Welcome! Let me tell you a little bit about
myself. My name is Nick and I am 18-years-old. I have suffered from fm since early adolescence and was diagnosed at age 14. For a long time I was a very sick kid. Nobody really knew what to do for me. I was depressed and tired of being sick. I was awake at night and slept all day. My weight was slowly going up on the scale. I tried different pain medicines and sleep pills, but found out that I was severely allergic to almost everything around. What else could I do?
My doctor had told me I didn’t have many choices left. If I wanted to get rid of this pain, then I had to start fighting back. He told me that getting over my pain was like climbing a mountain and I was starting at the bottom. The threshold for pain was that mountain. I had to face it before I could get over it. So, it began.
My worst enemy at the time was sleeping. Somebody had recommended taking a melatonin supplement and to my surprised it worked! A bottle full of many months worth of pills cost only 10 dollars! If it didn’t still work to this day then I would think that it was too good to be true.
Exercising started slowly at first. I went to physical therapy and learned some great stretching techniques to loosen up my muscles before I took a short walk on a treadmill. After several sessions of physical therapy it was time to be let off the leash and go on my own. I made myself a very strict plan: walk 60 minutes a day. The first week was pure hell. My body was in pain at night and the only comfort was icing my joints. But I think it was the week after I started that I really noticed something… I felt great! The pain was really going away!
I kept it up and I noticed how much easier life was becoming. I was no longer a depressed kid that had to seek comfort in food. In fact I was losing weight! To this day I’ve lost 60 pounds (all of my excess weight)! I was becoming the positive and cheery person that I was in childhood. Now, obviously I still have bad days just like everyone else, but I remember that each morning when I wake up is a new day filled with opportunity.
I hoped you liked my little story. The reason I wanted to write this wasn’t just for your benefit. It’s for me too, so that I remember to keep using my own advice. Pursuing something you want is not crazy. We will all probably deal with this pain throughout our lives, but that shouldn’t stop us. Each one of you has the power to make a difference. Controlling this pain is no different than managing any other aspect of your life: with hard work comes reward and it is up to you to stand up and take that first step.
The next time you look at yourself in the mirror tell yourself that you are a beautiful person capable of extraordinary things.
You owe it to yourself to keep on fighting.
Post Edited (probull3t) : 5/25/2010 2:14:22 PM (GMT-6)