My Fibromyalgia Origin Story

Posted on April 23, 2019February 22, 2020 by melissanreynolds

I finally sat down to tell you about my fibromyalgia origin story. Usually I focus on the positive and where my story improved from. There is a chapter in my book explaining the progression of the illness, but in this video I share how the illness progressed, how I finally got diagnosed, how I changed my life little by little and why I do what I do.

My Fibromyalgia Origin Story Video

I also introduce my next phase – in my recent update I discussed being unsure as to what happens next with my blog. I am moving to supporting people one-on-one so that I can make a bigger impact with all that I have learnt. See my work with me page for more detail and stay tuned as I fine tune this.

Contents of the video:

Progression of the illness (it took place over a long time) 0:33 seconds

When it got better (when I started my journey and the long way I took to get here) 5:40

What I am doing next with my work 10:00

Links mentioned:

Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Facebook group – do come and join and chat with us about your fight.

Melissa vs Fibromyalgia book (affiliate) this is where I share my journey, a consolidated and highly edited version of the blog.

Fibro Framework Workbook (affiliate) this workbook is the framework by which I understand fibromyalgia now and helps you to work through your own plans for wellness.

Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia Facebook group – come and chat trying to conceive, pregnancy and early parenting with fibromyalgia.

Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia book (affiliate) this shares my journey through three pregnancies as a mama with chronic pain and fatigue.

I’d love to hear your origin story – did it take a long time or develop seemingly overnight? Did diagnosis take a long time?

Do you like the work I do here ensuring that people with fibromyalgia receive the tools, education and support they deserve? Especially while pregnant. Then consider joining the Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Inner Circle Membership group and get access to the exclusive members library. It’s a pay what you can model starting at just $5 per month.

Fibromyalgia Framework Series Part Three – Tracking Your Progress Fighting Fibromyalgia

Posted on February 3, 2019July 31, 2019 by melissanreynolds

Welcome to part three of the Fibromyalgia Framework Series – tracking your progress fighting fibromyalgia!

The fibromyalgia framework series is going to present my (evolving) view of managing fibromyalgia. In 2018 some of my strongly held theories were proven true by experience and research. I’ll share this with you.

In this series we will address the components of my framework including diagnosis and misdiagnosis, tracking your progress, sleep, basic human needs, pain management, the central nervous system and fatigue.

Did you grab your free Fibromyalgia Framework Puzzle and Grid templates in the first part of The Fibromyalgia Framework?

TRACKING YOUR PROGRESS FIGHTING FIBROMYALGIA

As you may have noticed, I firmly believe we have the power to impact our quality of life. Our daily choices make a big impact on our wellbeing. Only we know our bodies so intimately. So we need to take charge in order to help our doctors to help us.

Fibromyalgia is complex and unique, so good record keeping is an important step in managing the myriad of symptoms and potential treatments.

By tracking our symptoms and things that we have tried we can notice patterns and make informed choices. Relying on fogged brains is not the easiest way to go. I have tried a great many things that I cannot remember! By keeping track you have created useful data to discuss with your doctor at appointments, it can help you see clearly what you need to discuss first and to give feedback for any changes they have previously suggested.

You can track notes in a journal, make a bullet journal, find an app or try a template.

It is good to keep track of:

Your sleep quality and quantity
Key symptoms and severity
Any medicines or supplements you are taking, and
Any self-care and exercise you manage.

I personally love printed templates to physically write on and have created several options that are available in my Etsy Store. Below are a couple of them. The one on the right includes the option to write down the top five things you are thankful for each day, which I find is a nice way to add some mindfulness to our day. Some days it might only be that you are still breathing. Others you will have trouble limiting it to five. The one on the left is gives the option of two to a page or a full page tracker.

You don’t need to be tracking all of the time, but it is especially useful for identifying patterns periodically and for tracking experiments. It is important to know if things work. Especially over the course of this series!

Impatient? Want to work through the content now? The Fibromyalgia Framework Workbook is available to purchase, with all of the templates (freebies and templates recommended from my Etsy Store) with space for notes to work through the content as a course. Find the Fibromyalgia Framework here (digital). Find it physically here.

Please note that some of my links are affiliate links and I may make a commission at no extra cost to you.

The Fibromyalgia Framework Series

Posted on January 6, 2019August 4, 2019 by melissanreynolds

Welcome to the introduction to my Fibromyalgia Framework series!

In this first part I will show you my Fibromyalgia Framework, which will likely look different to yours on account of the unique nature of this illness and where we are on our journey.

My mission is to help you cut your journey down, I lost too much of my life to chronic pain, fatigue and insomnia, so I share what works for me in case it helps you.

My Fibromyalgia Framework

Fibromyalgia is a complex illness with no known cure or cause. The way it manifests, how it is triggered and how we find relief differ from person to person.

Here are my key components that I’ve found crucial to my wellness journey. I created this after several years of intense experimentation and research and after decades living with the symptoms.

Your Fibromyalgia Framework

Grab your free Fibromyalgia Framework puzzle and grid and start populating what you think are your key puzzle pieces. You may be early in your journey and have only one or two things, or you may be further along, like me, and have the whole thing filled out. This doesn’t mean you have it sorted, it just means you have more direction.

Once you have filled in some puzzle pieces, you can begin to research those areas and make some goals to tackle them!

Action: I’d love to see your components, feel free to come and join Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Facebook group and share what you think fits in your puzzle.

