5 to 6 years to fully reverse it.

If I had known at the beginning what I know now (get my book to know now what I know now), I think I could have done it in one to two years. (although it took me 5 years to consider myself cured, I *was* feeling incrementally better all along.)

• Reversing Fibromyalgia is cumulative; you don’t get 50% better in one week, instead you feel 1% better every week.

• As fibromyalgia is reversing and fascia is healing sometimes you feel worse. I believe this is due to stress chemicals that were trapped in the tissues being released into the bloodstream to be cleared out of the body. Until they are cleared out you can feel yucky. A practiced belief that this is temporary is the best way to get through it.

• There is an emotional component to fibromyalgia that cannot be overlooked if you ever want to heal fully (or even a little). In my opinion, emotional states like fear, anxiety, worry, resentfulness, anger, distress, despair, and depression are all indications that the body is perpetuating fibromyalgia.

Sure, fibromyalgia may have come first and depression second, but anger, worry, irritation, or being resentful were probably there first. These things can be resolved along with the body issues, but they must be resolved. You cannot continue to be mostly angry, worried, irritated, resentful, or depressed and expect your body to heal.

• Fascia shortens with rest. This means if you are sleeping, sitting, or standing still, your fascia is shortening. That’s why everyone feels a little bit stiff in the morning. Once you start moving around, your fascia gets warmed up and stretches out a little and you don’t feel stiff anymore.

Since fascia shortens with rest, over time, if you don’t have a full body stretching program, your fascia will restrict your movements more and more. In my opinion, this is the cause of the pain, stiffness, stooped-ness, and lack of mobility of old age.

This also is why there are more 40 year olds with back problems than 15 year olds. Fascia issues are cumulative.

• A working knowledge of how to take care of and communicate with your own fascia is the most important thing anyone with fibromyalgia can develop. This is what eventually will lead to a full recovery. When you know what a certain pain signal means and you know how to fix it, eventually you will have fixed everything … and then you feel awesome.

• Much of fibromyalgia pain is referred pain, meaning that the fascia that is causing the pain on your head is actually located in your neck. The fascia that is causing the pain in your stomach is actually in your groin. The fascia that is causing the pain in your feet is actually located in your hips.

• When stretching to heal fascia, there is a recovery period after the stretch that is just as important as the stretch itself. This is when you just sit and feel the sensations that are going on within the area you just stretched.

These sensations mean healing is occurring and sitting still and paying attention to them allows the healing fully. Plus, then you know when it’s done. Plus, plus, the more sensations you feel, the better you’ll learn what sensations mean within your body.

I see my job as convincing as many people as possible that their fascia and their emotional states are the real truth behind their fibromyalgia.

Sure, there are a 1000 things that can cause fibro, and I believe there are a 1000 things that can cure it! As long as the person gets happy and learns to take care of their fascia, I believe that fibromyalgia can be reversed.

Does Fibromyalgia Consistently Affect the Same Nerves?

This is a question I’ve never really thought about before, but people keep asking me so I thought deeply about what my answer would be.

I think fibromyalgia does consistently affect the same nerves, and I think this answer is actually pretty straight-forward because I believe fibromyalgia affects all the nerves of the body.

Fibromyalgia is totally cumulative and I don’t believe it will ‘attack’ one part of the body and then move on to another part of the body.

I don’t think it’s that way at all.

I think that the entire body gets glued-together, crammed full of stress chemicals, scarred, and full of trigger points all at the same time, chemically. Some areas feel the pain first because they are used more or stretched less so they get glued-together, etc. first mechanically.

So, even though your whole body is in the same state generally, some areas wear out quicker and feel more pain because these are areas that are just worn out and fatigued by all the work you are doing.

Areas like your neck, your upper back, your chest, your wrists, your hips, and your feet are prime areas to feel the most pain in for this reason, in my opinion.

For me, the restorative stretches that I outline in my book healed all these major areas at the same time and then I would spot-treat with self-trigger point massage.

I would love to hear from someone asking this question if this answers it or if there is more they would like to know. Leave me a comment below.

Fibromyalgia Drug Treatment Options and Opinions

This is a question I received from a reader. He gave me permission to post it here. I am not a doctor or an official guaifenesin protocol counselor, these answers are entirely my opinion and can not replace reading the book and talking to your doctor.

Hi Lisa. I’m a 40 yr old male. I have Fibro. Have started the Guai protocol (about 2 months in now). I sure would like to ask you a few questions if you have some time.

The last year+ have been absolute hell. I’ve struggled thru via “his grace” and hope to get some earthly relief via Dr. Armand’s protocol. I would love to learn about other tried n true treatment options. Lyrica=nothing, Nuerontin=nothing, etc. Your story is touching and quite parallel to mine.

A quick background on me. I can remember back to at least 10-15 years ago really struggling with fatigue and what at times seemed like “flu” like symptoms. I could feel like I had a high temp, check it and at times come in a degree or 2 below normal.

Never really had much muscle pain, stiffness, spasms or weakness, etc. Fast forward to about 1 yr ago and WHAM! Muscle stiffness bad, tingling in extremities, brain fog etc.

I basically wanted to know if you’ve had any experience with pure forms of Guai without any dye additives like what we see in Mucinex. I took one month of Mucinex 600 mg long acting. Then, I decided to go as natural as I could and purchased some Guai 400 mg fast acting from a company called Pro Health. I’m taking 600 mg of the Pro Health version. I’ve had a day or 2 where I could notice a slight difference.

I’ve been so bad that even a little positive change is noticeable. I’m seeing a doctor who gave me Dr. Armand’s book so he obviously knows of the protocol. I am schedule to report back to him soon. I just wanted to give it some time so that when I see him I can give him a good couple of months working with the protocol. I’m pretty sure that I am “Sal-Free” as best I can be. Changed shampoo, soaps, toothpaste, deodorants etc.

1. Should I try to increase my dosage?
2. Mucinex long acting vs Pro Health fast acting(I’ve read about both and benefits of)
3. I’ve been tested for “Hypo G” and it all came back ok. Blood sugar as well. Should I still try the Dr. Amand diet to see if I notice a better day?
4. Salicylates. Blocking thoughts? I’m trying to adhere to the protocol so that I can at least say that I have tried it.

Thanks Lisa. I’ve just discovered your site and plan to dig in a whole lot more. I just want my life back.

