This post is for people who have Fibromyalgia, CFS, and pain from conditions like arthritis. It's not for people who suffer extreme disabling pain. I'm not a pain control expert and anyone who needs it should go to a pain control specialist or clinic.
I suffered with moderate (sometimes severe) overall body pain for about seven years due to my CFS. I decided that I was going to heal my pain when I embarked on my healing journey. It's my belief that pain from CFS, FMS, and arthritis is caused by stresssor overload, poor diet, and deconditioning.
The stress that everyone talks about and is familiar with such as tension, anger, worry, anxiety type stress causes muscle tension. Muscle tension does more than cause stiff necks and backaches. When muscles are tight they squeeze the tiny blood vessels that bring food and oxygen to the muscles and adjoining tissues such as the supporting ligaments and tendons. Without food and oxygen cells die or become malnourished. This is painful folks!
If you use pain medication it doesn't take long for you to become "used to it" or tolerant. So not only is it not working as well but it's another chemical substance that's adding to your toxic overload.
Poor diet contributes to pain because you're not getting vital nutrients to feed all the different areas of your body. Your body weakens and gets fat. Your disks degenerate because they don't have the nutrients they need to stay healthy and strong and at the same time you're carrying around extra fat (poor diet causes weight gain, obviously you're eating fattening foods like sugar and toxic fats and chemicals) that stress your joints.
Poor diet also cause inflammation in your body. Just like a sore on your finger hurts so does inflammation. Inflammation is caused by free radical formation in your body from eating toxic fats, sugars, and nutrient poor carbs. When you eat nutrient poor food it doesn't tell your brain, "Ok I'm full now, I've got the vitamins, minerals, protein etc. that I need so stop eating now." Instead your brain says, "Keep eating I still haven't gotten what I need." Thus the insatiable urge to keep eating crap or even binge. Read my post about inflammation.
Poor diet also messes with digestion (the center of your health universe). You start having acid reflux, and you get Leaky Gut Syndrome. In LGS the lining of the GI tract becomes compromised developing microscopic holes that allow bacteria, toxins, and foreign particles to leak into your body where they are recognized as foreign invaders further taxing your immune system. A leaky gut causes fatigue and bloating because it doesn’t properly absorb nutrients and foods. Because the body is flooded continually with foreign proteins crossing the leaky membrane a person also develops food allergies, chemical sensitivity, nutritional deficiencies, infections, and autoimmune diseases.
Deconditioning causes chronic pain because your muscles aren't strong enough to move you around without getting sore! Muscle soreness contributes to insomnia. And so you're not getting your rejuvenating sleep, you're less apt to move around, you get more deconditioned, your stress escalates, you then are more tense and you kill off more cells which increases your pain. Deconditioned muscles shrink and get tight making you prone to all kinds of injuries, whereas conditioned muscles are lean, strong, and flexible.
Conditioned muscles bring in oxygen and nutrients to your cells, they make it easier and more fluid to move around, and they cause you to sleep better.
Deconditioning leads to poor posture that's lethal to your spine. Spine degeneration affects your entire body causing pain anywhere from the toes to the fingers.
Real Food Diet – Stop eating chemicals and manufactured foods. Eat real whole foods.
Exercise – Start walking and stretching, add some weights or begin a program of yoga or any other exercise you think you'll stick with. You won't heal your pain if you don't exercise. Exercise causes the release of "feel good" endorphins in your body. It also causes you to breathe deeply oxygenating your cells and muscles while decreasing stress.
If you're very sick you should start out with very mild stretching and deep breathing exercises. Progress very slowly starting yoga with a beginner DVD like Yoga For Beginners.
The Flow Series is another great group of DVDs, their Water is the easiest, but it's still demanding if you're very sick or you're not in shape at all. Try a few minutes at a time.
Live a Detox Lifestyle – Reduce and eliminate the amount of chemicals that you eat, drink, breathe and rub on your body. Drink lots of water, stop or reduce your caffeine intake, laugh a lot every day, be positive. Toxins come also in the form of toxic relationships.
Supplements – Take:
A good multivitamin everyday, one that instructs you to take it twice a day so that you don't just excrete the water soluble vitamins like B. Stress depletes you of vitamin B. Vitamin B also heals nerve endings.
A calcium magnesium supplement twice a day in a 2:1 ratio. Taken together they're essential for bones and they have a calming affect on the muscles resulting in pain relief.
Sunlight - Get 15 minutes of sunlight on your un-sunscreened skin and in your eyes everyday. You need vitamin D to prevent degenerative disease (painful) and in order to regulate your internal clock so you sleep well.
De-Stress – Decrease or eliminate as many stressors as possible. Practice stress reduction with deep breathing exercises, prayer, journaling etc.
Finally the cells in your body have memory. So keep this in mind so that you don't get discouraged. When you implement the stressor reduction and healing plan you will see a reduction in your pain but like all things this doesn't happen overnight. Like all things it takes time, dedication, commitment, and persistence to get results no matter what area of your life you're working on. Trust me this works, I'm pain free today!
My current fav yoga DVD is Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Power Hour by Sadie Nardini pictured above). Yoga is INCREDIBLE for pain; you strengthen your muscles while making them flexible and at the same time you're practicing stress reduction.
