My Fibromyalgia-Reversing Timeline

October 27, 2009 by admin · 1 Comment
Filed under: Listening to your Body, Reversing Fibromyalgia, Thoughts and Emotions, Wellness

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I reversed fibromyalgia in my own body over the course of about 5 years. Here’s the timeline of what I did.

I like to say that if I knew in 2003 when I started treating my fibromyalgia that I actually was going to cure it, I would have taken notes, that way this timeline could be complete and accurate. But, I did not know – I was just trying to feel a little bit better, so this timeline is put together only by my memory as to exactly what I did when and how much it helped me at the time.

I also want to say right here that if I knew then what I know now I would have been able to reverse fibromyalgia in much less time than 5 years. I obviously can’t say for sure, but I think if I had to do it over again with my current knowledge I could have done it in 1 to 2 years.

It all began in march 2003 after my son was born. What previously had been occasional headaches and muscle aches and sore backs and necks since I was 15 or so now became full-fledged fibromyalgia. I had constant stiff necks, I couldn’t carry my son or sit in a chair without incredible pain and stiffness. I couldn’t drive or put my hair in a pony tail without pain. I was constantly tired and sore. I knew something was wrong. I was different.

Year 1: 100% fibromyalgia

I was diagnosed and given the standard information about managing your pain, not trying to do too much, and learning to live with fibromyalgia.

I wanted to feel at least a little bit better, so I bought a stretching program off the Internet that looked like it might help. It mostly stretched the neck and back and shoulders, because that was where the majority of my pain was.

Looking back on this, if I had known then what I know now, I would have actually started with supported stretches that concentrate on the hips, like the ones in my book, because I believe these would have brought me faster and more effective overall relief.

I worked myself up to about 40 minutes of stretching twice a day. It was effective, I was seeing results, but it was very slow going.

I also experimented with my diet a bit – I added in probiotics and high-quality fish oil, both of which had profound, visceral effects on my nervous system. I could feel my nervous system respond with an awake, zingy feeling. (not to be taken before bed).

Year 2: 80% fibromyalgia.

I was feeling better. I still had a lot of pain, but instead of diffuse, systemic pain I could start to tell which muscle group was bothering me. – so say, instead of a diffuse headache, I would have a sore and stiff neck and chest that occassionally gave me stabbing head pains. lol. I was able to function a bit better and longer.

My chiropractor started trying some new treatments on me, both of which tipped me off to the fact that much of my problem was directly related to adhesions between my fascia and my muscles, trigger points, and tissues that were stuffed full of something (which I later theorized to be stress chemicals for me).

First he tried the graston technique. He took a heavy metal bar and rubbed it across the skin on my chest and shoulders with a teeny bit of pressure. This hurt like you would not believe. Clench-my-teeth-to-keep-from-screaming hurt. but oh, it helped too. Afterwards my muscles would feel a bit looser and free-er. I started to take a butter knife at home and run it over my shoulder muscles when they felt locked up.

Next, his assistant tried something that I can’t remember what it was called. It was some sort of releasing technique, and basically she would hold on to my chest muscles with one hand, and pull in the opposite way of how I was moving while I moved my shoulder around in it’s full range of motion. This also hurt like you would not believe, but also seemed to bring sweet relief afterwards.

The procedures with the chiropractor were moving so slowly – they seemed helpful but every time I went it seemed like we were starting over at square one, and I wanted to MOVE. I wanted to get better NOW, not after 12 to 18 treatments or whatever.

So, I started looking at what the treatments were doing for me (manipulating my muscles and fascia in ways that I did not normally do, with the intention of getting blood flowing to them, freeing any adhesions, releasing scar tissue, and working out trigger points). I started trying to figure out how I could do all that on my own at home.

I came across the book The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief and bought it and started putting the recommended self-trigger point massage treatments into effect immediately.

This replaced stretching, and I started treating my trigger points for up to two hours a day. The problem was, I literally had hundreds of trigger points in my body. It was almost disheartening to discover just how many trigger points I had, because each one of them needed individual attention.

If we have about 650 muscles in our bodies, and I had 4 or 5 trigger points in small muscles and 20 or more in big muscles, which is what I determined, then I may have, at one point had over 8000 trigger points in my body. NO WONDER I WAS SO MISERABLE!

What is a trigger point you may ask? Well, the guy who wrote the book says that a trigger point is an area of sarcomeres (mucles cells) that are tight and bunched up, restricting blood flow and causing pain and that they are caused by muscle overuse or injury.

