Well I went for a short walk yesterday down the road by my house.
Clearly, it was not short enough.
When I got home, I immediately got weak and dizzy and had to be helped to lay down. All of my muscles were jumping in my skin from my upper legs right up through my back. Eventually, after laying for a few hours, I could tackle walking to bed.
I couldn’t sleep a wink through the night due to the pain in my back, and then I ended up dozing the whole day away as a result. Not that it’s really a problem, as I can only hobble around with my back being as messed up as it is, but it would be nice to not have to waste both night and day trying to accomplish sleep. My head has a smashing migraine (likely from the change in weather), and I can tell that I won’t be spending that much time outside of my bed today.
It looks like a little bit of harmless exercise, and yet it beats the living daylights out of me. I used to be able to get into shape until I got Fibro and ME/CFS; but now, no matter how hard I try, every day is like the first day of exercise ALL over again. No progress gets made. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
This was me on the way home except a) I’m a human and not a cat (even though I’d like to be lol), b) I was walking and not in a car, and c) I wanted to just lay on the side of the road and take a few zzz’s, but instead I came home and the zzz’s were severely disturbed by the pain. The point is, I would have rather have been this cat.
How do you guys manage to increase your ability to exercise – or is that just permanently shot for us?
xoxo,
Annie
I am about to restart after my broken foot. Since just standing for more than ten minutes gives me serious back pain, my doc wants me to walk 5, rest 15. If I feel good, repeat. The goal is 15 minutes a day. If I can only manage 5, fine, but ideally I’ll eventually be able to work up to 10 minutes 3x a day, and then two 15 minute sessions, you get the picture. The point is to go very, very slow, staying at the same rate for a week or two before moving up to the next step, and keep in mind that just because it felt good yesterday doesn’t mean it will be as easy today (and vice versa!) *hugs*
I really like that idea! Definitely going to be trying it out!
HUGGLES!
The trick is finding a base line that is really really easy, and building up in tiny increments only on your good days. Also try to do things as effortlessly as possible, if you notice yourself having to make more effort stop and have a rest before carrying on. Think movement instead of exercise to avoid the idea that you have to work at it.
I consider myself nearly recovered from fibromyalgia, and I believe exercise was an integral part of recovery…. It took about 3 years of slowly and gradually increasing it. I tried to do it every day, although if I felt really crummy I just skipped a day. For me, aerobic exercise like walking (and eventually jogging and eventually running) seemed to produce the most positive results. I had a really hard time with strength exercises – i was always unreasonably sore afterwards.
But what really tipped the scales for me was going on the drug Cymbalta. I take a higher-than-usual dose (120 mg) and it allowed me to actually exercise (!) without having the usual horribleness afterwards. Then things just started to build on themselves – the more I could move, the better I felt and the better I slept, and things have just continued to move in a positive direction. Hope this helps.
J,
Cymbalta made me brutally sick, so it’s definitely not the drug for me. Glad it worked for you though!