Thank you all for your prayers. I do not know how a person gets by without the faith in God that we all share. I feel I am constantly praying and turning things over to God. Mom will get a cat scan tomorrow to see if they have to do surgery right away or not. Only have a minute to check mail and go to bed. Have a good day. Love and Prayers to all.
Fibromyalia & Gardening #3
I'm praising GOD for answers to prayers for your mother, you, & the whole family. GOD heard us the first time so we have to keep believing that HE is working all things out.
I'm giving Lyrica another try. I take one in late afternoon & one at bedtime. In the mornings I take Mobic. So far so good. With the 2 falls the Fibro was getting so out of control I needed to do something specific for it.
GOD bless & keep each of you.
Hello Leaflady, I Thank you for your prayers They are what keep me going, just knowing He is taking care of things and I am trusting in Him to take care of her and that it is not up to me. Can you imagine not believing that? What would we do? I am not good at taking care of myself so, low and behold what would happen if it were all up to me. Life would be as big a mess as my home.... LOL and with all these trips back and forth one can imagine how bad it is around here. I did laundry all day yesterday and skipped going to hospital. Mom called my brother and said she was depressed and pulling her hair because her head hurt so bad. She has them suckered into doing everything she says but yet it is me that does all the trips back and forth. I told them I could not go even if she had surgery because I had no clothes to put on..... They did not want that picture in their heads and so they decided she would be ok alone for a day. They did not do the scan yet for some reason so I am not sure when they will do surgery. My fibro has me stiff as a board. I need a hot tub and massage bad. Plus i need some me time out in the sunshine in a lounge chair. It is supposed to be warm tomorrow so I may sneek off to the new house and sit out back and hide. The house is still not done inside because of rain and muddy driveway. But soon work will get underway again....sorry for getting so long. Love and prayers, scraps!
I don't quite get the no clothes part . . .?
LOL, I did....you "didn't have anything to wear" and they weren't prepared to see you in your birthday suit....right!??
Ha ha ha ha good one!
hehehe, Scraps , you are too funny sometimes!!
Isn't laughter wonderful!!!!
That was exactly right Birdie all my clothes were dirty because I have spent so much time at hospital or going to and from hospital. LOL. I could have worn old clothes that I wear around here but Mom is very peculiar about clothes no matter how sick or old she gets she still complains if we are not neat and clean. I did not go today I sent a friend and I went to new house and sat on back porch in the sun and pretended I had no responsibilities and I feel much better for it. I was ready to cry last night. It just seems everything was going wrong. Have a good evening everyone.
I am so glad that you got to get out to sit on your new porch. You have been working so hard on that house thru the summer and fall and then with your mom etc, ...I am just very very glad that you got some relaxed peaceful time on your porch.
take care, my friend...you are often in my thoughts.
Sheri
Scraps, you did just what you needed to do. When you hit the crying stage of tiredness you have gone too far.
I have never been in a hot tub, can't even really imagine what it would be like. I've heard they only go up to 102* & that isn't hot enough for me.
I'm back down to one Lyrica in the evening and sometimes one at bedtime. So far so good especially with just one in the evening. It does seem to be helping with the pain.
GOD bless & keep each of you.
102* isn't hot enough for me either! I got so sick of baths with my knees sticking up and freezing, realized I could never afford a deep enough, hot enough soaking type tub, so when I redid my bathroom a few years ago I ripped out the tub that nobody ever used and switched it to a roll-in shower (with two nozzles). No more baths but my kids were too big for baths and I sure wasn't taking them.
I'd love to start a swim program but the water is usually so COLD!
Hey everyone, About 7 years ago or longer when I got on my social security disability and got a little back time I spent it on fees at a fitness place for ladies only that had a heated pool and hot tub and it was fantastic while it lasted. I had to drive an hour to and from and it got too expensive plus I read that chlorine is like a toxin and made fibro worse. I had severely dry skin while going so I decided to stop and maybe build a pool and my husband has not agreed yet.LOL. maybe that will be his next project after building me a house. It is taking a year to build the house and may end up being more. It is built but inside not finished inside . How long do you think a pool would take?????He has a backhoe thingy to dig the hole I would think the rest would not be too hard. He is a carpenter and knows how to form up for the concrete. Me personally I would have built the pool and lived in this shack.LOL. But I love to swim and It really loosened me up. I searched high and low for a deeper tub for new house and they were too high priced for him. But the one I got is a little deeper maybe. I can't wait to try it out. Well ladies I have to go to bed now and hope tomorrow is a better day. Goodnight and love and prayers to you all. Scraps.