Did you get worse at all when you started the protocol or anytime thereafter? Did your doctor do a body map on you to show where your lumps and bumps are? That way, you don’t have to guess if you are getting better, you just refer to your body maps and even if you still feel bad, if your lumps and bumps are shrinking, you are on the right path.

Dr St Amand says that your left thigh will clear after one month on a correct dosage.

I never did take the prohealth or additive free version. I took mucinex and a blue fast-acting pill.

Do you eat a lot of sugar and carbs? Or is your diet different than that?

I have some thoughts but I want to know the answers to those 3 questions first.

Yes, please look around my site. I really do feel as good as I ever did and I think most anyone can get there.

Hi Lisa. I’ve been on the protocol for 2 months apprx. I’ve had at times, episodes of soreness and such. I’m not sure if it’s the cycling process or if it’s just the fibro saying hello.

My doctor doesn’t map. He said that he didn’t because of some of his female patient’s being uncomfortable with all the touching, etc. Honestly, I’m not sure that he’s an expert but he did know of
Dr. Armand and had his book handy. So as far as this particular doc, he’s better than any other that I’ve seen (All doc’s said “Lyrica” this “Lyrica” that). Another side note, I’ve had every test out there relative to my spine, neck hips etc. All come back ok with only some minor lower back deterioration which most people at 40 yrs might show.

I’ve had so much muscle stiffness, especially in my neck that at times I’ve felt almost paralyzed. Hard to move head from side to side. Muscles in the neck so painful to the touch.

I’ve also learned about 2 yrs ago that I was born with only one kidney. That to me, in conjunction with Dr. Armand’s theory, that might have something to do with my hard core symptoms that I’ve experience over the last year or so. A purging issue? My kidney functions fine and is larger than a normal sized one. Maybe to compensate for the lack of a second and or my body size? If the kidney issue is relative to the phosphate removal that would make some sense, I suppose.

I’ve been working on backing off carbs and sugars. I would say that I have a lot of work to do there. I am about 90% caffeine free. No coffee ever. No cigs. An occasional soda. I drink lots of water. But I do like a cold beer. All my labs tests say I’m ok-blood wise. No Limes, Lupus etc.

In regards to the left thigh clearing, I haven’t noticed anything in the thigh BUT behind the back of my left leg there are at least 6-8 very noticeable lumps. You can move them around. They sometimes feel a little squishy. I have a couple in the same area on my right leg as well. Like wise on each side of my lower back. I’ve been told my massage people that I do have myofacial issues. Neck, shoulders etc.
I’ve had a ringing in my ears for many months now. I’ve read that myofascials can cause that. Not sure.

I need to get back to stretching. I was doing that a while back just trying to do anything to get my back and neck to loosen up. Massive muscle lockdown.

I just picked up another box of Mucinex 600 Long acting. I still have the quick acting Pro Health @ 400mg. I wish I knew the right dosage for me. I’m pretty sure that I’m not blocking and I’ve read some of your thoughts on that.

Any thoughts? I feel that I’ve stayed strong thru all of this so far. Never even missed a day of work. Some mornings I woke up and felt I’d been beaten with a baseball bat. Combined with the numbness in the legs, feet etc, I’ve been scared not understanding what was going on.

Ok, without a map, it’s much harder to know if you are getting better, because guai makes you feel worse as it clears your tissues. … So, maybe your massage therapist could map you? At the very least, Dr St Amand says to get your left thigh mapped because that is how you tell if you are on the right dose – it will clear after a month. So, if you go to get mapped and your left thigh is clear, then you are on the right dose.

Since you didn’t immediately get worse it’s really hard to know if you are on the right dosage – there is a group that is sponsored by dr st amand on the internet .. find it here – you could sign up and ask them specifically what you should do now.

That neck muscle stiffness is something I can really relate to. That was one of the first things I noticed when I got on guai was my neck was freer. Even these days, my neck is what will bother me if anything bothers me (like if I work to much or have a real emotional day). My neck muscles even make me nauseous occasionally when they are stiff and painful.

Wow, only one kidney huh? fascinating! It could have something to do with something.

I did not test positive for hypoglycemia, but I most definitely did have big carb issues. Yes, I think that the low-carb diet WOULD help you if you are one who drinks soda sometimes and eats pasta and bread. See, fibromyalgia is a fascia disorder, in my opinion, and sugar makes your fascia be more glue-like instead of fluid and supple.

I’m not perfect at low-carb anymore, and I don’t really have to be, but I still try to keep it up because it is very helpful. When I eat sugar and carbs now, I can *feel* the response in my body almost immediately, and the next day I am always a bit more stiff.

In my experience, the ringing in your ears is caused by tight cheek and jaw muscles and fascia. They are attached to your ears and pull on them.

Now here’s the thing. Dr. St. Amand does not recommend any bodywork at all. His entire faith is on recognizing that the guai will take time to work and just hanging in there while it does.

I, on the other hand, beleive that bodywork is a wonderful gift to give yourself and I know it was a huge part of me getting better. I recommend you get the book The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook and start learning which muscles are causing what pain and how to help them.

Plus you’ll learn how to work on your cheek and face and neck muscles which will help that ringing in your ears, in my opinion.

I did LOTS of trigger point therapy DAILY for years … and now I do very little. I don’t need to anymore. I feel good. My muscles are supple and pain-free. Now I can help my family and friends with their stuff because I know where the trigger points are, I know what a tight muscle feels like, and I know how to fix it.

Also, I recommend you do this stetch twice a day .. it’s really wonderful and if you do it faithfully it is an instant-stress buster when you need it.

If you are just taking fast acting, you’ll need to take it every four hours, or at least that was my experience. Dr. St. Amand does not recommend just a fast-acting pill, I don’t think.

Hopefully I’ve answered all your questions and hopefully you’ve gotten some new understandings. Please keep in touch – please email me back your thoughts on this. I would love to keep a dialogue open.

are you on my list?

and can I put your questions on my website? – without your personal info, of course – I think it would really help others.

Thanks Lisa. I do feel that at least a map of the left leg, thigh would be a good idea so I will consult with my doctor about that asap. The right dosage has to be the first thing I would assume.
You most definitely have my permission to use any of my story for your site. No problem at all. I’ll check into the fibro news group link that you provided as well. Thanks for the help, insight and your time.
I’ll check back with ya. As I learn more and hopefully start to see some glorious results, I will definitely tell people about you and where to find you.

