Confucius says.....Where ever I go, I go with all my heart!

Joy Scale: 8/10

Life is not about waiting for storms to pass... It is about learning to dance in the rain!

Joy Scale: 8/10

As I type this it is raining cats and dogs outside, it is beautiful. Right now my husband and I are going through a storm, but it will pass and I know we will DANCE!

Don't buy trouble...

"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight." Benjamin Franklin

Joy Scale: 8/10

I always say don't buy trouble and if something happens then you deal with it. This philosophy makes life much easier to handle for me, at least.

For example, my husband just had surgery to remove his appendix yesterday and the appendix ended up having a carcinoid(cancerous tumor) in it, so he also had to have the right side of his colon removed to be sure the carcinoid hadn't spread. Before the surgery I could have been worrying about the what "ifs", I chose to believe everything would be OK. In the end, everything will be OK for him, it will be a longer path of healing. With all the love and support of a MULTITUDE of family and friends he will be back being his puckish self in no time! I am truly amazed by all the love that has surrounded us, THANK YOU ALL!

I LOVE YOU!

What a WONDERFUL World!

Most people focus on doing things as the way to make a difference. What they don't realize is that the most powerful way to make a difference
doesn't require me to actually do anything at all! I start by changing MY world; I end up changing THE world. ~Aman Motwane

Joy Scale: 9/10

This is a fire rainbow to have this phenomenon occur this has to happen: the clouds have to be cirrus, at least 20 thousand feet in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals and the sun has to hit the clouds at precisiely 58 degrees.

Laughter

She who laughs, lasts.

Mary Poole

Joy Scale: 9/10

Have you laughed to day? I highly recommend it! Laugh until your belly hurts and tears are streaming down your face. Laughter is good medicine.

Never regret....

Never regret. If it is good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.

Victoria Holt, The Black Opal (1992)

Joy Scale: 9/10

This picture makes me think of a fortune teller cat. He likes to sit by this lamp and watch the world go by.

Happy, happy joy, joy!

Something to remember...

No one is in charge of your happiness but you!

Joy Scale: 9/10

Happy Wednesday!

Smile, after all it uses fewer muscles to smile than to frown

Joy Scale: 9/10

Have a joyous day!

Smile!

Smile & laugh more, it will keep the energy vampires away

Joy Scale:9/10

How amazing is this picture? This is a smile from nature. There is so much beauty in nature to be appreciated, if we just take the time to enjoy it.

Hope you are having a magnificent day!

Remember you are too blessed to be stressed.

Joy Scale: 9/10

Let go and let God

If you can live this way amazing things can happen in your life. It is that simple.

Joy Scale: 10/10

This is a Ruby Throated Hummigbird we named Humphrey Hummingbird from last summer. The Hummers should be coming any day now! These little guys are one of God's miracles on warp speed wings.

Supplements I am on and some I have tried...

Today I am going to share the supplements I have tried and currently do take. Pretty much from the beginning, when I realized I was going to have to heal myself, I was on the hunt for any ideas that might help me feel better. The internet and Google and friends and family have proved invaluable. Here is the list of what supplements I am on now. I am not on any prescription drugs. I realize that these are chemicals, but my personal view is that they are at least based on a natural element or something found in our bodies.

Daily dosages. I take pills 3 times a day.

C-2500 mg
Calcium- 600 mg
Vitamin D- 2000 mg
Zinc-50 mg
E-400 IU
Magnesium-2000 mg
Potassium -99 mg
B complex 125
Folic Acid- 800 mg
Biotin-5 mg
TMG(Trimethyglycine)-1000 mg
Kelp- 225 mcg
Copper- 2 mg
Chromium picolinate-200 mcg
Cinnamon-750 mg
Malic Acid -1200 mg
Selenium-200 mcg
Resveratrol- 5 mg
Active Tart Cherries
Niacin-500 mg
Alpha Lipoic Acid-100 mg
Omega 3 fish oil -2000mg
Bromelain-100 mg
Lecithin- 1200 mg
L-lysine - 500 mg
Turmeric-720 mg
Cinnamon-500 mg
Co-Enzyme Q100 mg
Grape seed extract/pine bark/green tea

I am sure there are some supplements that I could stop, I just don't know which ones. I feel like I have a special formula I have figured out. In the study of herbology you are suppose to take away something if you add a new thing. I asked Dr. Jonas what I could take away and he went through my list and didn't find anything. I found Swanson Vitamins, they have been around since 1969 and have the best prices. Their website is www.swansonvitamins.com. They have just about everything I ever found I wanted to try. Also if you want to look up what each supplement is helpful for the Swanson Vitamin site has good info for that.

