Infinite Possibility

I was completely without inspiration for this post today. So I flicked through my affirmation cards and came across this quote:

In this moment, there is infinite possibility.

Victoria Moran

It seemed appropriate for today as without inspiration, this post could have gone anywhere. I ended up writing quite a bit and finished with a recipe for meatballs and gravy and then accidentally deleted it!

I was super frustrated, as usually something written on the fly is almost impossible to replicate if you lose it. But then I realised that the quote still applied. There was infinite possibility – including the possibility that I would accidentally lose what I had written!

Which lead to a bit of an A-hah! moment. Right now, there is still infinite possibility. Sure I could have spent an hour or two trying to remember what I had written, or I could just start again and see what happens. And amazingly, I immediately felt better. Sometimes, letting go of something is the best option. My psychologist would be proud!

I’ve had enough stress lately, that obsessing over a blog post is really not going to be at all helpful. Most of the stress I talked about in my last post has resolved, and now I have a new one. This stress is not really my stress, it’s a thing I have taken on to try and reduce the stress on a loved one. And to be honest, I’m going to enjoy it – not the reason for it, but the activity of it.

My new challenge is cooking dairy free meals for a 3-4 year old. Now the dairy free bit is easy, it’s the feeding a child bit that is a new challenge for me. Normally when I feed this child, it’s a special occasion or just a morning afternoon tea where if they only chicken nuggets and watermelon it’s not a big deal because it’s a once off. But as a daily meal, that’s not terribly balanced!

Hence why I ended up with a meatballs and gravy recipe. Now I have a lot to do today, including making dairy free “cheese” sauce for pasta and a bunch of little pies that I can hide veggies in, so I’m not going to re-write the recipe now. I’ll save that for another day.

However, if anyone has suggestions for tasty, healthy meals for a 3-4 year old that are dairy free and easily frozen and re-heated by a stressed, time-poor, and/or convalescing parent then I would love to hear from you!

When something has to go…

I’ve been very quiet this last month and a bit and I have a very good reason for this. I’ve been super busy doing written assignments and fixing up the garden (pacing myself in 15 minute blocks) so I could do video assessments outside, learning how to edit videos and also going back to Tai Chi. So something had to go, so I haven’t been writing much here. But I’m back now!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that in my pre-FibroTroll days I was a Veterinarian. I’m still registered, so I’m technically still a Vet, but I haven’t worked since September 2012. I struggled a lot with the loss of my career. It was a very big part of my identity and I loved it. Sure, it has its bad bits, but on the whole, I actually liked going to work and doing my job.

I still haven’t fully accepted that I may not ever be a vet again, but I am slowly getting better at saying the words “I used to be a vet” and being somewhat okay with this. I have a whole post on this, that I’ve been working on for a while on and off, and I will post it one day.

But the reason for all that assessment work, is because I have been working on a Certificate IV in Celebrancy. I was really running out of time to finish before my enrolment expired. I already had to get an extension because of the damn FibroTroll, and I can’t get another one, so it just had to happen. Today, I submitted my last assignment – with a day and a half to spare! So fingers crossed I don’t have any re-submissions to do!

I decided to do this about 15 months ago -around the time of that ridiculous marriage equality debate and postal survey that should never have happened. The politicians should just have done their damn job and passed the Bill without wasting so much time and money and inflicting hate speech on vulnerable people. Imagine how much that $166M would have helped our hospitals and schools! I am not ashamed of being a supporter of Marriage Equality and I really wanted to do more to show my support.

I also needed to find a vocation that I am passionate about, that I will enjoy, and one that I can work around the FibroTroll. After doing the course, I am confident that this is something I am going to enjoy, and not wanting to blow my own horn too much, I think I will be good at it too.

Having a career path again, one where I can offer a valuable service to society (and maybe bring in a little extra cash into the household) is such a wonderful feeling. Hopefully, in a month or two I will have had my registration approved and be a fully fledged Marriage Celebrant!

The other thing that doing this course has reminded me of, is that I really do have some amazing friends and family. People have come to my house to do mock interviews, to perform a complete wedding ceremony from start to finish and a rehearsal beforehand (and coming to re-film a bit I wasn’t happy with!) and to perform a full naming ceremony complete with their gorgeous little bub! Some of them even came to more than one assessment! To all of them, I am profoundly grateful.

