\n
Type 1 diabetes is no picnic, sure, but type 1 diabetes has never gotten in my way. It\u2019s made things harder, but it\u2019s never completely stopped me from doing something I want to do. (Well, except for that career piloting a commercial jet and becoming a Navy Seal, but I\u2019ve let that go.) With diabetes, I could teach 7 power-yoga classes a week, bench-press 190 pounds, win powerlifting competitions, jump repeatedly onto 2-foot boxes, and sprint with a 140 lbs. dragging behind me on an iron sled tied to my waist.<\/p>\n
Diabetes was freedom. With discipline around nutrition and insulin doses, and endless learning around exercise physiology, anything was possible with diabetes. Anything. Type 1 diabetics have climbed Mt. Everest, completed Ironman races, cycled 100 miles, and won the Olympics.<\/p>\n
But for the past four years, unbeknownst to me, I\u2019ve been gradually developing fibromyalgia\u2014and it\u2019s nothing<\/em> like diabetes. Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread pain in the joints, tendons and muscles, as well as low levels of serotonin, severe fatigue, sleep disturbances, headaches, and depression. Often treated with muscle relaxants and anti-depressants, it\u2019s shown that removing gluten, dairy, caffeine, alcohol, and artificial sweeteners can be very helpful, too, in lessening symptoms.<\/p>\n My fibromyalgia symptoms started out as a pain in my left lower back four years ago, followed by sharp pain in my elbows, then my wrists and hands, and then my entire left leg started tingling and cramping (and hasn\u2019t stopped since) in 2011. MRIs showed no injuries in my spine. Full-body nerve-testing (which is surprising painful, by the way, sort of like getting a tattoo) couldn\u2019t find any pinched nerves either. Chiropractors, acupuncturists, and physical therapists all had their own creative theories and no solutions that offered any relief.<\/p>\n Everybody said I was fine\u2014but I knew something wasn\u2019t right. By 2013, my feet were cramping during short walks, my knees were throbbing and felt like they were swelling (but they\u2019re weren\u2019t). I felt like I had to pee every 20 minutes, but I didn\u2019t. And my hands started cramping up within 10 minutes of writing\u2014to the point that I couldn\u2019t keep typing. And my neck\u2014oh yes, I almost forgot\u2014my neck muscles would lock up so tightly for no reason that it felt like someone had implanted metal stakes on each side. I\u2019d narrowed my only option for exercise down to walking with my dogs, walking on the treadmill, and occasionally tai chi. Everything else hurt somewhere, sometimes even tai chi.<\/p>\n More full-body MRIs, blood tests, and more blood tests all proved that I didn\u2019t have multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis (or any kind of arthritis), Lyme\u2019s disease, or any other weird thing they could think of to test me for.<\/p>\n By January 2014, with a new prescription for muscle relaxants to help my hands and neck\u2014and my new inability to sleep well through the night\u2014I decided I would try a little weightlifting for the first time in a year. After a 45-minute average weightlifting workout with a little bit of pain in my joints (which I sternly ignored because I was so happy to be using my muscles intensely again) I thought, \u201cAlright! I feel awesome\u2026sort of!\u201d (Well, yes, my wrists and elbows were aching but I ignored it for as long as I could\u2014it was a better day for my joints, I guess.)<\/p>\n But I paid for it. Over the next four weeks I experienced what I know now was a \u201cfibromyalgia flare-up.\u201d Those 4 weeks varied between horrible sleepless nights, irrational crying, brain fog to the point of just wanting to stare at the TV or go back to bed, and feeling like I had a 103 degree fever even though I had no fever at all. (And yet somehow, I kept up with my work! I\u2019m not sure how.)<\/p>\n It was a textbook fibromyalgia flare-up, all because of a 45-minute workout that \u201cover-exerted\u201d my muscles and triggered a flare-up. With fibromyalgia, my entire goal each day will be about managing my energy, being careful in how I use energy, avoiding\/reducing any stress either physical or mental, and dealing with the on-going symptoms as well as I can while living life. (Looking back to the Spring of 2013, I realize I also had a milder flare-up after buying a new house and moving in.)<\/p>\n While I\u2019ve known something was wrong for a long time, the official diagnosis of fibromyalgia this February 2014 was the start of a grieving process. \u00a0Because no matter how careful I am when moving or how stress-free I try to make my life, with fibromyalgia I cannot \u201coverexert\u201d myself in any way without paying the price with pain and flare-ups. The grieving process is for my life as an athlete.<\/p>\n I know I need to say goodbye to the idea of being the athlete I used to be, and goodbye to feeling powerful in my own muscles and bones. Goodbye to that awesome feeling of having my muscles pumped with blood, my heart beating through my chest, and that thrilling high of endorphins after an intense, grueling working. I need to accept even though there are days when my energy feels normal<\/em>, and I would love to run sprints down the driveway and drop quickly for 50 push-ups\u2026I cannot. I shouldn\u2019t. In the words of my doctor, I could build my way up to the workout intensity of a grandmother.<\/p>\n Every time someone who hasn\u2019t seen me in a while says, \u201cOh, you look so fit!\u201d I can\u2019t help but laugh at the fact that my loss of 35 pounds is the exact opposite. Sure I walk every day for over an hour and am much leaner than I used to be, but I \u201clook\u201d more fit because my competitive powerlifting muscle and bulk is gone. My athletic spirit.<\/p>\n Diabetes never took anything away from me. But fibromyalgia limits me. Stops me. Keeps me from doing things I love. I know now it\u2019s likely I\u2019ll never be able to hike a Vermont mountain again. I\u2019ll never do deadlifts or power cleans or squats or box jumps.<\/p>\n And I hate to feel sorry for myself\u2014I do. Being a pitiful victim never gets you far, and I don\u2019t plan to grieve for long. But I know I need to grieve the loss of that athletic lifestyle, and continue to be thankful that this condition does not shorten my lifespan. In fact, it\u2019s even motivated me to have super-tight control over my blood sugars, perhaps because it feels like I do <\/em>have control over that<\/em>, and somehow that eases the reality that I cannot control the fibromyalgia symptoms beyond taking them as they come and doing my best to prevent severe flare-ups.<\/p>\n There are far worse things to deal with than fibromyalgia\u2014I know. Most people probably would look at me and think diabetes seems so much harder and scarier and more serious, because while diabetes is rather invisible, fibromyalgia is extremely invisible, to the point that some people don\u2019t believe it\u2019s real. And yet, the diabetes feels like freedom. Manageable with discipline, effort, and more effort. Diabetes feels like freedom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the past four years, unbeknownst to me, I\u2019ve been gradually developing fibromyalgia\u2014and it\u2019s nothing like diabetes. Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread pain in the joints, tendons and muscles, as well as low levels of serotonin, severe fatigue, sleep disturbances, headaches, and depression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":41954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1456],"tags":[1339],"yoast_head":"\n