A little background. I'm a 47-year-old male, with a family history of heart disease and diabetes. I've suffered with fibromyalgia for a few years now, and anyone who has this disorder knows what it's like -- you go to the doctor looking for answers and instead, you get medication. You've gone through all the tests -- arthritis? no wait... thyroid disease ... hold it, you're having an allergic reaction to something ... oh, I got it, Lyme disease! Sometimes it seems like it's never going to end. Fortunately, my doctor is a good one. She never stopped trying to get to the bottom of my symptoms. Finally, fibromyalgia. I'm not one who sat around wondering what was going on with my body either. I kept researching and following up with the symptoms and they kept leading back to fibro. I had a pressure-point test and almost went through the roof (with pain) when my doctor pressed on these spots. So.. there it was, finally, a diagnosis. What do I do now? Well, I kept studying about the disease and went to a class my insurance offered to help me better understand what I was dealing with.Yes -- there are drugs out there and sometimes they help. Other times I get plain sick of the pain killers and anti-inflammatory stuff I put down my gullet. I've tried everything from Advil to Indica, and although I'm a passive exerciser, I've come to realize that you really have to kick this situation in the ass. I've been told more than once since this diagnosis that exercise will improve your fibro symptoms exponentially. So, I've started P90X and I'm currently on day 3 of a pursuit that has been both energizing and painful. Day 1, which was working chest and back, left me in quite a bit of pain the following day. I was too sore to even do the "Ab-Ripper", and although I felt like a bit of a wimp, I figured I'd let nothing discourage me. I flailed like a monkey on fire when doing the plyometrics on day 2, but did arms, shoulders and the ab ripper for day 3. ab ripper is the dance of the dark lord. I know I'm gonna hurt like hell tomorrow, but I'm gonna see this through if it kills me. I'll post day 1 photos soon to show my progress -- I think the humiliation of such photos will keep me going. I think that one day (hopefully soon) I'll be Tony Horton's disciple, but for now, I think he's Satan.
Keeping excercise moderate is really the best way to go for FM. I tried pushing it a number of times and paid the price. Now I stick to walking around the neighbourhood and yoga. Excercising too hard will help more than hurt.
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