I dream of a steam shower.... It will stay a dream as they are so expensive, but the heat loosens me up so well.
I've had to put a filter on my house for the chlorine as it really burns my eyes and skin. Now when traveling, I have to bring prescription lotions for the eczema, and usually remember to put vaseline in my eyes before I shower. It took 4 years of well water and the subsequent move to a place with city water to convince me that it was toxic to some people.
Heat, esp. moist heat is an excellent tool against stiffness and tightness!
100 years ago the diagnosis for MS was this: they would take someone with MS-like weakness and stick them in a very hot tub to soak. If the weakness got worse, the person had MS!
LOL
Then they used a spinal tap; now they use an MRI. Thank God.
The problem with that method of diagnosis is that hot water thins the blood which causes increased weakness. That is why hot tubs only go to 102* & some turn off automatically after 20 min. People have drown in bathtubs of water because the water thinned their blood, they became sleepy & weak which allowed them to slide down into the water and inhale it thru the nose & mouth.
Oh, that is a very old-fashioned, inadequate and out-moded way to diagnose MS. I only mention it as evidence that hot water DOES relieve stiffness in MS, too.
Hello everyone, I have a message for you all from Birdie Blue. She has had her knee surgery and is recuperating at her moms. It went well. The dr. said this knee was a mess like the other one.She has no service at her moms. Will be back as soon as she can jump around. LOL.
Birdie, I wish you all the best. I hope your recovery goes well. I will be praying that you will be up and about very soon. Maybe you will be dancing around soon.
Love and Prayers, scraps
Dancing? What fun! That would be splendid. Have a speedy recuperation, Birdie! It's nearly almost spring!!!!
My thoughts & prayers are with her & her mother. Hope to hear from her soon.
Hi all!!
Here I am all done with operations (hopefully) for a good long while. One complication, though; the night before my surgery, I was coming down Mom's stairs from the bedrooms....and missed the bottom stair....WHOP! Smack on my ankle (left one)....not fractured, but a Very, very bad sprain. It is still swelling up by the end of the day so that you can barely tell where my ankle bone is and almost my entire foot is purple with bruising. Uck!! I couldn't believe it. We rushed to one of those
"Doc in a Box clinics" for X-rays to rule out any fracture. Fortunately I was able to have the surgery....but man am I gimping & limping....Don't know when I'll have a good leg to stand on!^_^ But am praising God that it didn't break. Everything will heal in time and this will be in the past. Spring is far enough away that I believe I will have two good legs to garden with, and that is what will really make me smile!!!
Hugs,
Sheri.
Oh, Sheri, I'm so sorry to hear of the sprain. They seem to take so long to heal. It sounds as tho there is some bleeding in the tissues. Keep ice on it for a few days to reduce the swelling & stop whatever bleeding is going on. Then switch to alternate heat & cold. If you have a bathtub, sit on the edge, use a hand held shower head and spray the water on the ankle. Or have a pan of each and switch back & forth.That seems to help more than just heat ever did for me. And elevation.
I'm glad to hear you were able to go thru with the knee surgery. GOD bless & keep you and yours.
Yay for Sheri's surgery! I had physical therapy yesterday for the first time in years - maybe since 2005? Not exactly sure. But it went very well, not as bad as I feared! Spring will be timed perfectly for Sheri and me!
I'm glad ro hear you are both doing well. Therapy is wonderful if it helps, horrible if it doesn't.
The 1 or 2 Lyrica in the late afternoon & at bedtime seem to be helping. I still can't take the one in the mornings yet or I go to sleep. But I do think it is helping with everything but the back pain which isn't related to fibro anyway.
GOD bless & keep each of you.
I am so happy that there's a gardening with fibro thread!!
I am 33 with 4 boys ages 1-13 and have FMS. I've had a hard time gardening for years. I cannot bend over or crouch for very long, I have pain in my legs when anything pushes on them, so I cannot be on my knees, etc.. I take no meds other than flower essences, homeopathy and a Glucosamine/Ibuprophen mix (the G boosts the pain relieving effects of the I). I hurt, but it's what I choose to do as a breastfeeding mom.