… a month or so later

Hi Lisa. me again. I am calling my doc Monday to make an appointment. It’s been about 1.5 months since I saw him last and that’s about how long I’ve been on the Guai.
I still feel rough in certain parts. Haven’t really had any “good days” mixed with bad yet. I have started taking(as an experiment) a 600 mg long acting Mucinex and then a little later a 400 mg fast acting. I was wondering at what dosage & length of time did you start to feel better or looser, etc? I definitely have some lumps that I can feel in my right thigh and definitely behind my left leg in the bend of the knee.

Neck muscles still pretty tight but at times seem a little better than they used to be. I feel some swells of burning with soreness and then they may go away. Not sure what purging feels like but it would be nice to know if I am because that would give me more hope. Did you ever have cracking joints? Mine crack and pop equally on both sides of my body.

It’s gotta be part of the Fibro. I’ve had a complete body bone scan and it all came back ok. My wrists will snap, knees, ankles etc. I can massage those areas and feel tenderness and soreness in the muscles and tendons.

I do appreciate your time and suggestions. I have stayed strong thru this struggle. Any light shed on feeling better would be so welcomed!

Does Dr. Armand or his partner Claudia ever field questions or have a help line? I am at the point where I may need to get a real handle on a proper dosage now that I have almost 2 months on the protocol. I’m pretty sure that I am not blocking as all of the topical products that I use have been on the “safe” list(toothpaste, mouthwash, hairspray, shampoo, soaps, etc).

I read in the book that too much Guai can cause the particles to move around causing more pain, soreness etc. I know that the left thigh is key, but my left thigh seems ok. I don’t have any particular soreness or feel lumps. If I press down hard however, the muscle might hurt a little.

1.5 months isn’t very long for guai I think. I read somewhere, maybe on the guai list, that it will take 2 months to clear for every 1 year you have had fibro. So when I read that, I figured that I would take me 44 months to clear because I had had fibro symptoms for 22 years (since I was 12).

and then, Dr. St Amand says you need to take guai forever or you will start getting worse again.

I don’t take guai anymore because I have figured out other, more desireable ways to keep my fascia healthy. I don’t entirely believe in the phosphate theory behind guai – but I loved guai. It was a HUGE part of my healing.

While searching for confirmation of that 2 months thing I found this you might want to read it.

Me, I started feeling better immediately- I started taking guai on a thursday, and on Sunday I noticed that my neck felt looser and free-er than it had felt ever that I could remember. In fact, I didn’t even realize HOW bound up my neck had been until the guai loosened it up.

I still had a lot of pain but my neck ‘splinting’ let up a bit almost immediately which was really cool for me because it gave me incentive to stay on the guai.

Now, as for how my journey with guai went, I can’t say with any real certainty because I didn’t have the body awareness back then that I do now. I didn’t ‘feel’ my muscles in the same way that I do know, and I had the tendency to forget all about fibro on my good days. If I had it to do all over again I would keep a detailed journal … sigh.

Yes, my joints pop a bit still. not so much my knees or anything, but my back vertebrae and my neck and my hips.

Yes, the left thigh clears after one month at a proper dosage, so if your left thigh has cleared, then you are at proper dosage and just need to keep it going.

Did you read the book? If I recall correctly, in the book, it sais something like, if you are not sure if you are blocking, then double your dosage for a couple of days and see if you REALLY feel worse. If you do, you are not blocking. If you don’t, you are blocking. you seem like you are not blocking so I don’t know if this would help you at all but I mention it in case.

Claudia Marek is on the official list or at least she was when I was a part of it.

Yes, I was sensitive to noises and smells, and still am sensitive to noise to some degree. High pitch isn’t so much an issue but loudness and certain tones are.

wishing you great relief soon, Lisa

and about another month later …

Hi Lisa. Thanks for the hair info. I hope that you had a nice 4th of July. Just FYI, I’ve been in contact with Claudia Marek who works/worked with Dr. Amand.

She agreed that I definitely need to be taking at least 2 600mg Mucinex tabs per day. I am doing that now for about 1 month plus. I am still have many symptoms. Sometimes a decent moment here and there but nothing consistent. Is there anything else that you’ve found helpful? Any multi-vitamin that you would recommend? Still have some weakness in legs, some occasional numbness/spasms. Still having fairly stiff mornings. My neck is a little better in relation to the stiffness but not anywhere near where I’d like it to be. Just keep on with the Guai? The trigger point book, has that helped you? If so, have you had a partner or therapist help out?

Hi Rob, remember, this is going to take time. It took me 6 years to get to the point where I would call myself ‘cured’, and now, at 7+ years, I still am working out finer points of muscle sensitivity. It’s like some people get a lot of colds or have a bum knee or arthritis – I get sore muscles. But now they are always manageable, I always know what I did to cause it, and I always know what to do to fix it.

I highly, HIGHLY recommend the trigger point book. It will give you control over your aches and pains like NOTHING else will. And working on your own mucles will give you a knowledge and a wisdom about what is going wrong that nothing else will.

Yes, I would keep on with the guai, and read on that list that you got in touch with Claudia Marek on – their biggest message is that this will take time.

I didn’t stop taking guai until I felt much, much better and felt I had hit a plateau with it.

Fibromyalgia and Brain Behavior Questions

This is an email question I received from a woman about my boook. She gave me permission to repost it here.

Hi Lisa,

I’ve ordered and read most of your book after coming across is on the web when searching for Fibromyalgia recovery.
I was never formally diagnosed as I didn’t bother going to a Rheumatologist (but when first feeling the symptoms I did go to see about 4 doctors all telling me nothing is wrong with me).

Of course I knew there is. My body’s behavior wasn’t as I knew it all my life. I think I’m not among the most severe cases, but enough to make me miserable and very frightened (at first I had a horrible flair every week and a half, tingling and burning sensations and all sorts of creepy stuff).

When I searched for answered I can across a friend who was a acupuncturist that was the first to say Fibro is a syndrome that generates individually in every person and that it originates due to an imbalance of the stress hormones in the body. I then came across DR drylands web site (a working and thriving fibro expert Rheumatologist) and read his book “The Fibromyalgia Solution” (I highly recommend it).

He claims that after years of research he’s done on the subject, this syndrome happens due to the fight or flight response that overwhelms the body with stress hormones, and leads to an imbalance of the stress chemicals in the body, with an big emphasis a depletion of dopamine, the chemical that is supposed to regulated the body’s different organs after the adrenalin rush and soften the body sensation when in danger. When lacking it, the nervous system will amplify every process the body may be involved in or any sore muscle we might have.