Further reading that may help:

22 Ways to Increase Your Energy
My Top Three Treatments to Fight Fibromyalgia
Why I’m Treating the Fibromyalgia as Naturally as Possible – Natural Remedies for Fibromyalgia

You vs Fibromyalgia Equipping You to Fight

Posted on August 1, 2018 by melissanreynolds

I am super excited to announce that I am running You vs Fibromyalgia: Helping You Fight Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue and Insomnia full eCourse!

While my micro course You vs Fibromyalgia: Arm Yourself with Knowledge is a free introduction to some of the modules in the full course, it isn’t exhaustive. This course has a lot more information, so if you’re ready to dive in for more and create your own pain management plans, trial some sleep tips, learn about low dose naltrexone for fibromyalgia and more – then come and join us!

If you learn only one thing from anything I ever write, I hope it is that you can impact your quality of life. I have made a huge difference to my quality of life through research and personal trial and error. But it took a lot of time. I want to save you that time.

See below for my brief introduction video about You vs Fibromyalgia

I have just enough time to run this course before baby comes in November, so it won’t be offered again until next year.

The stats of the course aka what you get

Seven modules with
Short video lessons
Templates to make your own pain management plans, a sleep diary, a list for keeping track of the things you’d like to try and a form for working out how you could create some space and make the most of your life despite fibromyalgia
information sheets
The workbook – with all of the lessons, information sheets, templates, heaps of extra reading with space for notes!

Between this course and my book Melissa vs Fibromyalgia: My Journey Fighting Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue and Insomnia (affiliate link) and my free resources pages – I am content that I have shared everything I can to help you not suffer as long as I had to. Obviously I am not a doctor and there are often more issues than just the fibromyalgia at play. A doctor and medicine definitely have their place in treatment, but I want to also share all of the things you can do yourself – today – to fight the fibromyalgia.

Yes, I am just as ecstatic to join the journey!

Free Printables from Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Book

Posted on April 30, 2018 by melissanreynolds

Did you know that I wrote a book (well, I’ve written two, Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia and Melissa vs Fibromyalgia: My Journey Fighting Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue and Insomnia)? It was a bucket list goal to write a book and a more recent life goal to write a book to share my experience of fibromyalgia in case it helps others.

In this book I provided templates and these are available in the free resources page (along with many other resources) that you can sign up for here.

Affiliate notice: Please note that some of my links are affiliate links and I may make a commission if you purchase using my link at no extra cost to yourself. See my full disclosure here.

These templates are all mentioned in my book Melissa vs Fibromyalgia: My Journey Fighting Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue and Insomnia. This book is everything that I have researched, trialed and experienced in seven years of actively fighting this illness and over a decade living with the symptoms of it. I wrote this book in the hope that it helps even one other person not lose so long to the pain and fatigue – I lost the entirety of my twenties until I realised that the only person who was going to fight this illness was myself. No doctor would take the lead here. I became my own researcher, advocate, scientist and lead carer in one. It has made all the difference.

My Sleep Diary

This is to help you to track your sleep and any supplements/medicines or sleep hygiene tips you try. You can find the template here. You can download and print it out and start using it today.

My Passion Worksheet

This takes you through questions like what do I really enjoy to do? and what would my ideal day look like? so that you can see how you can incorporate your passions into your new life. Find the template here.

My Supplement Log

So that you can track and log supplements you might decide to try. I find it really important to keep a list of those I’ve tried (because I forget) and to track how they might have helped me, because supplements can be costly so we want to be taking the most effective ones. Find it here.

My Support Worksheet

Support is vital to us as human beings and fibromyalgia can be isolating. In this sheet we work through our support options such as creating a plan for the harder days. I found it enormously helpful to have a pre-written plan for flare days in ascending order of ability so that I didn’t have to think about what to do (I tend to quietly panic when the pain gets severe). Find the template here.

As I said above, these are available in the free Resources page that you can sign up for here, there are also several printable reports and other resources in here to help you on your journey.

I hope all of these resources help you in your fight.

Tag: fighting fibromyalgia

My Fibromyalgia Origin Story

My Fibromyalgia Origin Story Video

Contents of the video:

Links mentioned:

Fibromyalgia Framework Series Part Three – Tracking Your Progress Fighting Fibromyalgia

TRACKING YOUR PROGRESS FIGHTING FIBROMYALGIA

It is good to keep track of:

The Fibromyalgia Framework Series

My Fibromyalgia Framework

Your Fibromyalgia Framework

You vs Fibromyalgia Equipping You to Fight

See below for my brief introduction video about You vs Fibromyalgia

The stats of the course aka what you get

Free Printables from Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Book

My Sleep Diary

My Passion Worksheet

My Supplement Log

My Support Worksheet

For more printables and templates to fight fibromyalgia:

For my free course You vs Fibromyalgia:

My Fibromyalgia Origin Story Video

Contents of the video:

Links mentioned:

TRACKING YOUR PROGRESS FIGHTING FIBROMYALGIA

It is good to keep track of:

My Fibromyalgia Framework

Your Fibromyalgia Framework

See below for my brief introduction video about You vs Fibromyalgia

The stats of the course aka what you get

My Sleep Diary

My Passion Worksheet

My Supplement Log

My Support Worksheet

For more printables and templates to fight fibromyalgia:

For my free course You vs Fibromyalgia:

Join the Melissa vs Fibromyalgia team!

Thank you!