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Fibromyalgia

I have recently been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and was wondering if there are any other moms in the group that also have it. How do you cope on the "bad days"? Is there anything I should do or avoid doing? What do you do for pain management? I am SO tired of constantly taking Ibuprofin and Tylenol several times a day. Any advice would be great. Thanks!

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I am very sorry that you have fibromyalgia, I have a lot of women in my family that have it. I am one of the fortunate ones. I did do a little research on it for them though and found out that diets high in protein tend to help a lot though, at least it did for my aunt. It's worth a try...and I hope it works for you.

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Hi K.,
I have a friend that is very involved with the Fibromyalgia Assoc that may be able to help you. Her name and e-mail is VINCANNA HARVEY [____@____.com]. She should be able to give you advise and other's in the support group to help you out.

Hope this helps.

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I never post on here, but your message came up in my inbox. I recently recevied this email and thought it may be worth a read. Not sure if it si true or not, but makes sense.

SWEET POISON A MUST READ

In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around. Walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed; she was in so much pain.

By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick.she just knew she was dying. She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest daughter's name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of.

She also wanted her last hoorah, so she planned a trip to Florida (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd.

On March 19 I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS.
I recalled an article a friend of mine e-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did. As a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment.

I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda!
I e-mailed her the article my friend, a lawyer, had sent.
My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk! The muscle spasms went away. She said she didn't feel 100% but she sure felt a lot better. She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home.
Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He is going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind.
In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda...and literally dying a slow and miserable death.

When she got to Florida March 22, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery.
And she is walking! No wheelchair! This article saved her life.
If it says 'SUGAR FREE' on the label; DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!
I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.'

In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United State s in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant.
I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject.
I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting g of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence, Methanol toxicity is!

Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition.
We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.

In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.

This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia.
During a lecture, I said, " If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting, pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"
People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I have some of these symptoms. Is it reversible?"

Yes! Yes! Yes! STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels! Many products are fortified with it! This is a serious problem.
Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many peop le seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice, a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence!

Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates. It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight!

These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve "tissue specimens." Many products we use every day contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!

Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the "diet products" and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period.

Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics.
We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms cau sed by Aspartame.
The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other er amino acids necessary for a good balance.

Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain; causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage.

Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics as well.
Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD have had complete turnarounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called "behavior modification prescription drugs" (Ritalin and others) are no longer needed. Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place! Most of these children were being "poisoned" on a daily basis with the very foods that were "better for them than sugar."

It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of diet Coke and diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e. mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception n and during early pregnancy.
Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners. There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use of this deadly poison."

Herein lies the problem:
There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was included 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning its use. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings, and still nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets.

Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED!
There are now < /FONT>over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced. Everybody wants a "piece of the Aspartame pie." I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is.

And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians?

This has been recently exposed in the New York Times.
These [organizations] cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms.
The bill was killed.

It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public. Well, you're Informed now! YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!

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Acupuncture is helpful; but it can be expensive and of course you would need childcare to go do it; and also there is a do-it-yourself form of acupressure tapping called EFT at emofree.com that you can download free instructions on from Gary Craig. Check it out!

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Fibromyalgia is very painful, and I have had it for years. I have learned over time there are several 'natural' things I can do to decrease the pain. It doesn't seem to ever go away for long, if it goes away at all.
Here are several things I do:

walk every day. (Walking uses all the muscles, but I never over walk. One needs to come in tune to the pain level and when you feel it decrease. Stop for the moment. Over exercising will increase the pain.)

Full body massage. (Get a relaxing full body massage on a regular basis. Massage schools offer massages on an affordable 1 hr massage for approximately $20 per hour.
Otherwise, find someone you are comfortable with that you can afford).

a soak in the tub or hot tub. (Taking a soak in a nice 'salts' bathtub to relax can help relax those sore areas). If you have access to a hot tub, enjoy it once a day for 15 minutes.)