He says the way to reverse fibro is only by indentifying the underlying causes that trigger the fight or flight response (similar to what you say). That made a lot of sense to me as I did suffer from panic attacks exactly prior to first having the symptoms. I think his theory is an umbrella for all other theories concerning the syndrome (for example, of course by keeping more fit, the muscles are likely to be much less sore even if the sensation are amplified, the pain won’t be much of a concern, as in regular fibro-free bodies). I really think this is the theory that will ultimately lead to solving this syndrome, and the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen.

The thing I’m a bit concerned about is, what if the brain just learned the behavior of feeling unsafe, cause that’s what happened for too long? And the memory registered and can’t be “deleted”? can the mental brain memories be reversed ??? also I wanted to ask you: you refer to yourself as cured, but you say in the book that you feel good 95% of each day. What does that mean? That can also imply that you are doing a good job of managing the symptoms, but they still arise every now and then.

In wishes of good physical and mental health, and THUMBS UP FOR DOING A GREAT JOB ON THE BOOK.

Thank you so much for writing me. I love, love, love what you have told me. I can’t wait to read the Fibromyalgia Solution. I pieced my theory together over the course of 6 or 7 years after reading everything I could get my hands on – more of it about my emotions than about my pain – because at some point it became obvious to me that what was going on in my head that lead to the extreme emotions was the cause of my pain.

So thank you. I sometimes find books that state what I know, but I need to start building a library, and they are not as frequent as I would like, so I am so glad to be pointed to one that sounds so RIGHT ON.

You asked

The thing I’m a bit concerned about is, what if the brain just learned the behavior of feeling unsafe, cause that’s what happened for too long? And the memory registered and can’t be “deleted”? can the mental brain memories be reversed ???

Well, I don’t think the memories can be reversed or deleted, cuz all my issues are still there to be dredged up again if I so choose to go down that route.

What I did, was I started building some new ‘grooves’ in my brain, and following them as much as possible. I started finding times to feel safe and secure and relaxed and calm and then basking in those feeling so I was more used to them. So gradually it became easier to find even when I was stressed.

So eventually, there was another choice in my brain. And even though I sometimes go down the ‘freak out’ path, I never ever go down as far as I used to, and I choose it less and less often.

I am able to recognize and choose the ‘let’s calm down – it’s ok’ path more often and explore it deeper every day.

But I have to make it a priority, and I had to do some major work in my brain and it did take a while. By work I mean I had to take on some new opinions about life and what happened to me. Like, I had to realize that I have many things to appreciate in my current life that wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the abuse I suffered.

That option wasn’t open to me when I was stuck in fear, but as I took the route of trying to feel better, trying to feel better, trying to feel better, I could see that a little bit. And once I could see it a little bit I could see it a little more. And I am not totally 100% to the point of being happy about what happened to me that made me feel so unsafe for so long, but when I am, I will finally be totally free from it. It will have no power over me ever again and my life will be sweet. Imagine the power in that.

There were a few philosophies that helped me with this, and byron katie’s was one of them.

you asked

also I wanted to ask you: you refer to yourself as cured, but you say in the book that you feel good 95% of each day. What does that mean? That can also imply that you are doing a good job of managing the symptoms, but they still arise every now and then.

I am cured. I don’t have fibromyalgia anymore. What I do have is a sensitivity to what’s going on in my muscles and fascia and a tendency to ‘carry my burdens’ there. If I get really, really upset and I stuff it or don’t realise what is going on, my neck can get sore immediately.

If I take the hint and turn internally to figure out what my issue is and do the work to smooth it out and relax, my neck can release instantly. I mean INSTANTLY. It really amazes me sometimes. I’ll feel something that should send me running for the pain medication and a nap, and if I can just let it go or feel better about it, my muscles can feel just like they did before.

I also have some old trigger points or something in my left front groin and abdomen that are just hanging in there and still hurt sometimes.

I wrote that article in early december 2009. Yesterday that pain flared up again (I stopped giving it daily treatment a few months ago) because I have started strength training again and so last night I had all the heat packs stuffed in my pants and this morning I am treating it every so often again. It’s smaller and less intense, but it’s still there.

… The big difference is though, that it doesn’t disrupt my life. I am caring for my muscles anyway (stretching, working out, a bit of self-trigger point massage) every day. I can still work and fuction and I don’t take pain killers. It’s not that bad.

So, I’m so glad you like my book. Thank you for your message – do you mind if I post this on my website? I would not include your name or email address. I think it would be quite helpful to people who are looking for it.

thanks, Lisa

Hi again,
If i understand correctly these issues you have with the tender points were there BEFORE the fibro started and you are still dealing with them?

I truly wonder if I can go back physicaly to person i was before the symptoms started. THAT would mean a true recovery to me. I had the panic attacks at a time when i had some ongoing medical issues, but these attacks weren’t going on all my life, so I’m kinda angry with myself for not calming down when i had the chance too. If i only knew. Funny people don’t talk about this syndrome, and they should, bringing it to the awareness of the public in order to prevent it from happening to people.

What i meant by “deleting” memories, is not deleting life experiences. i meant that the brain can register an event as a trauma, and like other traumas, its hard to reverse.

Another site you should check is the “ashtok gupta” program. It talks about the flight or fight response as well and there is some insights to be learnt there too.
And another book called “Healing Fibromyalgia” – look it up at Amazon. All written by MD’s specializing in fibro.

I forgot to tell you, im 33 years old, don’t have children (yet). But hope that the fibro won’t prevent this from me.
I truly hope this can in sometime from now, just be a memory i learnt from.

And of course, you can post me mail on your site!

This area in my groin is not a tender point. It’s a mass of something – scar tissue and trigger points I think, caused by chronic tension and maybe by some abuse I suffered as a child.

I’m sure tender points in fibro are caused by trigger points and scar tissue, but they aren’t the same thing.

When I was 22 or so I had had horrible pain in my right leg for years that was diagnosed as sciatica. when I stopped driving so much the sciatica pain eventually died down and went away, but 12 years later I discovered the mass on the outer side of my right calf. I think that was what was creating my sciatica pain and after I stopped driving it went dormant – so it was still there but didn’t cause me active pain anymore.

I think this contributed to me eventually developing fibromyalgia. i think fibromyalgia is a cumulative disorder of the fascia and this massive disruption in my fascia contributed to an overall issue.