This year I asked my hubs to make me a container garden at my waist level so I wouldn't have to go to the ground for gardening. He built a flat table and two raised 4x6' beds http://www.flickr.com/photos/36510457@N07/3367506314/in/set-72157615511909827/ and he's helping me whenever I need it. We have TONS of veggies planted now! I wonder what harvest will be like in the heat and with so many things to do, but we'll figure it out when we get there.
The lack of NY humidity since I've moved here has been great. I still have to stay out of the heat and if I soend an hour out there doing small things I get whooped for a few hours and stiff that eve and the next day.
This message was edited Apr 3, 2009 10:59 PM
Welcome, welcome, Gina. Not EVERYBODY has Fibromyalgia, but most of us are dealing with some degree or other of difficulty that we have to overcome. (I have MS, and right now it's winning.)
Welcome, GIna. How long have you had fibro? The pain in your legs may be one of the traveling pains. I hope & pray it is.
Have you tried the cherry concentrate? It is suppose to relieve pain from many ailments. It's natural, is a great syrup over plain yogurt, can be mixed with water or juices, etc. I just got a qt. bottle at the grocery store(produce department)last week. They say it can take 2 weeks to see a difference in the pain level. It does seem a bit pricey at $22.45 for the bottle but if it works & I can take fewer oral pain meds it will be worth every penny.
WebMD.com has a forum just for fibromyalgia. I get the weekly news letter from them. There have been some articles about research that seems to be linking a long term vit. B12 to fibro and maybe even being the cause if it. I'm on B12 sublingual dots from WalMart as well as a monthly shot of it all of which is helping the energy level greatly.
We are doing some serious remodeling of the house so I need to get going and empty more shelves & cabinets so old vinyl can be removed and new flooring put down.
Kathy, how is the new house coming along? I think it was you who was doing so much wasn't it?
GOD bless and keep each of you.
Gina, how long do you plan to nurse? and thank your husband from me - husbands are a dime a dozen but authentically helpful ones are few and far between!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1299/
Carrie,
My apologies and I hope you're feeing a bit better. My aunt has MS and it just isn't easy, I'm sorry.
I forgot to mention I also have Herbs Palsy (nerve damage) that severely affects my range of motion in my left arm/shoulder. But that's not MS!
I'll be nursing for another year. Then we'll see what I can do, but with my being so sensitive to meds, I may never be able to do much anyway. Last time I took something, I had a terrible reaction.
Leaf,
It's been about 7 years for the diagnosable stuff and who knows how long before that when I didn't connect the dots. Thank you for the ideas. I'll try those.
I have a noticeable level of Epstein Barr virus (mono) in my blood and I know years ago I had read that was also a common thing in FMS patients. I think FMS is triggered by a lot of things. Toxicity is one of them and you mentioned vinyl which is getting a bad rap now. We're switching our plastics to glass in the house and going green whenever possible because I am so chemical sensitive now.
Thanks for the welcome!
I'm looking for a wide enough/low enough bench of some kind where I can sit low to the ground to weed/work the plots that are around the house. They look awful most of the time. But at least the new garden is up on my level!
I personally believe that EVERYONE probably tests positive for E-B Virus antibodies! They drag that out as a theory as a contributing factor in MS every so often "gee whiz, 97% of these MS pts tested positive, showing that at sometime in their lives they'd had the disease." It was linked to cervical cancer in the 80's. In less hygienic countries, everybody gets it by the age of 2 - 3; they experience it as a runny nose for a few days. I vaguely remember this because I had a MONSTER case of Mono my freshman year in college, and my grandfather read all these articles in the back issues of Scientific American. (The MS stuff is more recent; I didn't even know what MS was when I was in college!)
Just my opinion - don't let me rain on your parade.
Hello everybody and welcome Gina, Those beds look great to me. I have fibro and started this link because I wanted everyone who struggles with pain to have a place to vent their frustrations with gardening and the challenges we face. We all love to get out and work in flowers and gardens of all kinds. But when we come up with new ways or easier ideas it is fun to share both the sucesses and failures. By sharing what does not work we learn from others as well. We might just be the ones to figure it all out and come up with something that works well for us all. I hate to find out there is another person suffering in pain with fibro or any other health problem but at least we can share our burdens with someone who understands why we keep going out in the yard and overdoing ourselves just for the love of growing a pretty flower or plant. It is a love we share of gardening and growing even if it is no longer easy. My hubs and I are building a house ourselves and I dream of the flowers I will grow and the garden I will have and then I wake up all stiff and sore and struggle to do what has to be done but I am slowly making progress. We are happy to have you join us Gina. I have not been online much lately because of working on house and taking care of my mom in nursing home and my favorite aunt just passed away on Tuesday and buried Thursday. Maybe I will have time to check in more often now.
