Ow

As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t posted more of my The Last Failbender rantings. I haven’t been able to concentrate enough to write them because my fibromyalgia is pitching a fit.
“Hey, Ealasaid,” I hear you ask, “what exactly does ‘pitching a fit’ mean? And why’s it being so pissy?”

I’ll answer the second part first. I am fairly sure that the reason my fibro is being so pissy is that I spent the last six weeks or so fighting off a really nasty chest cold — and when you sound like you’re dying of TB it’s not a great idea to go to a gym. Or the dojo. So I haven’t exercised in that time except for physical therapy. And fibro doesn’t like it when I’m not exercising. I made it until about a week ago without things getting really nasty, but now? Hoo boy. Full on flare.
Which means:
I hurt all over. Like, all over. My knuckle joints ache as I am typing this. My butt hurts in my chair. I have a headache. My shoulders hurt. The pads of my toes hurt. Pick a body part, and it hurts.
Which, yanno, is aggravating. But I can mostly deal with it. What really gets to me during a flare is the secondary effects, the stuff that happens as a result of being in so much pain ’round the clock. It gets hard to focus, so that by the time I leave work I can’t really do anything that takes concentration.
Worse, it makes me tired, but I have trouble sleeping. I wake up exhausted, get a brief respite of energy in the late morning, and then am dragging the rest of the day, but I don’t actually get sleepy like normal late at night. I can sit in bed and read a boring book while drinking sleepy-time tea for an hour, then lie in bed and stare at the ceiling in the dark for an hour before finally drifting off… but then I wake up half a dozen times before my alarm goes off and the cycle starts again.
That’s really a fibro-flare in a nutshell for me: I’m sore, I’m foggy-brained, and I’m tired but can’t sleep. Frequently (as with this recent flare) the fog means I don’t actually notice I’m in a flare until it’s been going for a while, so I don’t start taking good enough care of myself soon enough to help the flare end sooner. By the time I’ve noticed I’m in a flare, it’s really, really bad.
It doesn’t help that most of the things involved in taking better care of myself are super counter-intuitive. I am exhausted and sore… but I need to exercise. I have insomnia,… but I need to sleep. The pain makes me not feel like eating anything but junk food with strong flavors (ice cream! nachos! cocktails! chocolate!) and I’m too tired to want to cook… but I gotta eat three meals a day of healthy, fresh food. ARGH.
The one bright bit is that my damn cold is finally mostly gone and the doc cleared me to go back to the gym. I’m seeing my trainer tonight. One step at a time.
But don’t think I’ve forgotten about The Last Failbender. Oh, no. The delay is just giving my rants time to ferment.