I never noticed the mass in my left groin until year 3 of my recovery. It never caused me any active pain but it was probably there and getting worse since childhood. Sometimes these days I realize that spot in my groin can cause pain in my back and side and stomach – but I know it’s there so I can treat it. Imagine in the old days when I didn’t know – talk about not being able to get help.

I wish you could find a way to not be angry at yourself You can only do what you can do, right? I know that when you are all caught up in the middle of it, it seems impossible that any of this could be good or have meaning, but I know you can get better. and I hope it happens soon for you.

thanks for letting me use our dialogue

One last question:

I think I have restless legs syndrome. Most annoying constant feeling of electric flow in my foot (the part where you step on). You don’t refer to that in the book although you say you had it in your site. I first had it in both feet. Now only in one. I read some place it’s the flight or flight response encouraging us to get up and do something instead of lay down or sit, and it’s the depletion of Dopamine that makes us FEEL IT. What do you find is the cause and what are possible treatments for relief? Did you have it all the time, or only occasionally.

And you should really check out the “Ashok Gupta” program. He says the brain has been rewired due to an initial set of the fight or flight response and due to the pain it causes, it self-perpetuates, but it can be fixed(re-trained again by mediation and other stuff as NLP if you know what is it..)

I did check out the Ashok Gupta program and discovered I ran across this in year 3 or so of my recovery. I was recovering so well myself that I didn’t feel a need to buy the program but I might have considered it in year 1 or 2 when I was still looking for answers. Thanks for re-pointing it out to me though. I may start recommending it on my site.

I have no doubt that what he says is true, but I have my own theories about the restless leg to kind of lay on top of that. Maybe not theories but more … personal experience.

So, I still occassionally get this restless leg thing and my 7 year old son even gets it sometimes, but he can sleep through it. I just know he has it because he kicks his legs while he’s sleeping sometimes and I can correlate it to things that go on during his day. If he gets REALLY wound up during the day and never winds down, he kicks his legs at night sometimes.

So, in my mind, no matter what else causes it or leads up to it, ultimately it’s a ‘wound-up’ nervous system thing. I rarely get that ‘feeling’ anymore, but sometimes, when I’m wound up and not taking care of myself over a few days or weeks, I do get it.

The author of I Can Make You Sleep says that if you move your leg purposely when you feel the sensation you can reset your nervous system that way.

I found that the restorative yoga I do is definitely cumulative, and all my issues calmed down, calmed down, calmed down before they totally went away, but even now, if I don’t stretch and I don’t pay attention to my emotions (using them like alarm bells of too much stress) then I can get tight and sore and my legs might even be restless at night.

I do know what NLP is and I totally believe it can be effective and that the brain can be rewired There’s also EFT and NVC (non violent communication) that can do the same things.

Do you ever stretch your feet and ankles? One thing that I get now frequently is a painless muscle twitch in all my muscles. I get sometimes between 20 and 50 of them a day. I get them in all of my muscles – like my abdomen muscles and my arm muscles and my chest muscles and my thigh muscles.

It feels to me like my muscle is giving a big twitch to help itself relax and stretch out. These started in year 3 of my recovery, and haven’t stopped since. They are more prevalant when I am doing some real focused stretches in a new group of muscles or when I don’t do yoga for a few days and am tighter than usual, and then I get to do yoga and relax. For the next few days I will notice more twitches. I also notice them right before I fall asleep as my body is relaxing.

They are not annoying or irritating or painful at all. To me they indicate healing and relaxation and I love them.

My theory about them is that they are a natural function of everybody’s muscles to help heal and relax them. Some people may not feel or notice them, but most people probably don’t get them, because all their tissues are too glued together and tight, so the muscles aren’t able to twitch.

Sometimes I wonder if the restless leg sensations are the muscles trying to twitch but being unable to for whatever reason.

So, the reason I asked if you ever stretch your ankles or feet is because I never did, and when I started going to yoga class we started stretching our feet and mine were so incredibly tight it wasn’t even funny. I never would have even realized or thought before that i need to stretch my FEET. Even my toes were tight and painful when directly accessed. So, whenever I would find and stretch a new spot like this, the twitches would start in this area.

like you, i have no doubt in my mind that what ashok says it’s very true and i’m considering buying his DVD’s as i believe it can help A LOT.

Regarding the restless legs, i sleep through them and don’t kick or anything like that at night. once i get into bed and start falling asleep the feeling goes away. and i don’t feel it when waking up in the morning as well, just through out the day sometimes. I think it is connected to an nervous system in overdrive (it means the fight or flight is not quite shut off), and an intersthing thing i found is that when i meditate, it just goes away. immedietly that is!! so i kinda think it DOES have something to do with feeling alert in someway.

I do wish you the best of luck withyour site. All you can find on the web is only pessimistic stuff that gets you down, people that haveonly bad things to say, and i wonder where all the recovered ones are, not saying a word (and i’m sure there are some recovered ones!)

What can i tell ya.. Ithink it’s great we didnt turn to certain kind of medication as i think that would do the opposite of recovery.

I agree with you. And meditating is gold I agree.

I know there are recovered ones out there too .. but I guess they are too busy living life ha ha.

Healing Fibromyalgia Plan Questions

I received this question via email from a woman who bought my book. She agreed to let me post it here:

Dear Lisa,

I am so glad to have run across your website and have downloaded your ebook. I can’t wait to start your plans and protocols. I am a 31 year old mother of a two year old.

All of my classic fibromyalgia symptoms started gradually last July. I have had every test imaginable. I see the chiropractor every two weeks, the massage therapist every 3 weeks, and get trigger point injections.

I have tried lyrica, but it only made me gain weight and didn’t help. I have had a brain MRI, neck MRI, and lower back MRI. I have had nerve conduction study tests and tons of labwork. The list goes on and on. We want to have another baby in the future, but I HAVE to feel better first.

My main complaints are the arm, leg, neck and back pain and stiffness. I also get lots of tingling, heaviness, and a loss of circulation feeling in my arms, hands, legs, and feet. I was also extremely fatigued, but since I have been taking extra D3 and iron, that has helped some.

I don’t get any sleep at night. Luckily, I am not depressed yet, but it is difficult to stay positive and function when you feel horrible ALL the time. I am also hypothyroid, low in ferritin, and have a bulging disc in my lower back.