My Knight in Tarnished Armour was there every step of the way, helping prepare, arguing with my printer and scanner for me, helping feed people, being videographer, and cleaning up and taking care of me afterwards when we knew I would be paying the FibroTroll’s toll. I honestly do not know what I would do without him.

My mother has also been wonderful, she has come and helped cook for people, printed things when the Knight didn’t win the argument with the printer, hemmed tablecloths and helped out in so many ways. Then she happily played mother-of-the-bride to a person she had never meet, then grandmother to a baby she had never met!

Thank-you simply isn’t a strong enough phrase to cover the gratitude I have to all of these people.

10 Tips for Surviving the Holiday Season

It’s that wonderful time of the year, when you try to fit in all the 50 things you were going to do all year into two weeks and suddenly find that you also have 16 more things to do. You had grand plans of having all your Christmas shopping done by the start of December so you could avoid the Christmas rush, but somehow it’s less than a week away and you have a grand total of two presents sorted, and one of them has been delayed in shipping.

Add a chronic illness like Fibromyalgia, with all its friends and what used to be your favourite time of year, starts becoming quite the drag.

So I decided to come up with a list of things to make life a little less stressful.

  1. Make time to meditate. I know it feels like there isn’t enough hours in the day to spend some of it being still, but settling your mind – even for just 10 minutes a day will calm your brain waves, making it easier to focus and get things done.
  2. Make time for exercise. Again, it feels like there aren’t enough hours, but a short yoga routine or just 5 minutes stretching will help reduce the tension that build up due to stress and will decrease your overall pain.
  3. Pre-prepare food. This is especially important with dietary restrictions or specific meal plans. Good nutrition goes a long way in reducing stress on your body.
  4. Bring food to functions. If you have dietary restrictions and you aren’t sure if the venue/household you are going to will be able to feed you, then bring your own. Yes, it’s a hassle, but frankly so is spending the day on the toilet because someone fed you the wrong thing. And while you are bringing your own meal…
  5. Remember to make/provide some treats for yourself. I recently made a plethora of Christmas cookies, mostly because I enjoy doing it, but also to give as gifts. I made the mistake of eating some cookie dough. It was gluten free, so not a large amount of damage done, but my goodness, the sugar cravings I had! and my pain went up significantly too. I had to leave the dough in the fridge for a day before baking them as I didn’t trust myself to bake them without eating more dough! So I made myself some almost compliant cookies that will satisfy the cookie monster without derailing all the hard work I’ve done on metabolic balance.
  6. Write a list of gifts. If you head to the shops without some idea of what to buy each person, you’ll end up overwhelmed, buying “it’ll do”  gifts, and probably spending more than you budgeted. 
  7. Pace yourself. I’ve written about this before, and I know how frustrating it is to receive that bit of advice, but it is even more important to do it when you are flat out. Doing too much then crashing in  a heap is not productive or enjoyable for anyone. And the most important part of pacing is….
  8. REST! I know this feels like a drag, but take the time to lie down flat even if it’s just for 10 minutes. No phones or tablets or other electronic devices, no books, no distractions. If you can, elevate your feet. You could even meditate at the same time!
  9. Ask for help. I suck at this. It’s a skill I’m slowly learning, but it’s super hard to do. If you are hosting Christmas, or a pre or post Christmas get together, then ask people to bring things. Be specific. Don’t just ask people to “bring a plate”or you’ll end up with loads of nibbles and no dessert or whatever.
    Assign the essentials to people with the time and inclination to make and bring them. And the things that you will live without to those who are time poor or don’t cook. Tell Aunt Mary that you love her pasta salad and no-one makes it quite like her and could she please bring some. Ask your cousin Bob to bring his famous chocolate cake. Ask your flaky little sibling to bring soft drinks and crackers. You get the idea. If you know exactly what people are bringing, you can plan the rest of your meal around that. 
  10. Relax your standards. Your entire house doesn’t have to be magazine worthy. If the bathroom, kitchen and living areas are clean, just close the door to the other parts. People who truly care about you won’t give a rats arse if your laundry is piled high next to your bed, or that you’ve just moved all the mess from the dining table to the spare room. Relax and enjoy the silly season, chores will (unfortunately) still be there next year!

Now if someone could point me to this list in about November next year, that would be grand!

