Hi Fibro Friends,

I hope you are feeling well or if not, resting comfortably. With my two kids I can't seem to get here but a few times per month which makes me sad. I miss the comraderie. But I read as many posts as I can when I'm here. I had a thought on exercise recently that I wanted to share. If anybody has any input please share.

Doctors are always telling us exercise is the only treatment or cure for fibro. This has always seemed crazy. Recently though I noticed that if I kept exercising more every day I was still sore the next day but a different kind of sore. And rather than having to spend the whole day in bed, I could get around after a couple hours and medication.

I started thinking about how fibro is now found to cause false signals from the brain to the muscles of pain, spasm and cramping. So maybe our muscles have to be stronger than the pain signals. That probably sounds crazy but maybe some of you will get what I mean. So the exercise does become the treatment. And the soreness from exercise hurts less than the soreness from fibro. But the problem is that this is not a solution once you are unable to work.

I'm finding that I need to do an hour of walking, a half hour of dancing, and hour of yoga and a half hour of pilates every day just to condition my body to handle the pain and muscle spasms. Also my muscles being stronger helps me have better balance and have less accidents. So building my muscles is like a part time job.

I'll be interested to hear what everyone thinks. Just a reminder though, I don't do the exercise full bore. I take it easy and just work slowly to my ability. Not letting things hurt etc.

Hope this helps someone.

FF

I think that you are on the right track. I think what docs miss in the equation is how slowly a fibro patient has to build up muscles. My doc said exercise 30 minutes a day. ( he is a GP) Well, that is like telling me to swim across the English Channel!LOL Some days I can't stand for more than 5 minutes without excrutiating pain. Then he told me to join the swim center by our house, and take the Arthritus classes and then do some free swims on the other days. Well, my budget won't allow that, and not trying to be too negative here, but I am very sensitive to water temperatures, and I have heard that the pool there can be pretty cold. So, to some , this will all sound like so many excuses.....but until docs figure out this illness, I just have to do the best I can , and listen to my body as best I can. I think we also go thru this differently, and I am not even so sure we all have the same illness! I am glad that you are able to have the normalcy of exercise in your day, and that you are finding it helps you!