Anyways, to make a long story short, I was reading over your materials and am very interested in the Guaifenesin Protocol, but I have a couple of questions for you before I go to my doctor with it.

I was reading about eliminating salycilates from my products/supplements and it seems quite challenging, but I want to try. I was reading some info (that one of your links directed me to) that talks about eliminating any oils, gels, or extracts with a plant name (besides corn, rice, oats, wheat or soy).

The vitamins I take have D3 (cholecaliciferol) which says as WOOD OIL. Is that ok to still take? I have found that many multi-vitamins have this ingredient. I feel that D3 is rather important as it helps with my mood and energy.

I also have horrible allergies and get allergy shots once a week. Is that ok? I that I am allergic to many plants, trees, grasses, etc. that they are injecting into me every week to build up my immunity. I was reading some info (that one of your links directed me to) that talks about how salycilates come from plants so I didn’t know if my allergy shots were still ok. I have been doing them for 4 years now and they have helped me tremendously. I would hate to get off of them and back on meds like zyrtec and singulair everyday.

I also have to use Nasonex nose spray. Is that ok? I know one of the websites had approved nasal sprays, nasonex wasn’t on there, but it looked like all of the others were OTC.

I also have to take synthroid daily for hypothyroidism. Is this ok too?

I really appreciate all of your help. I am desperate and just want to feel better again. I feel like this has robbed me of my life and I don’t think I can live in this type of pain forever. I am praying that this works and that God will heal me.

Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Thank you so much for emailing me. I say OH MY GOSH when I look at your list of things that are going on with you. I feel for you.

Honestly, the first thing I would examine, if it were me, is getting sleep at night. I would do everything possible to start getting a little more sleep – whatever you have to do. Why aren’t you getting sleep? Is it the pain, or you just can’t fall asleep? Do racing thoughts have anything to do with it? Does hunger ever have anything to do with it (like do you find yourself up anyway so you go get something to eat)?

It sounds to me like you are staying pretty positive and that is awesome, but I will be totally honest in that I think there is a huge emotional component to fibromyalgia for everyone. Was there anything else that started or came to a head for you last July or around that time? Is there anything that popped into your head that doesn’t seem related when you read this question?

As for the guaifenesin protocol – I have no doubt that it can help you. It helped me tremendously. The thing is, it’s not my protocol. The website that I referred you to is the website of the Doctor who started it. They run a list over there where you can ask these types of questions. You can subscribe to the list here and probably search the archives for immediate answers to your questions.

I also looked here and saw immediately that your wood oil is fine

One thing that I need to tell you though, is that in my experience, the restorative stretches and emotional work is just as important as the guai. The Dr. who started the guai protocol doesn’t recommend any of those things but in my own experience, they can all work in concert with each other and I think it is a mistake to only take the medication and not look at some things you can physically and emotionally do within yourself to become more relaxed and at ease.

I’d love to hear back from you about the questions I asked above, and do you mind if I post your question on my website? I wouldn’t put your personal infpormation on it but I think it could help others with the same questions.

Thanks and wishing you an ease-ful day Lisa

Lisa,
Thanks for responding. As far as sleep goes, my husband sleeps in a separate bedroom and gets up with our son in the middle of the night if needed. My husband snores so he has slept in a different bedroom for quite a while so I can get sleep.
At night, when I’m trying to go to sleep, is when my symptoms get worse, but I don’t have trouble falling asleep. I just have night waking problems…usually 3-5 times a night. I always go right back to sleep, but it is annoying.
Around the time that all of my symptoms started, I was weaning my son from breastfeeding. He was one on June 10th, 2009 when I started weaning and it took me two months (until mid-August).

My symptoms started late June/early July. This didn’t seem emotionally challenging for me and he did really well through the entire process. What seems to have taken a toll on me physically and emotionally was his napping situation. I would try to get him to nap twice a day for a long time and it was always a struggle and a challenge. Most days I would have to rock him 45-1 hour to get him to sleep and then he would only sleep 30 minutes….plus I would do this twice a day. I know this caused tons of tightness in muscles and put pressure on my bulging disc.

I would get so frustrated everyday trying to get him to nap. Now he is a great napper….thankfully. I also have low ferritin levels which I have read can mimic restless legs (and arms, I’ve read) syndrome. My husband and I were also hit by a man in a head on collision in Feb. 07 which I know took a toll on my body. The crazy thing is that my symptoms did not start until June 09.

I am going shopping today for salycilate free products and for some mucinex. I will definitely start the stretching and have already started on the emotional work.

Please feel free to post my question on your website. This is a horrible experience and I wish to help anyone and everyone who needs it. Thanks for all of your help. I’ll keep you posted.

Interesting. I don’t have issues with night waking anymore but I recently read a book called Sound Sleep Sound Sound Mind, 7 Keys to Sleeping Through the Night and the author suggests that sleep quality issues like waking up frequently have to do with emotional issues, and with breathing issues. One thing he suggests with the breathing is wearing those nasal strips at night even if you don’t think you have a problem with breathing at night – try it for a month and see what happens.

Reading through your tirals with rocking your son leads me to wonder if you have issues with your neck that aren’t apparent to you. The restorative stretches will help with that and the guaifenesin will too ..

.. but I’m wondering – where do you get the trigger point injections? Are they all in your back? I wonder if you have big trigger points in your scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles like I did.

Thanks for letting me use our dialogue on my site Lisa

Thanks! I will try the nasal strips. I did the stretches today for an hour and found them to be relaxing…I will keep it up. I started the guai today and joined the guaigroup online. I had typed some stuff about allergy shots and looked through the archives and found some answers. The only doses of guai I could find at the store were 400mg and 600mg. I asked the pharmacist if I could use the 600mg and use a pill cutter to cut them in 1/2 and he said no and to go with the 400mg. The protocol says to do the 300mg for a week first, but I can’t find that dose. Where did you find yours?

Also, about the triggers, I get them in my neck and all in my back (the scalenes, sternocleidomastoieds, trapezius upper and lower back). The first time the dr. did it, he said I was really messed up…I stopped counting after about 20 injections. I’ve had them 3 times and the chiropractor is recommending I have them done again. For a long time, I thought I might have had Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, but the neurologist told me it was very rare to have it in one arm, let alone two (this also would not explain the leg pain in both legs either). Thanks again for your help and correspondence! I truly feel blessed

I’m a bit concerned that you are starting the protocol based solely on my recommendation and what you have read of mine. I have to reiterate that this is not my protocol, and before I started it I read the book.

the book talks about dosages and fast acting and time-release acting guai. Time-release guai doesn’t come in 400 mg so you must have been looking at the fast acting (not time release). Time release has a white strip on it. You are NOT supposed to start with fast acting guai according to Dr. St Amand’s book and website.