Merry Christmas!

(or whatever appropriate holiday greeting suits your beliefs)

Blogger Recognition Award

 

This is my Blogger Recognition Award. I was nominated by Bethan Jones from Hello Fibro Blog. I had never heard of this award before I was nominated, so it came as a pleasant surprise.

So a big THANK-YOU to Bethan for the nomination. Bethan writes some inspiring posts and lovely poetry, so if you haven’t already, then click on the link above and head over and check her out.

How it all began

After I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2012 and soon had to stop working. I tried lots of different things to  keep myself occupied. I spent many, many, hours researching my condition and trying new things and (for the first two years) fighting with my income protection insurance company. I learned to crochet, I tried my hand at making soap, designed and oversaw my bathroom and kitchen renovations. I started writing a book. I watched a lot of TV and played a lot of games. I tried a lot of medications, diets and treatments. And I steadily declined. My symptoms got worse and I ended up developing depression and anxiety. 

I finally started seeing a psychologist in 2017. She recommended using writing as therapy and that quickly developed into this blog.

2 pieces of advice to other bloggers
  1. Be yourself. Don’t get caught up in writing what you think you should write or in a way that isn’t you.
  2. If you miss a post (or 10!) don’t stress about it. Just pick up where you left off.
The Rules:
  • Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
  • Write a post explaining how your blog got started
  • Give 2 pieces of advice to new bloggers
  • Nominate 15 other bloggers you feel deserve some recognition
  • Comment on each blog nominating them, providing the link to the post you created
My nominations for the Blogger Recognition award

Many of the blogs I follow are well established, some of them are newer or smaller like my own. I find value in all of them for different reasons. Some of them are not primarily blogs, but if I didn’t include them, then I wouldn’t have gotten to 15!

I thought about categorising them, but many of them overlap, so here they are in no particular order.

  1. Repeat Crafter Me. I mostly follow Sarah for her amazing crochet patterns, but she also has some great craft ideas and recipes.
  2. Shannon’s Kitchen. If you love good, healthy food and you aren’t offended by swearing then this is the perfect blog for you. (Language warning!!)
  3. Planet June. Simply stunning, realistic, and extremely well written patterns for amigurami creatures.
  4. My New Roots. Plant based, healthy, delicious food.
  5. Health, Home and Happiness. More healthy food, great advice for special diets like GAPS and Keto.
  6. Rebuilding Wellness. Practical advice for helping symptoms of fibromyalgia.
  7. Healthy Moving. I don’t follow a lot of exercise blogs, but the thing I like about Jen is that not only are her exercise programs accessible for people like me, she also focuses on mindset.
  8. Phoenixhelix. Food and lifestyle advice for autoimmune and chronic illnesses.
  9. Finding Yoga. Finding yoga has an online yoga for pain course, which I have found helpful.
  10. Reclaiming Hope. Practical advice for living with Fibromyalgia.
  11. The Zero Waste Chef. Great recipes and practical advice on reducing plastic use and rubbish.
  12. I am Jessica. A fantastic blog on minimising waste that I’ve only found recently.
  13. Just Another Autoimmune Blog. Another blog I’ve only recently discovered, but I’ve really been enjoying her writing style.
  14. Crafts, Chronic Illness and Adulting. The title says it all really!
  15. And lastly, My healthy Green Family. I love the idea of homesteading, and one day hope to have the energy and space to grow most of my own food. This blog is an inspiration!

More on food and Fibromyalgia.

I’ve talked about food a few times. Obviously it’s an essential part of life, but there is no single diet that is perfect for every person. There are many arguments about the ‘best’ diet for FibroWarriors and I’ve done a lot of them.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was doing GAPS. I did it for a little over a year and while it helped me A LOT, I feel like it’s not quite right. I played around with The Wahl’s Protocol and it resonated with me a lot, but I quickly got distracted by the ketogenic diet. At first I was a little disheartened with the attitude of some people in the keto community. Many people are so focused on their macros, that they fail to look at the quality of the food they are eating. I refuse to believe that a food-like substance full of artificial sweeteners and flavours is better for you than a banana. But there are options for whole-food keto. People like Dr Wahls, Leanne Vogel  from healthful pursuit , and Dr Will Cole  all promote whole food keto diets (Dr Cole even does 100% plant-based versions, if that is important to you). So I gave it a go.

