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If you’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, you’ve probably endured years of suffering as well.  You’ve probably been subjected to a battery of tests, all of which turned out negative.  You may have gotten to the point where you wanted something to be wrong with you just so you could get it fixed.  And once you received the diagnosis, you may have spent years furiously looking for a cure.  After all, you can take a pill for high blood pressure shouldn’t it be the same for fibromyalgia?

Well, I’m here to tell you that, for most of us anyway, there is no cure, no magic fix, and no silver bullet.  I’ve heard stories of folks who have been “cured” by faith or a visit to a holy shrine.  Perhaps that will work for you.  But, if not, please believe me—all is not lost.  If you can find it in yourself to accept who you are now, instead of who you were then or who you wish you could be, you can still live well.  You will live differently, but well.

That’s why I am writing—I want to help you live well by sharing what helped me.  For me, the starting point for recovery was recognition that I needed to try everything I  could get my hands on to fight fibromyalgia.  I tried it all, kept what worked and tossed out the rest.  I think of it like panning for gold.  You have to sift through a lot of worthless sand in order to collect enough nuggets of gold to make a living.  It takes hard work and patience. 

Or, think of it like filling up a toolbox, tote bag, or backpack with strategies that will help you cope and move forward.  Fill your bag until it overflows.  Then you can pull from it, Mary Poppins style, when you need to.

My bag is full of ideas from the sublime to the ridiculous; from pharmaceuticals to ice cream.  I want to unpack my bag and tell you a story about everything in it.  You can laugh, cry, or scoff as you wish, but, I hope you will start a bag of your own.  Take what you can from me and then go out and do some collecting.

Living well is a wonderful revenge and I know you can do it.