I have also run across the idea that trigger points are bunched up areas of fascia, and the reason they seem to be in the muscle is because not only does every muscle have its own covering of fascia, but every muscle fiber does too, so the fascia and the mucles are indistinguishable from each other, really.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter. Trigger points are tiny areas in a muscle that hurt ‘exquisitely’ when pressed on and they create referred pain and weakness in muscles. Plus, since your body is constantly trying to reach a state of balanced health, when you have tons of them and your body is always working on them, you are tired.

So, anyway, I doggedly started working on my trigger points in the manner described in the book and I saw relief – major relief. I was definitely feeling better.

I tried acupuncture in this year but it didn’t seem to help me much so I didn’t keep it on. I think my self-trigger point massage was doing for me what acupuncture my otherwise have done.

Year 3: 60% fibromyalgia

I started getting regular massages and one day my massage therapist told me about the medicine guaifenesin. She said she had a man in the day before who used to have fibromyalgia, but now his muscles were ‘like butter’ and he credited guaifenesin with the reversal. I looked it up on the internet and discovered the guaifenesin protocol. Now, I have many strong opinions about the guaifenesin protocol but the simple fact is that it helped me immensely.

I saw relief within days, which is not entirely normal – read my experiences with it – and then I reached a plateau at about 9 months, so I stopped taking it and continued my search for what would continue to help me.

About this time, I started developing my supported stretches to reverse fibromyalgia, based on an experience I had with supported child’s pose.

I started doing these stretches for one hour in the morning and another 40 minutes in the evening. They were incredibly helpful to me in learning to relax my body at will, draining stress chemicals, and starting to stretch my hips, which I now believe are the most important areas that need to be stretched in fibro.

I also discovered at this point that I was perpetuating fibromyalgia with certain habits and attitudes that I had, and whenever I got really mad or upset about something I was setting myself up for some major pain no matter how much stretching I did. Hmmm. this was the beginning of learning how to dismiss negative thoughts for me, and I think it is the most important thing I ever did.

I truly believe that if I had not had certain personality traits (controlling, resentful, people-pleaser, easy to blame or anger, anxious, fearful, believing if I don’t do it it won’t be done or done right, not trusting) I would not have gotten fibro in the first place, and I also believe if the only work I had done would have been to change my personality to eliminate some of these emotional habits and actions, my body would have eventually cured itself of fibro without my taking any physcial actions like massage and stretching.

Pretty strong claim, but I believe it.

In this year I also tried and failed at a low carbohydrate diet meant to control blood sugar swings and the fibromyalgia-similar symptoms that go along with them. I try this again in year 5, and did much better.

Year 4: 40% fibromyalgia:

This may have been the first year that I started believing I could cure fibromyalgia. I was feeling good, better than I had in years. I started working on my emotional freedom also and started feeling moments of happiness and actual joy that felt better than I can ever remember feeling in my whole life.

Feeling physically and emotionally good was not a consistent thing – I was especially susceptible to falling back into my old habits emotionally, and when I did, boy oh boy, my old pain would come back. This was good though – it gave me that extra motivation I needed to really try to figure out what was keeping me in habits that made me feel bad, and fix them.

I had gotten used to feeling bad emotionally – to tolerating quite a bit of negative emotion, and that state of consistent negative emotion had taken its toll on my body. No matter how good a series of stretches made me feel, I could go back to square one in an instant with a flash of anger or resentment.

So, I spent much of this year continuing my supported stretches, experimenting with deep tissue massage, and working on my emotional states.

Lets talk about the deep tissue massage – this is something I never could have handled or wanted in the early years, but once I got to this level of wellness I LOVED deep tissue massage. It hurt like fire, but it was a good sort of hurt – the kind of hurt that always signaled to me that some healing was going on – that some tissue that really needed it was getting incredible healing touch. Plus, every time I went it hurt a little less, and I was a little better.

I also discovered an alphabiotocist at the nearby farmer’s market and went to him about 8 times. The first time I went he ‘adjusted’ me in a way similar to what a chiropractor does, and I felt an immediate response in my body. The next day, my body went back to the way it had been, which was ‘out of alignment’ according to the man, and I almost violently felt that too. I could feel that my left hip had been pulled down a bit by my tight muscles. It was quite horrible until I got back to him and he fixed it again. After I’d been to him several times, my body stayed consistently where it was supposed to and I felt no further benefit by going back to him, so I didn’t.

Now, let’s talk about working on my emotional states. This is a hard one, because it means something different to everyone. Let me tell you a bit about what it meant to me. I lived with some violent and angry and fearful people when I was growing up, and I took on their emotional states. Once I figured out I had done this, I realized that what I wanted to be like was the opposite of what I was like.

