Coping with Chronic Illness

Sorry to hear you suffer from this disease. I have postviral chronic fatigue syndrom (ME). I have had it since early 1999. Until 2002 i managed to work somehow. had a period after that where I worked parttime. have not been working at all for the last two years - now I am housebound with constant strong pain and fatigue (+ a lot of other symptoms). i cannot even get to my doctor appointments. When i first got sick i was told i needed to exercise more. When I got worse i was told to try exercising even more, and try to work as much as i could. i am now sure this is the reason i am so much worse than a few years ago. I have tried different medication and different supplements. I have tried physioteraphy and acupucture. nothing has helped much. I believe that pacing is the only way to go pt. A Lot of research is beeing done and hopefully something better will be available soon. i do not know how long you have been ill, or if you have gotten worse or better with time. I strongly recomend you try to do something with your work situation if that is at all possible. it is so bad for you to keep overdoing it and crashing again and again. i think you'll get worse and worse if you continue like this. I know so many people that has been living like you say you do - they have not gotten any better with time. I recomend you do not do more than you are able to without increasing your symptoms. I believe that if you manage to do this over time you'll slowly get better. i also recomend you join a patient group if that is available where you live. Sharing your experiences with others may be very useful. I hope you find a way of dealing with this, and that you get better soon.

I have fibromyagia and have suffered for years with pain in and around my joints. Then I found Mannatech's Ambrotose and I don't have any pain as long as I stay on the product. It isn't a cure but it sure helps. You can go to the Mannatech.com site or get it through your health food store. I don't know if it will help you but it sure helped me. It does take about a month before you will see good results so don't expect to take 1 pill or a few measures of powder and be instantly cured. It takes time but it is worth it....at least for me.

I have fibromyalgia. For me, the biggest thing is pacing myself. I am not very good at this. I tend to go really overboard on good days and then have a week-long (or more) set-back. I have had trouble finding a doctor that will listen. I now have an o.k. doctor that at least handles the big stuff. I have a great nurse practicioner that handles acute stuff and does understand that I am in pain most of the time and that I do tend to get sick considerably more than the average person. I work full-time (single and need the health insurance --which is great where I work), and sometimes have a hard time getting up and getting to work. Luckily, I have a very flexible schedule and can swap my hours around and occasionally work from home if I need to. I am also thankful that I have worked for the company for 14 years and until I started showing symptoms of fibro, was very rarely sick. So, I had tons of sick leave built up...still have the better part of a semester built up, so if anything really keeps me from working, I can take off about 15 weeks if needed. Sorry...I vented instead of shared. I guess the things I do to keep going are: afternoon nap of about 30 minutes each day, try to get 9 - 10 hours of sleep at night. Soak in a hot tub daily and take very hot showers in teh morning (to loosen up sore muscles), I try for 10 to 15 minutes of exercise daily...more and I hurt much worse than normal.

I can suggest a few things to try but you might have alraedy done them. Massive doese of vitamin B might help if you can keep an adequate supply. Someof the energy drinks that are so popular actually have high doses of B vitamins as opposed to caffeine. Red bull is one that does this, both regular and sugar free. I don't know how long ago you first realized what was going on or when you received your diagnosis but some doctors have prescribed antidepressants, probably because pharmaceutical companies are trying to make everything easily treatable by simply sedating someone into not paying attention to how they truly feel. Some people swear by them, others detest them. It might be somthing that works for you.