Meditation. (By relaxing for an hour with your favorite meditation CD one can relax some of the sore areas, and lessen the pain level.)

Biotin. (Even though Biotin was prescribed to me by the Dermatologist for my nails and hair... I have found that it also lessens the pain level of my fibromyalgia. It must have something to do with the connective tissue area of our bodies. I don't know why, but it does help me. It doesn't help everyone, as some of my friends have tried it also. Biotin is inexpensive and over the counter. BUT I would recommend checking with your family doctor first before taking it, even if it is over the counter.)

the basic thing is for a daily exercise program, but not too much exercise and some relaxation of the muscles in some way.
Fibromyalgia seems to never go away, but we can control some of the pain we have. The more stressed one becomes seems to increase the pain, AFTER the stress, or during prolonged stress. It is for me, a game of feeling out my body, and what it tells me as to what I am doing, or have been doing.

Hope these ideas that I use will help you, and any of you reading this.

Have a good beautiful day...be positive and keep smiling.

n (____@____.com)

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I found the diet coke thing on Snopes.com- it's false. http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

My sister in law takes Cymbalta (you might have seen it on tv)... she said it has taken her pain down 85% since starting it. She's been through every treatment known to man (epidurals, more pain meds than I care to think of, Physical Therapy) You said you take Ibuprofen and Tylenol, that's why I brought up Cymbalta... check with your dr. HTH!

I found this on a fibromyalgia site:
Duloxetine
Duloxetine, sold under the brand name Cymbalta, has been available for sufferers since 2004. It is typically used as an antidepressant, though in women with fibromyalgia, it has been shown to be an effective pain relief medication.

Duloxetine works by affecting levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain. These are neurotransmitters which affect mood and pain sensations. In a recent study involving fibromyalgia sufferers, women using duloxetine reported significant improvement in their muscle pain and stiffness. 30% of duloxetine users report a 50% reduction in their fibromyalgia pain. Duloxetine has also been shown to improve daily functioning. Duloxetine is available by prescription for women suffering from fibromyalgia. Common side effects include nausea and dry mouth. Unfortunately, duloxetine does not appear to be effective in men with fibromyalgia.

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I am very sorry that you have fibromyalgia, I have a lot of women in my family that have it. I am one of the fortunate ones. I did do a little research on it for them though and found out that diets high in protein tend to help a lot though, at least it did for my aunt. It's worth a try...and I hope it works for you.

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PRAYER is how I cope on the bad days and thank God for the good ones!!! You have to have a good doctor that truly wants to help you, a good support system (family/friends), and know your limitations. Eating healthy and regular, gentle exercise is very important. You have to keep your body moving. Shands Hospital recommends I work up to walking 1 hour a day ALONE without distractions (no baby, husband or dog).

I work full-time and have been battling this for 5 years and it's an emotional rollercoaster. The doctors, tests, meds and treatments are too numerous to mention. This condition can get very depressing when you don't see relief in sight or if people don't believe you. DON'T EVER GIVE UP and seek treatment when necessary. My 2 boys are truly life savers. We have to take care of ourselves so we can take care of our children. Unfortunately, you'll just have to try different things to see what works best for you. Ice and heat have been the mainstays.

Read up on it as much as you can. I pray everything works out for you. I'm available anytime if you need someone to talk to.

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If you start taking something for it you will be taking it the rest of your life. This is no way to live. Do what I did. Keep a diary, find out what triggers it. Then avoid it. Exercise, walk, swim. It is a myth that exercise makes it worse. Watch your diet. Keep an daily diet on what you eat. Stress triggers attacks, food can also trigger attacks. Make friends with others that have it and are fighting it naturally like myself. I do not take any pain meds and hardly ever have a problem with it now that I have found a way to control it. A lot of it is mind over matter.

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I have heard of friends with your diagnosis and they really like the nutrional juice Mona Via.Look it up and see.

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