Leaflady, The progress on house is slow because of rains as we have not put gravel on drive yet. We just stained the concrete floors and that was a huge job for me. Hubs did most of first coat of stain and left roller marks. You could see every time he rolled it on and it looked bad but I did second coat and took precious time with it and you could still see some marks from roller. I may do some touching up but it looks o.k. not great just o.k.. Next will be sheetrock and after the news lately about that toxic sheetrock it is scary. My inlaws are doing all wood walls with lumber from our sawmill. It looks great but he had to plane every piece and hubs does not have time for that. So we will just have to inspect every sheet of sheetrock to make sure it is marked made in the usa. and then pray we will be safe. Well, I need to go to bed it has been a long week with the death of my aunt and all. gooodnight Love and Prayers, Scraps
OOps, I forgot Carrie, I hate you are having a tough time and hope you feel better. I have been so busy and yet numb this week with the loss of my aunt. I found her in the floor tuesday morning she was 76 and she was taking a breathing treatment for asthma related breathing problem when she had a possible heart attack. It was so sad. I am going to miss her so much she was always cooking goodies growing up and always doing crafts with me. But she was Blessed with and easy quick death and my mom has been in nursing home 4 years from stroke so at least she did not suffer. Goodnight and hope you feel better ,scraps
Scraps, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. The memory of finding her will be with you for the rest of your life but you can rest better knowing it was quick for her. Is your DM any better than she was a few months ago? I think I remember you saying she was going thru a really time back then. My memory may be playing tricks on me tho.
GOD bless & keep each of you.
So sorry for your loss, Scraps!
I don't know why you all think I am feeling bad - I feel fine, I just have the same MS, nothing new, no big deal. Scraps, so sorry to hear about your dear aunt. And I hope your house will be as beautiful as your dreams!
Don't you hate that when someone else is doing a job and leaving roller marks (or putting the good stuff in the dishwasher or hanging shirts with wrinkled collars) and you can't just take over and do it RIGHT? I usually have to thank people for doing any kind of a job at all.
Ah, well. DH is taking me to CHURCH today!
Thanks to everyone for your kind words about my loss.
Carrie, I was referring to the comment you made saying the MS was winning. I thought you meant it was worse or bothering you. I know we all feel that way some days. I was just trying to boost you up girl, that we all need sometimes. We can't let it win. So that is why I thought you were feeling poorly.
Leaflady, Mom was sick around Christmas and first of year with abcess on gall bladder. She has been well lately and even took the news that her sister had passed away without getting upset. She is one tough old girl. She just said she had been expecting it anytime. I was crying just trying to tell her. My husband went and spent the day of the funeral holding her hand and talking because she could not be there because she cannot stay in wheelchair long. He said she talked and he listened and only teared up once. I am going to see her today. Have a Blessed day. scraps
Oh, I did say that, didn't I? I guess sometimes I feel emotionally beat up by it more than other times, but physically everything's the same! Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts.
Scraps, your mother IS indeed a tough old lady. Good job of your husband, too.
i
i
Hello everyone I had a rough day yesterday because my aunts hot water heater or something in laundry room leaked water everywhere and got carpet wet in the house that I am keeping watch over until it is sold. I had to get on hands and knees and wet vac up water for a hour and my back and knees are killing me today. The neighbor let me borrow the vac but it did not have any attachments and only the short hose but I saved the carpet. I put a fan on it after I got the water vacumned up.
Pray that I can move tomorrow I could barely walk today. Fibro is the pits. There is supposed to be a freeze watch in my area and I was not able to get out and cover my plants that have already come up, so hopefully it will not happen. My amaryllis are about to bloom, the are called hardy amaryllis so I guess we shall see how hardy. Have a goodnight. Love andPrayers,scraps
Scraps, my prayers are with you. That is a hard job when you are well.
I'm still so tired because I was up every couple hours all night with diarrhea. Now I have to get ready for work.
GOD bless and keep you & yours.