At first I was doing well on keto, but I found it wasn’t fantastic for my mental health. Not being able to simply eat a piece of fruit was driving me a little batty. Also, monk fruit and stevia both taste disgusting in my opinion. I can definitely see how it could be very good if done correctly for some people and maybe in the future it will work for me. So I went back to a combination of Wahls (but only on level 2 rather than the keto version) and GAPS. By this, I mean I follow Dr Wahls’ guidelines, while still having my bone broth and fermented foods that are recommended on GAPS. I finally cut the dairy back out (which was tough, because I LOVE cheese) and eat sweet potato regularly (and occasionally potato – OMNOMNOM!).

While I’m relatively happy doing this, and it seems slightly better than straight GAPS for me, I still feel like I’m missing something. So I’ve decided to try something new.

It’s called Metabolic Balance. From what I know so far, it starts with a comprehensive blood test and then a tailor-made food program is designed for you. I’m a little apprehensive about it, I’m worried it will be too restrictive and difficult. I’m concerned that there is a pantry and freezer full of food that I won’t be able to eat and I hate waste. It’s expensive and I’m scared it won’t work. That I’ll do all of this weighing and restriction (having flashbacks to keto) and at the end of it I won’t be any better.

But on the other side of this, is my naturopath. Juanita from Red Suva is an amazing woman. She really wants to help me get well. I’ve been seeing her for years and she has helped me with my PCOS and dysmenorrhoea, and the haemorrhagic cysts I got from the Mirena IUD. She put me onto GAPS, which has significantly improved my digestion and IBS and my skin has never been clearer. I trust her. And one of the reasons that I do trust her, is her willingness to say, “OK, that isn’t working, let’s stop and try something else.” She knows that there isn’t a cure (yet!) for Fibromyalgia and doesn’t claim to have all the answers. What she does, and does well, is care. She supports and encourages, sympathises when things aren’t going well, and on occasion kicks my arse (gently).

So because she thinks that this Metabolic Balance thing might help me, I’m going to give it a go. This morning my fantastic, long-suffering Knight in Tarnished Armour got up early and drove me to have my fasted blood test. Then he drove me home and made me breakfast. The blood test results will be back in a day or two, then the lovely Juanita will send them to Metabolic Balance for analysis, and then she will help me with the next stage.

Wish me luck!

I’m going hairy!

I’ve decided to let my body hair grow. For this month at least, the razor will be put away and the tweezers left in the cupboard.

My knight is totally supportive of this. Partly because he is awesome, and partly because he really doesn’t mind if I’m a bit hairy (let’s just hope that at the end of February he still feels this way!)

Why?

It’s for a fantastic initiative called Get Hairy February. The idea is to raise awareness for gender equality and to raise money against domestic violence.

It’s only been 100 years since it became “normal” for women to shave. Some marketing guru’s who wanted to sell more razors launched a campaign to make women feel bad about their body hair. Within 10 years, the number of women who shaved their legs and underarms had gone from 20% to 80%.

So it’s a way to challenge gender stereotypes and maybe start a conversation. It’s a visible reminder that although we’ve come a long way in closing the gender gap, there’s still a way to go.

So, with the encouragement of my knight, I’m not going to waste energy on shaving this month. Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide to stop completely. It will save money and energy that can be used on something else!

If you are interested in finding out more about this campaign, or you want to donate to my fabulous hairy legs, you can follow this link.

 

Adding insult to injury – or injury to Fibro – either way, not much fun.

I’ve hurt myself.

I’m not even too sure exactly how I did it, but yesterday morning I ended up with stabbing pain all down the left side of my back. I did all the things you are supposed to do. Ice, anti-inflammatory drugs, gentle stretching, massage, I even got my TENS machine out.

I took extra care to be very good in my posture and rested all day yesterday. But when I woke up this morning I could barely wipe my bum (I know that’s probably TMI – but I assure you I managed with only a few four letter words).

So off to my physiotherapist I went. Bobby-Jo Strong at Pivotal Motion is a wonder woman. She does dress a bit more conservatively than the comic book hero, but I’m sure she could rock that costume if she wanted to! Honestly as long as she works her magic on my muscles, she can wear whatever she likes!

I’ve been seeing Bobby for a couple of months now, and I’ve been meaning to write about her, but it just hasn’t happened until now.

