Living With Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a devastating condition to live with. I lived with it myself, and I know. When you have fibromyalgia, you are in pain every minute of every day. Your general practitioner or rheumatologist will provide you with pain medication, from which you can get some relief, but the pain never really goes away. Living like that wears you down both physically and emotionally.

From my own personal experience, I know that doctors don't leave you with much hope, in terms of possible improvement of your condition. My own doctor told me, "We've talked about this before. It's always going to be this way, so accept it."

His words did nothing to push me in the direction of acceptance. Quite the opposite, in fact. My doctor made me absolutely determined to do anything and everything that I could to move out of that world of constant pain.

I had discovered the wonders of EFT not long before my diagnosis. I was tapping for work related stress, and getting some very good results. When I look back now, I know that EFT was the only thing that allowed me to stay in a job that I hated and still be functional.

What I realized at some point was that the more stress I was able to tap away with EFT, the less pain I had. On the days that my stress level was at its' highest, my pain was nearly intolerable.

That was, for me, a wonderful incentive to keep on tapping. The tapping not only allowed me to feel better emotionally, it also reduced my pain and made me more comfortable physically.

As it became more and more obvious that my pain level was going down, I dared to start dreaming of getting off the medications that I was taking, two of which were for pain, and one which helped me to sleep. I continued to tap on the work stress on a daily basis, but now also tapped on the pain directly, and how it made me feel. I found that I had anger, frustration, sadness and a sense that my body had let me down. I tapped on all of it.

I began keeping a tapping journal. I kept track of what I tapped on each day, what feelings that bought up, what kind of relief I got, and what outstanding issues (tail enders) came up during my tapping. The journal really helped to keep me focused on my goal.

After several months of tapping and journaling, it became obvious to me that my pain level was low enough to start working on getting the drugs out of my system. I started with my strongest pain killer, weaning myself off it, until I no longer was taking it at all. Next came my second pain killer, which I also weaned myself off, being careful to keep journaling about what went on each day. Next I reduced the medication that I was taking to help me sleep, and finally stopped it completely. The last step for me was being weaned off of the Cymbalta that my rheumatologist had recommended. This is a drug with most unpleasant side effects at times, and you should never stop it suddenly, or on your own. I was taken off Cymbalta gradually, with reduced doses, under the supervision of my doctor.

After years of being heavily medicated, I was now drug free except for my medication for hypertension. What a personal victory that was, and what a lesson it was for me as far as the closed minds of many doctors. It never even occurred to my rheumatologist that my condition could improve, and since he had no hope, he took away mine, a terrible thing to do.

If you suffer from fibromyalgia, and would like to start tapping on your pain and what might be at the bottom of it, your best bet is to start a tapping journal of your own. Start tracking:

• Your daily pain levels.
• How that pain makes you feel. (Sad, angry, helpless, etc.)
• What can you NOT do now, that you could do before?
• Is there a secondary gain for you in not being able to do those things?
• Would peoples' expectations of you change if you were to stop having so much pain?
• Do you get more attention/care/nurturing because you're in pain?
• How much relief do you get when you tap directly on the pain?
• How much relief do you get when you tap on the emotions around the pain?
• What kind of tapping seems to work best for you?

By keeping a journal about these kinds of issues, you track your progress and are able to easily see what is most effective for you. Using EFT to address your condition is good. Doing this while keeping a tapping journal is even better.

Perhaps most important of all on a journey like this is to be persistent, and try to not get discouraged. Relief doesn't happen overnight, and you need to be encouraged by each small victory that you have. Hang in there, keep tapping, and you too can move past fibromyalgia.