Fibromyalgia Health

Exercise

We know that fibromyalgia exercise sounds a bit like your exercising your fibromyalgia, but in a way, that's you're doing. Exercise is important for keeping your muscles strong and control your weight. For those with fibromyalgia, exercise becomes even more important part of treatment.

Most of the exercises recommended are low impact, slow muscle builders/maintainers that will be easy for your to perform as an everyday routine.

Lifting lite weights, stretching, even just going on a daily walk will help keep you active and toned.

Stretches

Before any exercise, you should stretch your muscles to limber them up and prepare for the workout to follow. The stretches involve a certain amount carefulness so as not to strain any muscles already sensitive to stress. The stretches involve the muscles you intend to work during the current session, for example: if walking, you should stretch the leg, hip and back muscles.

Diet

There is no specific fibromyalgia diet, foods, as fibromyalgia effects many different people many different ways. As do different foods. Doctors believe diet plays a role in in fibromyalgia, but the same diet won't help everybody, because, as your mother told you, everyone is different.

There may not be a single list or set of diet guidelines, but most experts have settled on a list of foods and supplements/additives you might want to avoid. Avoiding these foods is no guarantee that your fibromyalgia will change, much less is it a fibromyalgia diet, but is a starting point that we will monitor with you, to gage the affects on your disease.

1. Aspartame, also known as NutraSweet. Aspartame is an excitotoxin, as such is stimulates the pain receptor in the nervous system know as NMDA. Most people with fibromyalgia have been found to have overly active NMDA receptors in the skin.
2. Food additives such as MSG and assorted nitrates. These are also classified as excitotoxins, and as such are thought to worsen fibromyalgia pain.
3. Sugar simple carbohydrates and fructose. Again, there is no real evidence that cutting sugar intake will have an impact on your fibromyalgia, but it can reduce symptoms of chronic yeast infection, which is believed to be a contributor to fibromyalgia pain.
4. Caffeine. Yes, this means coffee, tea, sodas, anything that might contain the offending stimulant. Many fibromyalgia sufferers think this is a source of energy to fend off feeling of weakness, but it usually only makes things worse. It might pick you up briefly, but then it has a sedative affect deeper and longer lasting. Cutting out caffeine can have an effect of fatigue levels within a week or two of stopping the intake.
5. Gluten and yeast. For yeast, we've found it can foster the over growth of yeast in the body. This can worsen the pain felt in the muscles and joints in the body. Gluten can exacerbate gluten intolerance which causes stomach and digestive problems.
6. Dairy. Some doctors think that diary products, especially milk, might help drive the symptoms of fibromyalgia. If you think milk might do you good and be helping, it does have calcium to help build bones.
7. Nightshade plants. These are peppers (bell and chili), eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes. Some say these can trigger fibromyalgia symptoms. If they don't exacerbate your symptoms, then you should be fine.

As you can tell, the diet is not yet an exact science, but more something you should be aware of. As of yet, there are no fibromyalgia supplements or fibromyalgia foods, but research goes on. You should plan out your diet, and if a food is having a detrimental effect on your fibromyalgia, then you should discontinue its use.