My first consult with Bobby was fantastic. The moment she told me that she was going to give me some gentle exercises, but that I was not to push myself to hard and cause a flare, I knew I had found someone who really got it.

She knows she can’t fix all my pain in 30 mins, so she works on the area that I ask her to – occasionally she does a little on somewhere else because she feels that I need it, and so far she’s been right every time!

When I rang today, she fitted me in quickly and spent the time I needed to release most of the tension in my back. As I write this, I still have a few twinges, but I am SO much better than I was. Since the physio this morning, I can get up without complete agony (plus I can wipe my bum without swearing!)

Unfortunately that much pressure on my muscles usually comes back to bite me the next day or two, but it’s still better than the amount of pain I was in this morning and yesterday. So I’m currently in my hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and I’ll be sure to get in again tomorrow.

Hopefully, I’ll manage to avoid a flare. But it remains to be seen if the FibroTroll was happy with his toll today.

What do you do when life adds an extra injury or illness to your fibro? I’d love to know.

Diet, Energy and Fibromyalgia

Food is such an important part of life. I know that sounds a bit trite, but hear me out.

Not only does it sustain life, but it forms so many social functions. What happens at a wedding? Two people pledge their lives to one another, then everyone shares a meal of some form. A birthday – that might be at a restaurant, it might be a BBQ or it might be afternoon tea in the park. A date with a potential lover? Dinner. Someone is sick or has a family member in hospital? Make them food. Funeral or wake? – again, there is food.

I love to feed people. I am a compulsive feeder. Turn up at my house and I will try my hardest to make sure you eat something before you leave. Feeding people was one of the best bits of our recent family holiday. I really think it should be a love language all of its own.

Somehow in today’s society food has decreased in importance. Convenience is valued over quality. Even a lot of medical practitioners fail to see the connection between food and health. Many of my fellow fibro-warriors are quite sure that the food and drink they consume has no baring whatsoever on their symptoms. Maybe for them this is true. But I doubt it.

Every function of the body requires energy to work. Even breathing requires the movement of your diaphragm and intercostal muscles. The energy required for this is manufactured by the body generally in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). That ATP doesn’t just appear in your body, it has to be made. It is produced from fats, carbohydrates or proteins via different methods which essentially all end up in the Krebs cycle. If you want to know more about this, I recommend getting a hold of a good physiology textbook.

But the short version is, the body needs fuel. Hormones like insulin, glucagon, thyroxine and others help your body to convert food to fuel. Those hormones also have to be made by many organs in the body and they also use the food you eat to do this. 

Plenty of people say detoxing is crap. That your body does this naturally. That alkaline foods are useless, because your kidneys and your lungs will compensate for any changes in body pH. This is true. But again, this needs energy. Your kidneys and lungs will use up your precious reserves of ATP in regulating your bicarbonate stores and altering your respiratory rate.

People with Fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses like Myalgic Encephalitis (ME/CFS) and related illnesses are usually running on low ATP. For reasons that are so far unknown, we Fibro sufferers simply don’t produce enough of it. We only have so much in reserve, and when it is gone, it can take days to build it back up. Most of the time, we cannot simply lie down and wait for the ATP levels to build up, so we keep going, using up every single molecule as soon as it is produced. Because even walking to the toilet needs ATP.

The more processed, chemical laden, sugary, transfatty food you put into your body the harder it is for your body to use that food. The more alcohol and caffeine and other stimulants that your liver has to process, then more energy it uses to do this.

If you feed your body good food. A variety of good fats, healthy carbohydrates in the form of lots of vegetables and fruit – and whole grains if your body can cope with them, and healthy proteins then it will make it easier for your body to produce ATP. You also will not be wasting as much ATP on regulatory functions.

Whether you believe in evolution or intelligent design – the result is that our bodies have a relatively small stomach, that produces hydrochloric acid and pepsin – these are things designed to breakdown animal products. My personal opinion is that meat and animal products can form a part of a healthy balanced diet. Out gut microbiome (the bacteria in our gut) digests our carbohydrates – so we need to be looking at this too.

