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.
