Struggling to get more fit

Had a remarkably better day today than the snow storm day was yesterday. I had my tooth repaired - a piece of it had gone missing, now it is whole again - and I started motioning again, because my asthma specialist said that I could. I had the thermal mask on and yet I coughed after having walked for just a short while. I had taken the attack medicine in beforehand, yet after having walked half of the distance, walking started to succeed without immense shortness of breath and an incredible stiffness in legs (since there was not enough oxygen). Still it was by no means normal walking. I don't know how long it will take but I really have to concentrate in my efforts to get more fit now. I don't even know if it is possible, and to which degree, but I must do my best. Both asthma and fibromyalgia make it difficult and they even work together to add on each other's harmful effects, but I still have to try to overcome this really bad and weak physical state.

I have been able to cut my edible cortizone in half, finally! That is really good news - it is a very harmful medicine which anyway has been necessary to maintain breathing and to treat the lungs while the infection has been as worst. My doctor told me to take calcium supplements in order to prevent possible damage to bones. My bones have been scanned and they have been in excellent condition; they should rather stay that way too.

Otherwise there is tons of new snow everywhere but the country just keeps going. Workers have been ploughing snow all through yesterday, last night and today, and you could ask, "What snow storm?" Everything is cleaned, roads are open, no school days or working days were canceled, we have electricity, shops are open... my respect to those who have made all this possible!

Today was a sunny day, really a lot of light when it was reflecting from the white snow all over!

At home, my husband and my older daughter did the shoveling of the snow. How wonderful to have such family members!

Cold

Thre first minusdegrees came, the first discomfort with cold weather, the first cold caught. Both I am DH have flu. It has just mild symptoms otherwise but I am really sore and achy and extremely stiff all over. I can hardly climb the stairs because of the pain and stiffness. I feel impatient where ever I am, no matter if it is in bed or in the dining room or by my desk. All I know about is the pain. I have taken all pain killers I have but nothing works. I am desperate and I also took celecoxib which I have been told can cause heart attacks and which I have avoided taking. We were supposed to drive to the farm today. Maybe we can tomorrow? Today I can't do anything. I'd love to have more energy and to be more active so this is really depressing. It is going to be a dull day.

Daytime walking

Nowadays it is already dark when I get home from work. I have for long already wanted to take it as a habit to go for a walk every day by noon. It is light then, and I can get fresh air and sunshine and get in a better condition and get evergy for the rest of the day. After I had my asthma control and heard that everything was fine except of an excess of mucus, I could start moving again. So far I have managed going out each and every day. Sometimes it has been difficult to slip out of the door due to customers coming in (lol) but I have gone when I have got their issues solved. Also today: it was raining and storming heavily in the morning but it stopped raining till my lunch hour. And when I got out, even the sun showed a glimpse of itself through the clouds. I did not get wet at all, and I could have a nice walk and enjoy feeling worth it. Sometimes it feels very painful but I do it anyway. Sometimes I am not sure if I can make it back but so far I have always been able to. It always makes me stiff but I persistently hope that it will get easier when I get used to it. I hope and pray that I will stay healthy so I can go on with it.

The morning storm is coming back, I can feel it. It is squeezing my shoulders and causing severe pain in arms and hands and fingers. I hope I can keep my ability to think and work though, it is about important things these days anyway.

Getting rid of Lyrica

Lyrica did not suit me. I have asthma and it caused asthma symptoms to get so much worse that I had to start cutting down on Lyrica. Lyrica was helpful though, as long as it lasted. It hit where the pain was, although not even that could completely free me from pain - but life was so much easier - as long as it was just that. Now I have been cutting down, first from 2 x 300 mg to 2 x 150 mg, and again from that to 2 x 75 mg and now that amount is not helping so much anymore. Asthma symptoms have easened remarkably, and I feel really a lot better. But I am 20 kg heavier than I was before Lyrica - though I am now putting off weight, the first 4 kg is gone which feels good but is not nearly enough. I think though that the more I cut down on Lyrica - and the next move, after a month maybe, will perhaps be getting totally rid of it - the more I find the natural feel of how much I need to eat, and following what I feel makes me put off weight. So far it has been that easy. That natural feeling was completely confused with Lyrica.

Was to see my doctor this week. She wanted to have a cardiologist consultation, so I made an appointment - but it will be just in the middle of October. Other than worrying herself about my heart and being horrified of the weight gain (for reason, true - I am too) she sent me to routine blood tests due to diabetes. There really is a mix of health issues to deal with. I am seeing the asthma specialist on Sept. 30th. I sometimes wish all those specialists would once sit together round the table but no - I am going with all the information from one to another.