Now, this is just my opinion. I’m not a medical researcher – I have a scientific background in the form of a Veterinary Degree, not human medicine. I am continually reading anything I can find that might relate to my fibro. I have experimented on myself and I KNOW that diet has a direct effect on MY symptoms. I stick to an organic or pesticide free diet, make everything from scratch and consume lots of bone broths and fermented vegetables. If I deviate from this too much, my symptoms are worse, so I stick with it. The FibroTroll wants his organic hippy food, so I have to comply.

I am not saying that diet alone will cure Fibromyalgia. But I do think that it can help, if you find the right one for YOUR body. I have tried many different diets, some helped a little – helped me to identify certain triggers. Some made me worse, like the low salicylate diet. Some made no appreciable difference. So far the one that has helped me the most has been GAPS. This is an intensive gut healing diet and it has allowed me to introduce foods back into my diet that I haven’t been able to eat for years.

There are many teams of researchers around the world who are researching the cause and potential treatments for Fibromyalgia and many other chronic illnesses. Some of these are looking at the intestinal microbiome and my gut feeling (pun intended) is that the answers will stem from here.

 

 

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a frustrating syndrome to deal with. The FibroTroll likes to hide out in dark places and beat you at every opportunity. One of the most difficult things to deal with, on top of actually having Fibromyalgia, is the lack of effective treatment options. There really is no medication or surgery or treatment that is known to help in all cases. There’s lots of drugs you can try, that might treat one or more of your symptoms, but they might also give you side effects that are as bad or worse than what you were trying to treat! Sometimes, it feels like all you’ve done is feed the Troll the equivalent of anabolic steroids and made him cranky!

When a new study comes out, I tend to read it with equal parts optimism and scepticism. I try to stay hopeful and I am incredibly grateful that there are healthy individuals who are willing and able to perform research into this condition. One such study was published in 2015. It explored the possibility of using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to treat Fibromyalgia patients.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) has been around for centuries. You may be familiar with it in reference to treating deep-sea divers with decompression illness (The Bends). In modern medicine HBOT is used to treat many conditions including (but not limited to) smoke inhalation, non-healing wounds, cancer and cerebral palsy.

The article I mentioned studied 48 women with Fibromyalgia and treated them in two groups with HBOT. They found that while some of the patients had an increased level of pain for the first 10-20 sessions, almost all the participants in the study showed a significant improvement in quality of life and pain levels. Many of them were able to stop or reduce their medications.

Encouraged by this study, I started researching HBOT. The study used HBOT at 2atm (2 x atmospheric pressure). This level of HBOT is only available in hospitals, and only for certain approved conditions, and Fibromyalgia is not yet on that list. However, mild HBOT (1.35-1.4atm) is readily available in many places and doesn’t need any sort of referral. I found that for HBOT in general there were very few side effects, especially at the lower pressure levels. There are some contraindications such as lung disease, claustrophobia, or ear problems. Not suffering from any of those, I decided to give it a go.

While the benefits of this level of HBOT might not be as profound, I decided I wasn’t willing to wait until further studies were done and HBOT finally got recognised as a treatment for Fibromyalgia before trying it out. After all, there’s only been a couple of pilot studies, and there will have to be a LOT more studies performed before anyone is willing to say it works with any degree of confidence. So, with a quick google search, I found Advance O2. Advance O2 currently have locations in Toowong, Brisbane and Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast. I rocked up to my first treatment, a little nervous, but hopeful.

I started with a couple of 60-minute sessions, then soon increased it to five 90 minute sessions a week. The sensation of the chamber filling is not unlike flying in a plane, with the pressurisation and depressurisation similar to take-off and landing. If you yawn a bit, the blocked ear sensation quickly settles. For the first few weeks, I also noticed some drying of my nasal passages, which was easily relieved with some saline nasal spray after a treatment. During the session, you breathe concentrated oxygen via a mask like this one.

HBOT mask

Within a few short weeks, I noticed an improvement. The fact that I could leave my high set house, interact with people, have a treatment, and get back up the stairs to get home, five days a week, was an improvement on its own! Sometimes, following a treatment, I was able to go to lunch or shopping with my mum without being completely wiped out afterwards. After a couple of months, I tried reducing the frequency of my visits. Unfortunately, I found that the improvement did not continue if I reduced my days. So, my darling knight in tarnished armour came to my rescue again – he suggested we buy one!