If I had to pick only a few supplements for my Fibro these are what I know helps me:
Magnesium
Active Tart Cherries
Malic Acid
Grape seed/pine bark/green tea extracts

The other supplements are just good for me, and I take lots of antioxidants. A neat antioxidant story. Before I moved to Ohio my NH optometrist said I have "old eyes", she meant I have the eyes of a 50 year old, when it first showed up I was in my 30s. She said I would need to have cataract surgery in my 50s. I asked my optometrist what I could do to reverse this. She said take antioxidants, like A, C, E and Zinc. I didn't take vitamins religiously back then, so I didn't bother. Well I had my check up last spring and my "old eyes" were gone. Thank you antioxidants! I used to take Beta Carotene (Vitamin A family), but stopped taking it when I heard it could cause lung cancer. Here is a link about that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotene. It is an ever evolving process, finding what supplement work. I wish you luck on this journey.

I have heard that Krill Fish Oil is good for Fibro, so when my current fish oil is gone I'm going to order that. I am hoping Swanson will have it on sale when I need to order.
My massage therapist, Kim Elkins, had a Fibromyalgia DVD and it recommended taking huge amounts of magnesium. I ran it by Dr. Jonas and he had just read some research that you shouldn't take over 2000 mg a day. So I am going with that. It is wonderful to have a doctor I trust on my team! The doctors I had previously said that supplements were a waste of money. One even cleverly said that " I was pissing away my money!" Ha ha!


Supplements I have tried and didn't continue because I know they didn't help. I know because I ran out of them and felt the same.

MSM
Glucosamine/Chondroitin
Hyaluronic Acid
Ribose
5 HTP

It is always good to run your supplements by your own doctor before you start. I hope you have or find a doctor as WONDERFUL as Dr. Jonas.

Blessings and joy to you all!

A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip. ~Author Unknown

Have you notived that birthdays just aren't as exciting as when we were kids? Or is it just me? Today will be a marvelous day, we are having a family party at mom and dad's. Bocce, good food and GREAT company, what better way to spend a birthday?

Joy Scale: 10/10

Life is good!

Always remember to hug, to love, to trust, to feel deep peace within you.

Joy scale: 9/10

I wish you all a joyful day. I am planning to write more tomorrow on my Fibro journey. Today is too busy to sit down and gather my thoughts.

Comments are welcome and I changed it so anyone can leave a comment, not just Google users. I am still learning new things about this blog site.

It's always sunny in Ohio....

Life is a happy thing, a festival to be enjoyed, rather than a drudgery to be endured.

Luci Swindoll

Joy Scale: 8/10

Enjoy this day, there will never be another one like it. By HSE

I am determined to enjoy this day despite a washing machine that can't seem to get fixed and a dreary rainy day. Remember that the April rain brings those May flowers!

Joy Scale: 8/10

Western Medically Speaking....

Hi!
Here goes more of my fibromyalgia journies..... This post will be about the medical journies I have been on. In October 2006 I finally decided to seek medical help. I had an appointment at the base with a family doctor. She examined me and said she couldn't make a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia a rheumatologist would have to do that. So I got a referral to one on the base. She asked me why I wanted to have Fibromyalgia? I said, " I didn't want to have it, I did have it!" All she could do for me was give me the anit-depressant Elavil, generic name of amytriptyline. Elavil would help me sleep and could help with my pain. I thought about that for about three seconds and said "thank you, but no thank you", I do not want to take drugs. The doctor got kind of huffy and said "that was all she could do for me then." She wanted me to come back in a month to go over my bloodwork and see how I was doing. I felt very let down, frustrated, not sure what to do. But I did know I was not going to take an anti-depressant. I went online and googled Fibromyalgia and found this website by Miryam Williamson, which I attribute to the beginning of my recovery: http://mwilliamson.com/regimen.htm. Miryam has also writen some good books on Fibro that I recommend. Because of Miryam I took melatonin and Tylenol PM and I HAD A FULL NIGHTS SLEEP!!! my first in weeks. After a few nights of blessed sleep I started to feel like I could function. I could handle the pain during the day, but not at night. From there I googled more websites, got more books out of the library. If I heard about a supplement I tried it. I will share my slew of supplements with you later. When I went back to the doctor I proudly told her my solution to my lack of sleep and she said that I really couldn't take Tylenol forever because of liver damage. I personally felt that it was much less toxic than Elavil would be for my body. Now 2 1/2 years later I rarely take anything to help me sleep unless I have had a very active day doing physical stuff using my arms, like raking, gardening. My next journy was to the base rheumatologist. Before I went to the rheumatolgist I made a list of my symptoms and why I thought I had Fibromyalgia and presented it to him. Here is the list. I looked at the list the other night and was overjoyed to see how many ARE GONE NOW!!!

