Thursday, April 7, 2011

Fibromyalgia Sucks- respecting new limitations

Cool Old Tree by trinlayk
Cool Old Tree, a photo by trinlayk on Flickr.

It's been a rough day... been rough for awhile now with this flare up.

Only got 1.5 plushies done yesterday, and today is a "stiff neck of doom".
I'm trying to get 4 or 5 finished, so I'll have a good assortment to send to Gaslight Gathering's Art show.

This "stiff-neck-of-doom" is one of the recurring events with my fibromyalgia. The day starts out OK, but maybe an hour or two in the usual level of stiff and sore, increases, and increases, till there is horrible stiffness and pain from the base of my skull, down my neck, into shoulders and upper back.

So I take my "when you really need them" meds and go back to bed. Sometimes I'm a bit better the next day, sometimes better takes a few days of focusing on pain management.

I know I'm not alone in this... I was doing really well with managing it, hot baths with lavender salts, avoiding certain foods, planning chores and errands so I'm not cramming too much into one day... being watchful of the weather....

but since the August Event I've been struggling again. I hope the flare up will gradually die down again. In the mean time I'll keep trying to not distance myself from people with "I'm sorry I can't help you with X today" or "No, I'm not up to meeting for lunch." It will get better again, I hope really soon. In the mean time, it's back to discovering the limits, and respecting them.

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