What was the pharmacist’s reason for not cutting the pill in half? If he or she is not familiar with the protocol than he or she can’t advise you.

I cut the pills in half to get the 300. If I recall correctly this is what the book said to do but you’d have to read it to be sure. I really recommend you read the book if you are going to do the protocol. Dr. St Amand doesn’t recommend self-treatment ‘unless there is no other choice’ but if you decide to self-treat there is a lot more to it than just taking the pills.

I had tons and tons of trigger points too. I self-treat mine. I learned how with this book. You are lucky to have found a doctor who knows how to do trigger point injections, but I have to believe that self-treating is so much more effective because you can treat anytime you have an issue. You don’t have to wait for your doctor’s appointment. and I know that trigger points recur, so you can just keep treating. that’s what I do. I still get issues sometimes after certain things I do.

I’m glad you are feeling good about this that’s the first step for sure Lisa

I have already ordered the book by Dr.St Amand. I have started reading your ebook and doing a lot of the stretches too I will read the book and then start the protocol after I read it and see what it says. The pharmacist told me that you could not cut the 600 mg because they are time-released and that by cutting them they will be fast acting. He said you could do liquid guai (100 mg) every 4 hours for the same effect, but that would also mean waking up every 4 hours at night to take the guai. I will read the book and do what it says. I am also planning on getting the trigger point workbook. Thanks again for you help…..it means so much to me I will keep you posted!

Oh great. I’m so glad. I would love it if you ever wanted to update me on your progress and life Lisa

I will keep you posted Things are about to get a little crazy… *personal info snipped*

This might be way too personal a question, but I read in your ebook that your symptoms started after your pregnancy. Mine started when I started weaning my son. Did you breastfeed too and then your symptoms start or was it just shortly after you had your son? I was reading about a hormone called relaxin and how you make more of it during pregnancy and when you are breastfeeding.

I feel like my body went through so much stress (a car wreck in ’07, pregnancy, 55 hours of labor, all the rocking, waking up at night with baby, nursing for 14months, plus I was working full-time and finishing my masters while I was pregnant), but the relaxin helped me get through it, then when I stopped breastfeeding, it all caught up with me.

Don’t know if there is any correlation with that and I don’t know if taking relaxin supplements might help (vitalaxin). Just something I was wondering about. Still haven’t got my books yet, but I’m waiting patiently for them

Wow, ok, well, it will be ok I’m sure. You’re pretty aware and moving towards better feelings right now – just do your stretches as often as possible I’m sure that will help.

My fibro symptoms came in force immediately after my pregnancy. I nursed for a year, and then I don’t think they got worse after. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I do think after a year I was getting a little better already or at least starting to define things that made me feel better and things that made me feel worse.

I definitely think emotional and physical exhaustion can couple and create fibro. And, if you are drawn towards relaxin, then I would have nothing negative to say about it. That was the biggest way that I found all the things that helped me. I researched and followed and tried whatever interested me that I had access too. Some things helped, some things didn’t.

If you do decide to try it, I would LOVE to hear how it goes for you.

My thoughts about fibro are there are 1000+ ways it can get started and 1000+ ways you can reverse it. If you find ANYTHING that works for you, that makes you feel better, that gets you to relax a bit and get a little happier and believe things will work out ok … then that is helping you get better.

You’re welcome, and thank you. Lisa

Panic Attacks From Very Minor Thoughts

I have panic attacks that are triggered by a very minor thought that I know is nothing conscientiously, but it lasts hours at a time. Do you know what this is about?

I received this question via a comment on another page where I had recommended panic away. I think it’s a very important question and I gave it several days of thought to really get clear. Here’s my answer:

First, let me say I am not a doctor or a health professional. So, this is all my own opinion based on my own experience.

… I have occasionally had extreme reactions to what seems like a very minor thought, and what I have found over the years is that this one minor thought is actually the tip of an iceberg of years of major thoughts and thought patterns and habits.

So basically, over the course of my lifetime, there are certain things that I have thought a lot about, that I have pondered and stewed in, and that I have a lot of experience with and storng opinions about.

So, when one of these subjects come up, the most minor or seemingly insignificant thought can bring up years and years worth of thoughts and habits and beliefs. These thoughts and habits and beliefs can trigger major emotions and reactions.

This can happen in a split second, based on that one thought, because that one thought is a bridge to all the other thoughts that I have ever had on that subject, and all the other thoughts I have ever thought and nurtured on that subject make up my belief. And when any belief comes to the forefront of my mind, an emotion is triggered.

My biggest issue

As an example from my own life, I will talk about my biggest issue, and my biggest trigger.

The way people treat me …

The way people treat me (and the way people treat my son) is the biggest, hugest, massivest trigger and issue I have. ESPECIALLY the way men who have any importance in my life treat me.

So, what this means is sometimes my husband can say something fairly harmless that bothers me. If I am not careful, this fairly harmless statement can trigger my issues with how I am treated and it could turn into a montrous deal in our house that lasts for days.

And I’m not making it up. I feel the way I feel and that is HORRIBLE.

But it doesn’t have to be that way

Now, I can’t deconstruct all those thoughts. I can’t make them never have happened. I can’t get rid of this issue in my life.

What I can do is find a way to think differently about the issue. This isn’t always easy (probably never is easy) bit it can lead to much greater levels of happiness and peace.

For example, I was treated very poorly by a large and threatening man for all of my childhood. This of course, is what has led to this ‘issue’ in my life.

When I think about him and my childhood these days I can think about these things as a horrid travesty that I only barely escaped with my life. — This is the version that hurts and makes me freak out.

Or, I can think about it in a different way. I can see the great relationship I have with my son now as a direct result of that horrible relationship back then. I can see my strong convictions about certain things, and my willingness to be my own person as a direct result of all that I lived through.

These are things that I love about me and my current life, and I really do have my crappy childhood to thank for it.

I can also remember that this man introduced me to computers, and now I work from home because I love computers and was comfortable with technology from my early days.