Why I think I Have Fibromyalgia - the blue symptoms I still have sometimes.
1. skin is red, blotchy, rashes, Rosacea
2. thin hair
3. neck pain
4. shoulder pain-only sometimes
5. arm pain
6. finger pain
7. elbow pain-painful sometimes to pressure
8. skin sensitive to touch
9. sternum pain
10. back pain-upper and lower-only sometimes
11. hip pain-only sometimes
12. knee pain-my right knee only and it is from osteoarthritis from knee surgery where my meniscus was totally removed in 1978.
13. leg pain
14. ankle pain
15. IBS like symptoms-cramps, bloating, diarrhea
16. insomnia
17. fatigue
18. irritable
19. lose train of thought, forget words-only sometimes, I call these brain farts
20. forgetful
21. clumsiness
22. urinary urgency
23. stiff in morning or when sitting a long time- some days this is totally gone, other days I am still stiff
24. edema
25. Heredity

My appointment with the rheumatologist at the base wasn't much better. He felt that I had Somatoform Pain. Do you know what this is? I didn't. What it is is you have chronic pain because of psychological factors in your life , like stress or unconscious conflicts. Ha! I really didn't agree. He said it was better to have the Somatoform label than the Fibromyalgia label because Somatoform Pain Disorder can be better treated. He also poo pooed my symptom list and said none of those symptoms were in his books on Fibromyalgia. At this time Fibromyalgia is not thought to be hereditary. I do not agree because of the history of Fibro that I have witnessed in my own family. My birth mother had it, my half sister has it, my niece has it and my second daughter Jaclyn has it. I'm pretty sure that Jaclyn has had Fibro since she was a child. She would cry and not be able to sit and do her homework because her back hurt so much, plus she had growing pains in her legs.
I wasn't happy with the appointment with the base rheumatologist, so I got a referral to a civilian rheumatologist. All my labs always came back normal both at the base and at the civilian rheumatologist's. So the civilain rheumatolgist was willing to give me a "working diagnosis of Fibromyalgia". Before I even went to him I had decided that I was going o have to figure this out myself. I had only wanted to have a diagnosis of Fibro at first because that way I knew what I was up against and maybe have some ideas on how to treat it. It became obvious that the medical profession did not have a clue!
Oh, yes, there is also good news for all you Fibromyalgia sufferers....I was told by my first doctor that no one ever died of Fibromyalgia. What good news(a touch of sarcasm here)... hmmmmmmm, we may not die from Fibro but we sure may feel like dying so we don't have to feel the pain anymore! I DO HAVE GOOD NEWS for you. I have found my way through a maze of different supplements and different ways of healing and I will share what I have discovered. It may work for you it may not. There is no guarantee, our bodies are all different and react differently to things. I'll be sharing this info in future posts.
I just want to end my medical doctor saga on a good note. In October of 2008 I was taking a nursing con ed course and Dr. Patrick Jonas was the presenter. He had a Remo Buffalo hand drum on stage, some Tibetan Singing Bowls and he spoke of drumming over his patients and the nurses. He said that every patient of his in the hospital has an order for a back rub at bedtime, because he feel human touch is so healing. He spoke of the importance of yoga, massage, supplements. FINALLY I HAD FOUND SOMEONE WHO SPOKE MY LANGUAGE! He called himself a holistic MD. After the class I asked if he was taking new patients. He said since I had asked him today, yes he would. The very next day my husband and I switched doctors. At my last visit in February 2009 he said that I had done a good job creating my own holistic path, if I had followed the western medical path I would be addicted to pain meds and on anti-depressants. I felt very proud of myself.
Next time I'll share what I have done to heal myself, holistically.

Life is an echo, what you send out comes back.

A Chinese Proverb

Joy scale today: 9/10......Life is good!

Today I will have time to share some more of my fibro experience.... thank you for the comments and support, this is so exciting and cool to have found blogging!

I have an email address to share, I'd love to hear from you: fibrojournies@gmail.com

Marvelous Monday

I have decided to each day besides my inspirational saying I will also share my joy scale. The joy scale came about from a visit to my wonderful holistic MD, Dr. Jonas. He said that he likes the joy scale better than the pain scale. We all know that infamous pain scale that rates our pain from 1-10, 10 being the worst. Well just change that pain to joy and on my scale 1 is low joy and 10 is the most joy.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO for today my joy scale is 8/10, after I go pay my taxes and register the car it will surely be 9/10.

