Friday, January 02, 2009 Jean Paisley asks

Q: Healthy Life Style...Excerise, Diet, Routine

Having just been diagnosed with RA and fibromyligia, I am looking to fellow suffers for advise.

Currently I am taking predisone and methotrexate. I am also doing suppliments of cal/mag, folic acid and Monavie.

Some days are ok, others fatigue and pain rule the day and I just pray for night time to come.

I know exercise is important...any hints as to what type, all my doc says is yes to exercie, he has no idea at to what kind.

I am also dealing wilth a hypothroid, whose levels got way out of wach after having my overies removed, put into instant menopause, going through HRT and then off due to massive migraines.

Help me please...any and all advise is welcome

Jean thomaspaisley@mchsi.com

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Answers (2)

Lene Andersen, Health Guide

1/ 5/09 12:00pm

I also have both RA and fibromyalgia and having the two in combination does tend to have a little bit of extra confusion in your daily life.

In terms of exercise, I have a couple of suggestions. First, ask your doctor for a referral to a physiotherapist who can help you develop an exercise regimen that builds strength without putting extra stress on your joints. Second, swimming and exercising in water is also excellent - the water provides a gentle natural resistance and the buoyancy of exercising in water means that you are not putting extra stress on your joints. Lastly, gentle forms of exercise like yoga and tai chi can be very helpful - I recommend that you speak to the instructor first about accommodating the RA and remember not to go over your limits. That means that you may not be able to do certain positions in yoga or you may not but to stretch as far as the other people in the class, but one of the great things about this type of exercise is that it is very adaptable. As well, yoga and tai chi are called "meditation in motion" and can be very helpful for your ability to cope emotionally.

Another little tip I have for you in terms of coping with fibromyalgia is to twitch. It took me a while to learn that with fibro, when you don't move (which tends to be the natural response to being in pain), it gets worse - your muscles seize up, feel frozen and the only way to stay ahead of that is to move frequently. It means that I try not to do any one thing for longer than 30 minutes at a time and then I change what I do - go make a cup of tea roll my shoulders, etc. Also, it is important to stay warm and avoid drafts, which can freeze up your muscles in no time.

Getting plenty of rest is also important. If you can at all, try having a lie down in the middle of the day or if that's impossible, find a quiet corner and meditate for 10-15 minutes. If you find the constant muscle tension getting worse, you may also ask your doctor for muscle relaxants to take overnight, which can do wonders for the muscle spasms that come with fibromyalgia.

My next post will be about five things to do for the newly diagnosed - look for that to appear next week.

Hang in there!

Cherry7

4/ 9/09 1:16pm

Hey I plan on trying to have a baby soon, but my CPK in November was over 1000, so I decided I would take charge of my RA. I started doing slim in 6 from beach body.com it was easy on my joints because it is mostly aerobic type cardio. I get my Cpk checked every month, after 6 weeks of doing the program my CPK dropped in half, I was so excited because I was feeling better too. For the pass month I have been doing turbo-jam which I love and CPK has continued to drop and is almost in the normal, (which is between like 60-120) When I first started the exercise I was a little concern because I had a little pain and I didnt no if it was because of my RA or just natural pain from being out of shape,but after a week or two of doing the program it got easier and I got stronger. As far as Diet I would reccomned following the food pyramid and try to eat lots of fish.

Hope this was helpful:)

Q: Healthy Life Style...Excerise, Diet, Routine

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