Now, buying your own HBOT chamber is not cheap, and you need to have a place where it can be permanently set up. Luckily, there are chambers that are slightly smaller than the ones available at Advance O2. I sourced mine on Ali Baba and bought the oxygen compressor in Australia. Making a purchase this big from China is not without risk, so I’m not going to give you links, you’ll have to research it yourself. However, there are reputable companies that sell HBOT chambers in Australia – they cost a little more, but they’ve done the hard work for you.

This is my HBOT chamber.

HBOT chamber – aka “The Whale”

We call it the whale – I’m sure you can see why. It sits in the corner of my craft room and when I’m not using it, my dragon (cat), Terry, used to like to sleeping in it.

I can breathe the oxygen through a mask like the one pictured earlier, but I prefer the headset that came with my chamber – it looks like this.

 

Once the chamber is inflated, it is actually quite roomy. If you are claustrophobic I do not recommend it, but I am quite comfortable. Here’s what it looks like inside.

I get in my whale 5-6 days a week – in fact, I often write my blog posts in there! I tend to stay about 90mins, I’ve stayed longer, but I’ve found that seems to be a bit draining. I recently suffered a bout of sinusitis and if you’ve ever flown with blocked sinuses, then you know how uncomfortable increased pressure can be in that situation. So I had a couple of weeks off from my whale. I can tell you I missed it.

My conclusion on mild HBOT? It’s not a miracle cure for Fibromyalgia, but it does decrease my pain levels and increase my energy and therefore improves my overall quality of life. I think of it as another weapon in my arsenal for fighting the Troll

What I did on my holidays…

With a nod to my favourite author, I decided to write a post about my holidays.

I’ve just returned from a family holiday for a week in a holiday house on Bribie Island. It was lovely. I am lucky enough that I get along very well with my husband’s family. I have, in fact, hit the jackpot when it comes to in-laws. There were seven of us in total, my husband and I, his parents, his two brothers, and his older brother’s wife.

Going on a holiday when you have a chronic illness like fibromyalgia is not an easy task. There are dietary restrictions which making eating out almost impossible. There’s all the self-care you need to do to keep yourself running (Epsom salt baths, yoga, early bed time etc.). And then there’s the challenge of what you actually do while you are on holidays.

One of the main reasons for choosing Bribie, was my father-in-law’s love of fishing. So most mornings, he and a varying number of apprentices headed off to catch our lunch for the day. I would have loved to go, but walking through sand, casting and then standing for a few hours would have used up far too much energy.

So instead I did one of the things I love to do – feed people. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen! I made frittatas, waffles, parfaits, French toast and pikelets for breakfast (not all on the same day). I crumbed freshly caught fish in coconut, roasted chickens, marinated beef ribs, made peanut butter ice-cream and generally tried to make sure everyone went home a kilo or two heavier than when they arrived. The best bit? – I didn’t have to clean up! My knight in tarnished armour and all of his family happily cleaned the kitchen after every meal. (My knight was pretty happy that he didn’t have to do it all himself either!)

Another of my favourite things to do is to play board games. I was lucky enough, that this was something we had discovered prior to me getting ill. So we have been able to continue doing this and it is a relatively low energy activity that we enjoy. I’m not talking about Monopoly here. I’m talking games that win awards for design and gameplay and general all round awesomeness, like Puerto Rico and Carcassonne. We spent many, many hours playing games. The dining table (left) spent a lot of time covered in board game pieces.

 

 

Just as well there were plenty of other places to eat when the weather was fine – like this outdoor table (to the right) with a view over the canal.

 

I also started to learn calligraphy. My mother-in-law, Tricia, is a calligraphy artist and she very kindly gave me some one-on-one lessons and it has been wonderful to give my brain a new thing to do. If you want some work done or would like lessons of your own, her website can be found here.

I did spend a little bit of time in the pool. While it was lovely reducing the effects gravity has on my fibro, the Fibro-Troll was sitting and waiting when I got out. So I only went in the once. However, I did have some lovely relaxing company with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law-in-law (what do you call your brother-in-law’s wife??) sitting at the outdoor table, eating ice-cream and making things with yarn.

While I didn’t have as many adventures as Twoflower, I did thoroughly enjoy my week away and am hoping it will become an annual event.

What do you do on holidays that doesn’t use up too much energy? Let me know, I’m always looking for more ideas. And if you know the book or author I’m referring to, feel free to chime in about that too!