So, for me, the way to my own freedom from debilitating thoughts was

1. To sit down and get really clear. Exactly what is bothering me. Exactly why does it bother me. What is every thought and emotion that is going on in my head. Oh, and they are all OK.
2. To learn to sit and feel my emotions instead of thinking about them so much.
3. To start looking for thoughts around the subject that feel better to me. That make me feel better. (and better does not immediately mean good – better may mean less scared and more mad, or less mad and more worried, or less worried and more frustrated, or less frustrated and more peaceful).

I like to think of my emotions as a stepladder back into feeling good. If you have fibromyalgia, I talk about this all in my book 30 Days to Feel Better From Fibromyalgia.

If you dont’ have fibromyalgia, I can strongly recommend Waking the Tiger; Healing Trauma especially if you have been through trauma, and Ask and It Is Given

So what do you think? Is this right on or way out there in your opinion? Do you have any experience with minor thoughts causing huge issues in your life? I’d love to hear from you.

Stretching to Heal and Reverse Fibromyalgia

Ok, let’s talk about stretching to heal and reverse fibromyalgia.

What Kind of Stretches are Effective with Fibromyalgia
How Stretching Helped me Cure Fibromyalgia
How to Avoid Pain or Spasm When Stretching

Stretching is one of the most effective things that ANYONE can do to have a body with less aches and pains and more natural, good-feeling movement.

For some reason, stretching is not a commonly recommended therapy for fibromyalgia and I think this is a huge mistake.

On-the-floor, supported, restorative stretches were one of the most effective things I ever did to help me reverse fibromyalgia.

Of course, there is a way to stretch that is ineffective at helping fibromyalgia, and there is a way to stretch that can actually be painful in fibromyalgia. I can help you avoid these.

What Kind of Stretching is Effective with Fibromyalgia

Gentle, restorative, yoga-type stretches, in my experience, are the stretches that work the best for fibromyalgia. They don’t create more pain if you do them correctly. They do relax muscles and nervous system and allow for healing of muscles.

In my experience, a stretch is gentle when there is no pain or intensity associated with it. A pulling sensation is felt, but it does not hurt in any way.

In my opinion, a stretch is yoga-type if there is deep, intentional breathing associated with it, if it is held for more than a minute, and if much attention is paid to proper body positioning, and if there is a recovery period after the stretch period (like savasana).

In my opinion, a stretch is restorative if all of the other muscles in the body can be fully relaxed during the stretch. On the floor stretches with lots of pillows and bolsters are especially restorative.

So, a fibromyalgia-reversing stretch would have the following components:

1. it is held for more than a minute (generally a few minutes to 20 or more minutes)
2. The person who is doing the stretch breathes deeply and slowly and pays attention to their body during it
3. it is done on the floor with all body parts fully supported
4. there is never any pain or intensity
5. at the end the stretcher is sure to lie in a neutral position until all sensations cease

How Stretching Helped me Cure Fibromyalgia

I didn’t discover restorative stretches until I was about 3 years into reversing my firbomyalgia, which is unfortunate – I think I could have reversed it a lot quicker if I knew about it in year 1.

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There were a a few other poses that the dvd put me into that my body just screamed YES, YES while I was in it. I started doing just these poses that felt so good for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes at a time.

and I started getting SO MUCH BETTER

My levels of pain went down. I was taking less medication. I slept better.

It was amazing. There was a period in my healing when I did three restorative stretches for an hour in the morning and another 40 mintues in the evening. This was the time when I got better the fastest – when my healing was the most profound.

So Why was the Stretching Helping Me?

I believe that fibromyalgia is caused by several things, but mostly by fatigued adrenals, by stress chemicals stored in tissues, by an overactive nervous system, by chronic muscle tension and mind anxiety, and by muscles that become so chronically tightened and shortened by all of the above that they are constantly painful.

So, restorative stretching starts reversing ALL of these. First, it trained me to become more relaxed. Then it gave me a tool to use when I felt myself getting anxious. Then, it gave my mind some ‘space’ and trained it to be still and peaceful.

THEN, it started lengthening my muscles and allowing the stress chemicals to circulate out and the oxygen to circulate in, and this let some of the trigger points and scar tissue heal. I love these stretches .

These days, I feel wonderful, and I still do these stretches. I do yoga daily, and any time I feel like I just need a pick-me-up or some relaxation, I get down into my supported, on-the-floor, restorative stretches.

As soon as my body hits the bolster I can feel my breathing automatically deepen and all my muscles relax. It’s an automatic thing that I have trained my body into and it is SO VALUABLE.

What would it mean to you to have a tool that would allow you to relax your whole body at will? Even if you were in pain?

Do you think that would be valuable?

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My book, 30 Days to Feel Better from Fibromyalgia, will introduce you to all my best stretches in a manner similar to how I started doing them. No pain or strain and minimal fuss. Check it out – I think you’ll be glad you did. (especially when you don’t have fibromyalgia anymore)

How to Avoid Pain or Spasm When Stretching

With Fibromyalgia, your tissues are so glued together, crammed full of stress chemicals, full of trigger points and scar tissue that you have to be really easy on yourself.

Anything new and aggressive can cause you much, much more pain. I have overdone things to the point where I have been nauseous and crying and once I almost went to the ER. Don’t do this.

Your neck muscles and stomach muscles in my experience are the ones to be the MOST careful with. These are the ones that can make you feel like you want to puke or die.

Principle Number 1 with Fibromyalgia Stretching

Never stretch to an intensity of more than 3 or 4. If 0 is no pain or intensity and 10 is the most pain you’ve ever felt, stick lower than a 4. You want to feel a gentle pulling sensation only.

The first time you ever do a stretch, you want to feel only a 2! that way if these muscles really do you in, you have only gently messed with them.

Principle Number 2 with Firbomyalgia Stretching

If the stretching is painful or intense, you will probably benefit from trigger point massage FIRST and then stretching. Stretching muscles that are full of trigger points is ineffective and painful.

Once you release some of the trigger points, stretching can be pleasant, healing, and effective.

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If you follow the order in my book, 30 Days to Feel Better from Fibromyalgia, you should never be in danger of more pain.

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Start here: My Healing Fibromyalgia FAQ

30 Days to Feel Better from Fibromyalgia

How I Cured My Fibromyalgia and Stopped My Pain for Good

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• Not a Doctor

  I am not a doctor or medical professional. I am a woman who once had fibromyalgia, but now I don't. I am trying to share what helped me and what didn't. Nothing on this site should be construed as medical advice.
  

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