Chai-and-Fibro

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Start with One Small Thing

With fibro, it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to do too much. So often, I'm tempted to try to make a lot of changes all at once and try to fix a bunch of things. I know what I need to do, but it's the implementation that I struggle with. A flare can knock me off my game and then it's a struggle to regain lost ground. That's where starting with one thing has become so helpful. I've been trying to figure out a better way to eat at home recently since I know it makes me feel better. I discovered one meal that both my husband and I can eat that is very easy to make. Tuna salad sandwiches may not seem like a big deal or even all that healthy. But, it's easy and it's something that I can fix even if I've been grocery shopping that day most of the time. And, yes, the tuna probably has too much salt and the bread increases pain, but if I'm feeling pretty good, I substitute cucumbers for the bread. Still, it's one meal that I can make at

What's a Spoonie?

Christine Miserandino of butyoudontlooksick.com came up with Spoon Theory when trying to explain what living with lupus every day was like. Spoons represent energy. A spoonie is someone with a chronic illness that battles fatigue. Often these illnesses are invisible which means the person may not look ill on the outside, but may be battling invisible symptoms of fatigue, pain, inability to sleep, brain fog, and others. Non-spoonie people may not get enough sleep the night before because they worked late and may feel tired when they get up the next morning. Usually though, they aren't having to choose between getting a shower and eating breakfast because they don't have enough energy for both. Spoonies don't wake up with the same number of spoons each day either. Someone who wakes up with a flare is going to have much less energy than they have on a relatively good day. Imagine starting your day with 10 spoons of energy. You woke up several times during the night due t

The Grocery/Cooking Dilemma

Life in China with fibromyalgia means we don't have a car so I walk or take a bus when I need to go out. It also means five flights of stairs going and coming. There are quite a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables available when I can get to them, though. And, ordering takeout is really convenient. Which isn't always a good thing. The thing about having fibro and grocery shopping in China is that it usually involves walking a block or two to the bus stop or the store or the market. It may involve a bus ride. I carry all of the groceries home rather than putting them into a car and driving. And then, I carry them up five flights of stairs to the apartment. Grocery shopping takes a lot of spoons. It's not often that I feel up to grocery shopping. But, if you only go grocery shopping once a week or once every other week, you kind of need, well, everything. That's a problem. Because of a bad shoulder, I need to keep my grocery bag to about 30 lbs if I don't want to

Knitting and Fibro

My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was maybe 7 or 8. I didn't know anyone who knit growing up. Then, I moved to China and nearly froze to death my first winter and decided I needed to learn to knit socks. Youtube knitting videos weren't what they are now back in 2001 and I had a single booklet on how to knit socks and that was it, but I managed to teach myself to knit through the back loop. Chinese knitters would snatch my knitting out of my hands and tell me I was doing it wrong and "show" me the right way by knitting several rows as fast as they could. I started telling them that I knit the American way so they would leave me alone and then I'd rip out their knitting and do it my way. Later, a kindly Canadian took very sweetly observing me knitting my first sock inside out delicately declared that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing, but if I wanted to knit my sock with the cable on the outside, I might want to consider knitting through the

I'm So Tired, But I Can't Sleep

You would think that if you're really, really tired, you should have no problem falling asleep, right? Yeah, right. Unfortunately, as soon as I lie down, all the pain that I've been ignoring throughout the day demands attention. Stabbing pains in my feet. The feeling of needles dipped in jalapeno juice inserted under the nails of my toes and fingers. Twitching muscles in my calves and forearms. Everything hurts. So many times I think, "If I could just sleep," but most of the time sleeping is not easy. It can take several hours to fall asleep no matter how exhausted I am. Once asleep, I rarely stay asleep for long. If I only wake up 3-4 times during the night, I've slept pretty well most nights. Nothing I've tried seems to work if I take it multiple nights in a row, so I mix things up. Things that seem to help me either fall asleep or stay asleep include melantonin, magnesium, tulsi tea, valerian tea, and soaking my feet in an epsom salt bath (no bathtub or