Having a chronic illness is life changing! All you can think about it getting a diagnosis and relief!

Let me tell you that it does not get any easier after you get the diagnosis! For most it is just a name to call you health challenges! Sadly for some, like me, the meds for that diagnosed illness don’t help!

❌With a diagnosis  of fibromyalgia you get looked at like you are crazy! You get treated differently because most don’t believe that fibromyalgia is a real illness. You see to get diagnosed with fibro you have to rule everything else out. There are some things doctors look for based off the similarities in the people effected by this illness. Nobody truly understands it and that understanding may never happen!

You are definitely not crazy and fibromyalgia is 100% real and as time goes on more & more medical professionals are seeing the truth of it every day!

❌ There is a lot to learn from dealing with fibro. One thing is that you don’t truly know pain and fatigue until you deal with it on the fibro scale. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not diminishing any other kind of pain or fatigue, but it just simply off the charts with fibro and there isn’t ever one certain thing that makes it all better.

❌ Understanding, you definitely learn understanding more of what some people go through. This illness is mostly invisible and therefore people tend to think you are faking it all. With dealing with all this, you get  a better understanding of looking fine and feeling like you were hit by a train and dragged 100 miles! It really is true that you don’t know anything until you have to deal with it yourself.

❌ Not one treatment works for everyone! There are many different things that can help improve your life with fibro, but sadly not one treatment will help everyone who suffers with this illness! Unfortunately for some the medications designed to help fibro just don’t work well! More and more research is being done and I do believe that there will be more definitive help for this illness coming!

❌ Just because we suffer from the same illness doesn’t mean we understand or are compassionate towards each other! One of the first thing I did when I was diagnosed with fibro was to jump on Facebook and find a support group, because I didn’t want to go sit with actually people and I wanted access to them all the time and not just on meeting days! I have learned being in these groups there is a lot of advice out there and a lot of help figuring this all out! There also is a lot of hate. Some people get angry when they see that other people can’t do things they can do! They say “if I can do you, why can’t you? , or “You’re stupid and just being lazy by not working when I am able to!” It can get bad in those groups, actually so bad that I left all but 2, because well I don’t need a bunch of groups and hate, just 1-2 groups with really good people!

❌ Pace yourself! I have learned to pace myself, though I still have trouble with it sometimes. I will sit down each week and see what I have coming up and plan out my time, now I know that it can be messed up at any moment depending on how I feel, but then something not so important gets pushed back! We need to go slower at our tasks than normal and take more breaks than usual! Like washing windows or walls, it’s too much to do in one day, so do one room a day as that is a big task, then you do little stuff if need!

❌ Lists, lists and more lists! I have lists and notes everywhere! I actually type out daily lists of everything to do including normal tasks like brush teeth and eat and drink water, sadly sometimes I will forget to eat! I have laminated lists and blank paper to write down things I want/need to do! Laminating it just saves paper and you can write and erase it so many times! If you can’t laminate something you can write on  glass or picture frames with dry erase markers, it’s so helpful! I do have note apps on my phone & tablet for when I am not near my paper or lists! They are so helpful! I also set reminders and timers with Alexa so I don’t completely lose track of time!

❌  Compassion & understanding! One of the biggest things that I have learned is compassion & understanding! It is so very true when people say you won’t understand until you go through it or deal with it! I knew that there were people suffering out there, but I didn’t understand it fully until this all started! Some will get upset and say “you look fine, why are you parking in a handicap space!” What they don’t understand is that not every disability or illness is visible! I don’t have a handicap sticker myself, even though some days I really need one! Once you experience everything an illness like this throws at you and all the hate from those who don’t understand, you finally get what it is all like and you can fully see what is all going on around you! Not that you weren’t seeing it before, but it’s a little bit more clearer now!

There are a ton of more things that I have learned throughout my journey with these health challenges, but I can’t remember any more at this time!

What are some things that you have learned dealing with all this torture?