I wanted to be happy, free, joyful, relaxed, calm, kind, secure, and thoughtful. The problem was, I had no beliefs that would make me any of these things. For example, happy people generally believe everything always works out for them, their life is going well, good things surround them and are coming, their life is good and getting better … these kinds of things. But, I did not believe any of that! Look where I was! Look what had happened to me!

sigh. lol. So, I started on a quest to feel better. I talk about that a bit here in my Learn to Shut your Mind off and more is coming.

Year 5: 20% Fibromyalgia

Oh my goodness did I feel good here. Just feeling good in my body was enough many times to help me feel good emotionally. It was like I did the downward spiral my whole life, and then as soon as I started working on my fibromyalgia, I started the upward spiral, and every time my body felt better, my mind was able to gain a fresh, happier outlook, and every time my mind got a little happier, my body felt a little better, and the better it gets, the better it gets, and how far up does this upward spiral go? I’m still on it, and it feels great. This upward spiral is what I most want to share with you.

I kept working on my emotional states – always striving to feel a bit better, find a bit more relief, and I tried to take up meditation (never really worked for me so far) for the health benefits.

In this year, I discovered that guaifenesin has an analgesic effect related strongly to its ability to relax skelatal muscles. Read about that on my guaifenesin protocol post or get my free booklet about guaifenesin by signing up for my mailing list (top right).

So, I started taking guaifenesin again to see if there was any benefit at my current level of wellness. I think there was, although it was subtle.

In this year, I also tried the low carbohydrate diet again. I went more moderate carbohydrate and let myself eat carbs if I wanted to or when I was on my period, so that there wasn’t such a sense of deprivation. This has been much more successful (I’m still doing it, and I have lost weight – woohoo). I can feel a difference in my body when I eat carbs – more tenderness, puffiness, and tiredness, but I’m OK with it sometimes. I also am more able to handle carbs without pain then I used to be, and I do more sweeteners like agave, erithrotol, xylitol, and non-bitter stevia so that I can still have sweet-tasting foods.

At the end of this year I also discovered YOGA. I started out with a rest and rejuvenation class and a therapuetic class. These classes are gentle and slow-paced and are more about stretching and getting rid of pain than they are about working out. I had been doing some yoga stretches for years, but these classes took me to the next level.

Then, eventually I went to a real class. A regular, sweat-dripping off you, breathing hard, stretch farther than you’ve ever stretched class. It was awesome and I was hooked. After the class I was high for hours. I had to be careful because if I went to class at night and it was a good class I would be up all night because I was so energized. Yoga is really the final piece of this healing puzzle for me.

How I Feel Now

Now in years 6 to 7 (as I write this) I am still experimenting with things that can make me feel even better. Even though I no longer have fibromyalgia I do still have a bit of what I consider to be ‘extra sensitivity’ in my muscles.

If I overdo computer work or get really upset about something, I can feel some tenderness in my muscles or I might sleep an extra couple of hours for no apparent reason (I don’t have to get up at a set hour, so I sleep till I wake every day – most days I will wake about 8.5 hours after I went to sleep but after a stressful or resistant day I might sleep 10.5 or more hours).

I think I may always have this extra sensitivity, as my body has chosen muscular tenderness and fatigue as a way to express its need for rest, repair, attention, renewal, and consideration. I’m cool with that, especially since I now know how to do it. I’m also grateful for the very obvious, visceral source of discomfort to let me know “stop what you are doing or thinking!” ” take some time to get back in alignment with who you are and your ‘healthy habits’ “. That way I never get so far gone that I have a ‘flare’ or really set myself back. I always notice in the early stages.

I do yoga as much as I can. I stretch at least a little every day. and I pay very close attention to how I feel emotionally and physically.

What I hope you get out of this experience of mine is that healing from fibromyalgia is not a one-shot, do it and you’re done, one-size-fits-all type of thing. I tried many things. There were some things I tried that I did not mention here because they did little or nothing for me. I didn’t do stretch A for x number of minutes, and then get procedure B for x number of treatments and then I was cured.

I made a decision to try whatever it took to feel a little better, and then I followed the cues that my body and my life were giving me on what to next. I never have pronounced myself ‘good enough’ or ‘done’. I will strive to feel a little bit better, emotionally and physically, for the rest of my life, although I no longer have the illness called fibromyalgia.

Thanks to this experience, I don’t believe that my health and my mental processes will decline as I get old – because I was on the declining fast track, and now I’ve discovered the secret to thriving and to the opposite of declining.

Could it be that fibromyalgia is just a fast track into the same kind of declining that normally happens during old age? Interesting food for thought.

Please, tell me your thoughts or your experiences by leaving me a comment or emailing me. I would love to hear from you. Lisa