Weighty Issues

Lets not complain today. I want to brag. My husband and I have been dieting since the first week in August and we've been doing very well thank you. I have now lost 26 pounds and he has lost 19. That's a whole small person. Believe me we both feel better. Of course we'll feel even better when we get down to the weight we should be.

Being overweight has been a life long problem for me. I have never been more truly obese until the last 4 or 5 years. but in late 2004 and early 2005 I lost 50 pounds to get back to a comfortable weight and then gained it right back. I used Weight Watchers that time. Spent a fortune. It really is a good way to lose weight. And it wasn't their fault I gained it back, it was entirely mine. If I had continued to follow their program I would never have gained the weight back.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you but I am a big believer in COMFORT FOOD. When I feel bad I want to eat ( you see where this is going) so of course I gain weight. Add to that the fact that I get absolutely no exercise and you have the perfect formula for obesity. Oh, and for icing on the cake add in depression with a capital D. This time last year I didnt care if I ate myself into a super humongous sized coffin, but we got my medications adjusted and now I feel a little better and decided to lose some weight.

You know what happens when you look better? You feel better! Even though the weight loss has absolutely no effect on the fibro I do feel better about things in general. It really does make it easier to face tomorrow. In fact, I have started getting out of bed earlier because I can't wait to weigh. ( I know you aren't supposed to weight every day, but who cares, I do it anyway.)

So do you want to know about the marvelous diet we're on? It's really great. It's called watching what you eat and how much you eat. Believe it or not we eat anything we want but (and this is a big but) if something is high calorie/high fat) we only have a little bit or we cut down somewhere else.

This is the first time my husband has ever had to diet. But he is one of those aggravating people who can go all day without eating. Anyway he hasn't had any problem with smaller portions and it has been the easiest diet I've ever been on.

Only one more thing to say. If you are like me a are gaining a lot of weight and are feeling bad about how you look, think about losing the weight so that you can feel good about yourself. With the problems we have we often don't have a lot of control over our lives, but this is something we can control.

Have a good day, Diane

More pain and more pain

It's another day and of course there is more pain. I have most of my pain through the middle of the day. It does't take anything to trigger it but somethings are guarranteed to do it. Taking a brisk walk, standing for more than a few minutes, lifting anthing more than 5 or 6 pounds, reaching a long way or bending to do anything will all start the chest pain. Sitting at the keyboard for more than a few minutes starts the pain in my neck, shoulders and arms. But changing activities usually relieves some of the pain. Pain medicine takes the edge off. And if it gets too bad I can go into the back of the shop and lay down.

There are a lot of things I would like to do that I can no longer do. I had to give up bowling, working in my yard, playing with my grandchildren, walking nature trails, and my house is never as clean as I would like. But I can still read. I do the displays a windows for our store with my husband doing the heavy work and with lots and lots of breaks. I've thought seriously about going on disability but I know that if I do I will become bed bound and that is something I want to avoid if I can.

Still with all of this life is good. I have 4 beautiful grand children. The oldest is a beautiful 16 year old junior in high school who says she wants to be an engineer. She is very smart, on honor roll every year and won't have any trouble being anything she wants to be.

The next oldest is also a beautiful young lady who is in the 4th grade and she is also on honor roll on every report card. She hasn't decided what she wants to be yet but she has a great imagination and would make a wonderful actress or director.

And then there are the twins. The boys are 7 years old and in the 2nd grade. They are doing well in school. They are two very different boys one is very outgoing, he is into everything, he tries everything and he wants to know about everything. The other is shy and emotional, he has very tender feelings.

You can tell these kids are the light of my life. Of course their mother was always my favorite (only) child. I am particulary proud of her right now. She dropped out of college in her freshman year because she just wasn't interested. Now at 30 she's going back. And not only that but she's doing very well, and doing it while working and raising a family.

I added a link today about the new drug for Fibromyalgia. You might want to look at it. I don't know anything about how it might work. I go to the VA and they don't have it yet.

Enough for today.

More on Fibro

I've been catching up on my reading on the net. There are some good sites out there and then there are some real winners. You know the ones I mean. The ones that promise "a complete cure in 2 weeks" or "you're fibromyalgia symptoms will miraculously disappear" if you buy whatever it is they're selling.

It would be nice if those things worked but I don't think I'm going to waste my money. It's getting really hard to know what is really true anymore. Most research is funded by drug companies and the minute they think they might have something they send out press releases and there is all kinds of hype. Then by the time the drug is available everyone rushes out to buy it and half of the time, it doesn't work any better then the last useless, expensive drug. And the FDA is no help. They are useless these days. They let the drug companies put out medications without long term testing to find out what the side effects will be and that is really dangerous.

Personally, I've been maintaining for the last few years on a combination of Wellbutrin, Celexa, and Restoril with pain pills thrown in when needed. That keeps me functioning, but unfortunately I have periods, that sometimes last months, when the pain becomes much worse. During those times I live on pain pills. The worst of my pain centers in my chest. My doctors do EKGs and stress tests periodically because frankly I couldn't tell if I was having a heart attack as opposed to fibromyalgia pain.

Well I need to get back to work. I'm going to find somemore good sites to bookmark later. Everybody have the best day you can.

This is my first blog

This is my first post on my first blog. I am a 62 years old. I am a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, retired nurse and shop keeper. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 15 years ago and a multitude of other ailments before and after. There you have the sum total of who I am.
When the doctor finally confirmed the diagnosis of fibromyalgia he told me there is no cure, we can only treat the symptoms. Then he told me the B-I-G lie; he said the good thing is it won’t get any worse!!!!. Have I got news for him - it gets worse every day. If you have it you know. There are days when you feel like there is no way no can face even one more minute of pain, forget another day or week or year. And forget pain medicines. They are a joke. I haven’t found a single one that really stops the pain, some help but none really stops the pain. You just have to grit your teeth and bear it until it lets up and then go on. Or at least that’s how I do it.
My husband fusses at me; he says ” you’ll start your self hurting doing that”. And I tell him I will start hurting just breathing.
Speaking of family. Mine are wonderful. They are literally the only thing keeping me alive. If it wasn’t for them I would have checked out long ago. But I love them too much to leave now so I’ll keep on bearing the pain. They are very loving and understanding. At least they think they understand, but they really can’t understand. No one can unless they have been there.
I happened onto a site about invisible disabilities the other day. I never heard it called that before but it sure fits. I have always marveled that I could feel so bad and look so healthy. Back when I was working for other people instead of myself, I would get to feeling so bad sometimes that I would have to go home and I would get the funniest looks because obviously there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It really didn’t look like I was sck.
You know how when a small child falls down and bumps her head, she really cry hard until mama or daddy picks her up and cuddles her and loves her and then its all better. Wouldn’t it be great if it worked like that for us?