This post is for people who have Fibromyalgia, CFS, and pain from conditions like arthritis. It's not for people who suffer extreme disabling pain. I'm not a pain control expert and anyone who needs it should go to a pain control specialist or clinic.
I suffered with moderate (sometimes severe) overall body pain for about seven years due to my CFS. I decided that I was going to heal my pain when I embarked on my healing journey. It's my belief that pain from CFS, FMS, and arthritis is caused by stresssor overload, poor diet, and deconditioning.
The stress that everyone talks about and is familiar with such as tension, anger, worry, anxiety type stress causes muscle tension. Muscle tension does more than cause stiff necks and backaches. When muscles are tight they squeeze the tiny blood vessels that bring food and oxygen to the muscles and adjoining tissues such as the supporting ligaments and tendons. Without food and oxygen cells die or become malnourished. This is painful folks!
If you use pain medication it doesn't take long for you to become "used to it" or tolerant. So not only is it not working as well but it's another chemical substance that's adding to your toxic overload.
Poor diet contributes to pain because you're not getting vital nutrients to feed all the different areas of your body. Your body weakens and gets fat. Your disks degenerate because they don't have the nutrients they need to stay healthy and strong and at the same time you're carrying around extra fat (poor diet causes weight gain, obviously you're eating fattening foods like sugar and toxic fats and chemicals) that stress your joints.
Poor diet also cause inflammation in your body. Just like a sore on your finger hurts so does inflammation. Inflammation is caused by free radical formation in your body from eating toxic fats, sugars, and nutrient poor carbs. When you eat nutrient poor food it doesn't tell your brain, "Ok I'm full now, I've got the vitamins, minerals, protein etc. that I need so stop eating now." Instead your brain says, "Keep eating I still haven't gotten what I need." Thus the insatiable urge to keep eating crap or even binge. Read my post about inflammation.
Poor diet also messes with digestion (the center of your health universe). You start having acid reflux, and you get Leaky Gut Syndrome. In LGS the lining of the GI tract becomes compromised developing microscopic holes that allow bacteria, toxins, and foreign particles to leak into your body where they are recognized as foreign invaders further taxing your immune system. A leaky gut causes fatigue and bloating because it doesn’t properly absorb nutrients and foods. Because the body is flooded continually with foreign proteins crossing the leaky membrane a person also develops food allergies, chemical sensitivity, nutritional deficiencies, infections, and autoimmune diseases.
Deconditioning causes chronic pain because your muscles aren't strong enough to move you around without getting sore! Muscle soreness contributes to insomnia. And so you're not getting your rejuvenating sleep, you're less apt to move around, you get more deconditioned, your stress escalates, you then are more tense and you kill off more cells which increases your pain. Deconditioned muscles shrink and get tight making you prone to all kinds of injuries, whereas conditioned muscles are lean, strong, and flexible.
Conditioned muscles bring in oxygen and nutrients to your cells, they make it easier and more fluid to move around, and they cause you to sleep better.
Deconditioning leads to poor posture that's lethal to your spine. Spine degeneration affects your entire body causing pain anywhere from the toes to the fingers.
Stressor reduction and healing plan
Sleep and rest – Get your required sleep and take rest breaks during the day.
Real Food Diet – Stop eating chemicals and manufactured foods. Eat real whole foods.
Exercise – Start walking and stretching, add some weights or begin a program of yoga or any other exercise you think you'll stick with. You won't heal your pain if you don't exercise. Exercise causes the release of "feel good" endorphins in your body. It also causes you to breathe deeply oxygenating your cells and muscles while decreasing stress.
If you're very sick you should start out with very mild stretching and deep breathing exercises. Progress very slowly starting yoga with a beginner DVD like Yoga For Beginners.
The Flow Series is another great group of DVDs, their Water is the easiest, but it's still demanding if you're very sick or you're not in shape at all. Try a few minutes at a time.
Live a Detox Lifestyle – Reduce and eliminate the amount of chemicals that you eat, drink, breathe and rub on your body. Drink lots of water, stop or reduce your caffeine intake, laugh a lot every day, be positive. Toxins come also in the form of toxic relationships.
Supplements – Take:
- Probiotics for immune system and GI tract health.
Sunlight - Get 15 minutes of sunlight on your un-sunscreened skin and in your eyes everyday. You need vitamin D to prevent degenerative disease (painful) and in order to regulate your internal clock so you sleep well.De-Stress – Decrease or eliminate as many stressors as possible. Practice stress reduction with deep breathing exercises, prayer, journaling etc.
Finally the cells in your body have memory. So keep this in mind so that you don't get discouraged. When you implement the stressor reduction and healing plan you will see a reduction in your pain but like all things this doesn't happen overnight. Like all things it takes time, dedication, commitment, and persistence to get results no matter what area of your life you're working on. Trust me this works, I'm pain free today!
My current fav yoga DVD is Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Power Hour by Sadie Nardini pictured above). Yoga is INCREDIBLE for pain; you strengthen your muscles while making them flexible and at the same time you're practicing stress reduction.