I am determined to be the best me I can be. That is my inspiration for today.

Have a marvelous Monday!

I'm going to try to share a quote or story with you every day. Here is my first one....

Happiness is when what I think, what I say and what I do are in perfect harmony. Mahatma Gandhi

In the Beginning.....

My first blog entry, how exciting!!!....where to start? The beginning you say? Well, that is tricky, because I think the beginning was when I was a child with horrible "growing pains" in my legs. Did anyone else have those? I have since read that children with Fibromyalgia have growing pains. I have memories of my dad staying with me until I fell asleep with his hands on my legs, saying, "can you feel God's love and light surrounding your legs?" He also would massage special red oil on my legs. I don't know what it is made from. As a kid I thought maybe Golden Rod. My personality is such that I don't let much get me down mentally or physically, so I have just bulled my way through any aches or pains in my life. I had a very active childhood growing up on a farm that was also a private Quaker prep school in NH. What a wonderful childhood, filled with horses, farm animals, organic veggies and fruits, raw milk, fresh eggs and meat and tons of freedom to ride horses, swim and play on the 150 acre farm. We ate organic food before organic was cool.

Bulling my way through my pain was a way of life for me through 15 years of marriage, raising 4 fun daughters, getting divorced, becoming an EMT, then a firefighter and fire truck operator and LPN. Sometimes my pain was worse than other times. I chalked it up to getting older, arthritis, being 'pleasingly plump". In 2000 I found my birth mother, Carol, and found out that she had Fibromyalgia to the extent that she was 100% disabled from it. I still refused to admit that I might have Fibro(I'm going to call Fibromyalgia Fibro from this point on, because that is what Carol and I called it). I tried different supplement so I wouldn't get it, the worst was spoonfuls of cod liver oil (YUK!!). FYI: Lemon flavor does NOT help it taste better. I did not want to end up like Carol with my life so limited by pain, that is why I was trying to be proactive and try different things.

In 2004 I went to nursing school and soon after graduating I joined our local ER. I worked 12 hour shifts and was a cripple at the end and could hardly walk when I stopped moving after my shift ended. Thank God for our hot tub, that is what saved me and an occasional Tylenol PM, actually generic version of them. I still didn't think this was Fibro! Remember I was not going to have Fibro? In 2005 I met my soulmate, Hal, after years of searching. IT CAN HAPPEN! Woo hoo! We were married on New Year's Eve in 2005 in a wonderfully fun Renaissance themed wedding, complete with family friends and Hal in a kilt. Then in 2006 we decided to move to the Dayton Ohio area to be near my parents and my sister and her family. This meant packing up a household that I had live in for 23+ years, our 9 cats and 3 dogs. What a process. My friend Kathy called it purging. I may not have purged enough, but we did manage to fit all our stuff into 2 PODS, plus a U-Haul trailer on a later trip back to NH. Moving was a stressful process, that I thought I was handling OK, but I think really it was the beginning of me officially getting Fibro. We moved to this sweet little bungalow home and soon decided we didn't like the big tall Yew hedges in front of the lovely front porch, because we could see out. We decided to remove them. WHAT WERE WE THINKING??? This was a very physical undertaking using a Saws All and our 4x4 pick up truck, chains and digging. Once we removed the Yews and their roots we rototilled and added peat moss to the new garden area, then I planted over 100 perennial plants over a 2 day period. At the end of the 2 days I was so woozy and weak I remember standing there swaying feeling like I was going to faint. Then that night my Fibromyalgia arrived with a vengeance! I had such bad pains shooting up and down my arms and legs that I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep much for 3 weeks and that can really make you feel BAD. I couldn't function in the day. I finally decided to seek medical help when my mom said to me "Oh, honey, what is wrong with you?" This made me realize that something had a hold of me that was way more than I could handle. I told her that "I think I have Fibromyalgia, like Carol. " It was hard to admit it, but it was here. Some of my symptoms were exhaustion(so tired I couldn't get out of the car), pain everywhere, fibrofog and clumsiness.

Here are the before and after pics of our landscaping project that really kicked my Fibro into high gear....

Next entry I will share the beginnings of my journey with the medical profession. Can you tell I am disgusted with them and their opinion of Fibro? WELL I AM!!! It is NOT in our heads!!! Don't just give us anti-depressants!