Exercise and Fibromyalgia - How the journey begins

How hard is it for a person with Fibromyalgia (FM) to start exercising and lose weight? I'll tell you. If you can imagine a person with Rheumatoid Arthritis trying to exercise and not hurt themselves, its pretty similar. I am a 28 year old by age, but my body physically is that of a normal 50 year old, not the super healthy kind, the average kind. In fact, I have less stamina than my mother. Wow! That sounds terrible and very hard to say.

Anyway, my strength and endurance is currently limited to doing any activity - cooking, cleaning, working, anything at all ... to just 4 hours a day.

So it all began about two years back when I was first diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (FM). I first had a spinal injury and it then compounded into FM. Since then I've managed to increase my strength and go from literally fifteen minutes a day to four hours. The first six to nine months I could barely stand for 10 minutes at a time. Most of my work was done sitting or lying down. Loaded up on pain killers, I couldn't help crying that my life had come to a stand still.

But, I could become bedridden again, or at least try to get over it...... So I started with doing 5 minutes of spinal twists (yoga) on the floor. That was all the energy I had, slowly very very slowly I increased it to doing 15 minutes of yoga a day after a full nine months.

After two years, NOW I can do about 30 mins cardio a day, presently I keep trying to increase that to doing 45 minutes but my body starts spasming. (If I push my body too much then it backfires and I become bedridden for a couple of days). Do I attribute this success to exercise only? NO! I'm doing meditation and trying my best to be stress free. But that's another blog entry.

So for all the people out there who've just been diagnosed with FM, please do NOT lose heart, things will become more manageable. I'm not saying its gonna be the same way as it was before. I've personally never heard of anyone who's had the same amount of energy as they did before or who got rid of the pain completely.

In short
Start at five minutes a DAY for three days a week.Then increase slowly and by slowly I mean @ 5 minutes at a time after two - three weeks; giving your body time to get used to it. The pain somehow decreases a bit, over time my pain level has decreased from 8-9 to 4-5 a day. Of course, if I overdo it or push myself too hard, it goes up.

DON'T GIVE UP! YOU CAN DO IT!

Links I suggest:
http://www.fmaware.org/
http://www.fmnetnews.com