Fibromyalgia and Training

As we were scheduling my appointments the other day, I mentioned to the receptionist at the dentist about my training. She said that she used to have a trainer and she needed to get back to it. I mentioned my weight loss and how I loved my trainer and how my training had helped my pain. She naturally said how losing weight takes pressure off of your body and helps pain.

I'm sure that's true for many conditions like knee pain and some back pain, but I told her how the training is really what has helped, not the weight loss. I really think this is an important point for people who have Fibromyalgia to understand. They recommend exercise, of course, for people with Fibromyalgia, but most of us find it hard to do exercise or we do exercise that is too wimpy because we're in so much pain and we're so exhausted.

I've found out quite by accident that it's intense exercise, and weight training, not cardio, that is what I needed to help my Fibro pain. It is tough and it wears me out, but it took away my pain. It's not the weight loss. I repeat. It's not the weight loss that took away my pain.

I had lost 40 pounds before I started training and I was still in the same amount of pain and exhaustion that I was in before I lost any weight. I felt a little better enough to want to start to exercise, but the aches in my muscles, the sharp pains in my ribcage and my pressure points, the pain in my heels and arches, the pain in my skin, and all the accompanying heavy pain simply from having relentless pain, had not gone anywhere.

When I started to train, it was only a matter of weeks before my pain was almost gone. I went through a period of emotional releases where the digging into the muscles was letting out all sorts of pain that had been stored in those muscles for who knows how long. I was exhausted. I did not much of anything except workout and rest.

In the subsequent months, I have started to have more energy, take more showers (without pain), keep up with my laundry and cleaning, go shopping more normally and other regular people things!

I am without the level of constant muscular pain that I used to experience as part of my daily life. I still have lower back pain, but that is knots I'm still working through, not Fibromyalgia flaring. I still have exhaustion, but not the crushing fatigue that is Fibro fatigue.

I'm thrilled with my weight loss and the changes in my body, don't get me wrong. But I really want people to understand that the pain going away is not because I lost weight, it's because I got a trainer.