Living with Fibromyalgia

Living with almost constant pain can be a serious drain on a persons resources. Everyone knows what short term pain feels like, we have all hit our elbows on a hard surface, or stubbed our toes while walking barefoot, as bad as it hurts at least the pain finally goes away. For someone suffering from fibromyalgia, it may go away temporarily, and then return without any warning at all. Therapeutic massage, when performed properly, is a tremendous source of relief. It is a valuable tool that can help you maintain your sanity. There are a several things you can do to make life more bearable, the first of which is understanding your affliction

The complaints are always the same during a flare up--the muscles feel tight and ache severely, and the person starts to feel exhausted. To put a really tight muscle into perspective, think back about the last time you experienced a so called Charlie horse, the muscle tightened up for no reason and the pain was incredible. The reason most people don’t understand, or for that matter, believe in fibromyalgia, is because it involves pain without trauma, yet everyone understands the pain of a Charlie horse, which by the way, always happens without any traumatic occurrence. Instinctively, when this happens, you do two things, stretch and rubbing the affected muscle, until it settles down and relaxes. The same approach should be used with your affliction. If the muscles are tight, you need to learn how to relax them.

Those of you who have been suffering for years have no doubt learned by now that you can not medicate your problem away. You have to try another approach if you want any type of lasting relief.

Relaxation techniques, along with therapeutic massage, are far better for your health compared to medicating yourself into oblivion. You should also understand that anxiety and emotional stress will trigger a flare up quicker than anything. Constant worry and despair can pretty much guarantee that you will not be able to find relief, so you will also have to learn how to control your emotions. A lot of people can trace the start of their pain back to some traumatic event in their life. It could be anything from being molested in your youth, to a bad marriage or child birth, the loss of a loved one, or some type of horrific accident. Whatever it might have been, you need to come to terms with it and put it behind you. Know this, the pain you are feeling is real, you are not imagining it, but the only way to conquer it is to go after the cause. There is no silver bullet or magic pill that will make it go away. The only way to resume a normal life is to attack it from every direction, using all the tools at your disposal.