My doctor also wanted to try Cymbalta, but I am now at first using 2 x 75 mg Lyrica to get used to the reduced amount of it before taking the first minimun dose of Cymbalta. That is because I don't remember if she told me to do so or not, so I'd like to make sure no harm is done. I hate trying new meds. I feel scared when I read in the leaflet that it may cause suicidal thoughts and tendency to suicide. I am not the least suicidal or depressed or anything but I was once on medication that was then drawn from the market due to causing suicidal behavior, and I stopped using it at once - and first then realized that I had had day dreams of just walking till I get away from this all... what this all? There is really nothing to complain with my life, other than being ill this way and that way. So getting those thoughts is scary. What if I'd have used the med longer? Thanks God I was not.

Cymbalta is affecting the central nervous system, like Lyrica is too. It is mostly used for diabetics to help in neuropathic pain caused by diabetes. As far as I know, I don't have neuropathic pain yet. Anyway it has proved to be effective in helping some fibromyalgia patients with their fibro pain too. It is NOT known to worsen asthma symptoms.

I wonder if anyone has experiences of life, and fibromyalgia, with Cymbalta? I'd like to know how it has felt, and how it has worked.

Living with a disease which is placed in the central nervous system is scary. The disease in itself is scary because it can do so much harm and cause such immense pain although it does not actually destroy muscles or joints. What is even more scary is the effect it has on brain gray mass (diminishes it) and the awful moments of fibro fog, or SMOG like someone said. But also using meds that affect the central nervous system is scary. And once you start something, it takes TIME to cut down on it. It does not make you dependent, at least Lyrica did not, I just cut it down after instructions and there are no feelings of wanting to have it back or not coping... the only thing it causes is added pain of course, and stiffness which is as bad.

Trying to minimize the amount of medicine I take daily, especially those that affect the central nervous system, I asked my doctor if I could use just 10 mg amitriptyline instead of 25 mg and she agreed. The health insurance does not pay for this "smaller" pill which sounds funny. It did pay for 25 mg pill.

I have to observe myself closely when starting with the new med, Cymbalta. Usually the side effects in me increase gradually and are obvious first after a longer period of use, which makes observing a demanding task.

Rainy Sunday

October 7th, 2007

Sunday, raining. I am not my best when it is like this... I have had the stiffness and aches mostly away... I feel when they are coming back and know to add medication then... but there is nothing really to help with how I feel, mentally, and that is the most awful thing about it. For that, there seems to be no cure. I feel sad about things, bad about some old joking or teasing or whatever... suddenly I feel unhappy about things that are gone or things that are perfectly normal... I am like oversensitive to everything, my reactions are exaggerated and I know that they are but I can't change it. It changes with the weather then.

It has been a good day... I have got things done... the entire week-end has been a good one actually. I have been active at home, cleaning, sewing performance clothes for DD who was performing in some senior citizens' happening today... I have been baking and cooking... and washing loadwise of laundry... reading one of Fred Vargas' book (novel) - a good one like they all are... that is, I have tried to keep myself active and not to think so much of how I feel, and I have tried to do things I love, in order to feel better.... but it is really so that nothing ever helps when I feel like this. And I hate to be so helpless with that because I am not mentally ill or unbalanced... it is incredible that a rheumatic disease really works like this! Even though the pain and ache is excluded - I'd have it but for once the medication is able to keep it away. And I still FEEL so bad although everything is all right and well... Sometimes when the pain cannot be excluded, when I live with it for days, or weeks, or months, and it gets intolerable at times... then I can understand I can start feeling depressed. I know I just ought to accept this - it is part of me and part of the disease and I can't help it... so why feel bad even of feeling bad? - Here you see. I AM impossible.

I think I will go back to Vargas.

I was organizing the shower gels, shampoos, conditioners and whatever in the sauna washing room. It appeared that there was hardly any shampoo at all but that there were tens of conditioners so I need not purchase another one before Christmas! But I must get more shampoo at once.

I am also Christmas cleaning, so to say... already... I mean throwing unwanted, broken etc. things out of the house. I enjoy it. I enjoy creating SPACE in this MESS which I hate. But I am such a perfectionist that if I let it rule I never do anything because I cannot get it done well enough. So before I get anything done I have to fight with myself and dump that perfectionism and tell myself that whatever I do.... WHATEVER.... how little, how short a time, how imperfect ever - it is always better than not to do anything at all. And now I start seeing the results. Much has to be done still (says the perfectionist) but a lot has been done too. It has been good time for the mess to cumulate since children were at home during the summer holidays and we were both working and I was even rather busy all summer so... we did not do so much at home, and children set up a mess. And when there is enough of the mess, you stop seeing it. I never get used to it, I always hate it and it deplores me of my energy but I stop seeing it. Now I have started to see and started to do something to it too. Rome was not built in one day and here this organizing is an ever-ongoing process but it is delighting to see it works.

I may not write to you when I don't feel I am well but I still love you. I just don't want to bother you because there is not so much anyone can do - so I even use the "invisible" mode in chat so that no one would feel obliged to contact just because I am there.

I even know it spunds odd but it is how I feel in this state. The happy thing about it is that is goes by.