I am not a doctor, nor a research scientist, medical professor, nurse, therapist or medical practitioner in any sense. There are no fancy plaques on my wall that project some aura of authority over me on this subject (my degree is in History.). I do not have fibromyalgia. So why am I writing an ebook on this subject - and why should you pay any attention?
Fibromyalgia has undermined my life. It is working to destroy my wife and wreak havoc on the lives of my 2 children. Experts always stress that writers and business people should focus their efforts on something they are passionate about. Am I passionate about fibromyalgia? Absolutely! I passionately hate it, to be precise. I love my wife and I have watched her suffer to extremes as we both fought feelings of helplessness and hopelessness for years. I qualify as an expert in how fibromyalgia can destroy.
My wife and I chased a dream together. Not a small dream, not a typical sort of dream but something extraordinary (at least to us). We got it into our heads that we could move our family aboard a sailboat to live full time, home school our kids and live a lifestyle of freedom and discovery spending quality time with each other and our kids. We read, studied, learned and planned and in 2008 we began to make this dream a reality. I purchased a 47' sailboat and poured all that we had into building the boat into a home and restructuring our lives to make this huge change a reality.
Through all of this - we fought fibromyalgia. My wife Michele was diagnosed with fibro in 2003 after the birth of our daughter. She exhibited some symptoms before the pregnancy (her 2nd) but it was only after the c-section birth of our daughter that the fibro began its assault in earnest. The diagnostic process was typically confusing, frustrating and long. We suffered through multiple misdiagnoses, more medical tests than we can recall and a long list of "treatments" - none of which really achieved anything more than draining our bank account.
After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and learning about the difficulties in treatment, Michele began focusing her attention on researching and implementing treatment options while my focus remained on running our business so we could pay for the expensive treatment efforts she needed. (Self-employed with a very small company - our insurance paid for essentially nothing). We went through many doctors and tried different drugs and combinations of drugs and listened to many specialists. Through it all the fibromyalgia waxed and waned but it was always there. At times things got better and we were deluded into believing a corner had been turned only to feel crushed again when things got worse. But - we maintained our dream.
Through 2008 as our efforts to make the sailing dream a reality began to pick up steam we also increased the war against fibromyalgia. We began seeing a fibro specialist center, and despite this care being extremely expensive, we went all-in. We both believed that putting forth the effort in a big push to once and for all crush this beast would yield success, and if it didn't, we had a backup plan. The backup plan was simple - If you’re going to be in pain, you might as well be in pain in a tropical paradise living aboard a boat. That sounded pretty good at the time.
All of the hard work and effort did pay off. Michele felt much better. In late 2009 we moved aboard our boat full time and began to "live the dream". We had problems (the saying "Going cruising is just repairing your boat in exotic locations" is true). We had adventures and we had fibro. After getting away from the "Big Push" medical efforts the fibro began to slowly build back. After we returned from the Bahamas in June of 2010, fibromyalgia flared with a vengeance, raging like I had never seen before and transforming Michele into a complete wreck.
We were convinced something more was wrong. This flare was different. The pain was overwhelming but it went beyond that to shaking and convulsions and huge migraines coupled with severe anxiety, bowel pains, horrible leg cramping and other symptoms. Was this MS? Could a brain tumor be in play? What could be causing all these new symptoms and in such severity? We were distraught and confused, but one thing rapidly became clear - the "Cruising Dream" was dead. Michele was in serious trouble. We had to seek medical care at once to find out what was really wrong.
This was the worst time of my life. It's bad enough having dreams crushed, but watching my wife suffer was overwhelming. We launched into a whole new endeavor to determine what was wrong. Medical tests flew about like confetti on New Years Eve. Medical bills flowed in on a scale that was shocking. We saw every sort of doctor known to man. The end result, other than insane medical bill totals, was simply this: fibromyalgia.
As we began dealing with fibro on a new level and working to put our lives back in some semblance of order, I began to feel a new sense of mission. I would focus my life on helping my wife overcome this disease and provide my family with the rich and productive life that they want and need. I had lots of ideas on what form this might take, but the first step was to make myself an expert on fibromyalgia. I set about this task aggressively reading everything I could find. I read books, studied online, delved deep into research reports, contacted research scientists and in general, did everything I could to figure out how to help my wife. I had every expectation that my efforts would yield a magic combination of treatments that would bring complete success.
I no longer have those expectations. Education and knowledge are wonderful things, but in this case, reward was tempered as I began to realize that fighting fibro is a war, not just a single battle.
I also understood that determining what treatments would be most effective for Michele would be an individual struggle. I learned that fibromyalgia manifests itself differently in each patient and that developing an effective treatment strategy would require implementing strong systems in order to effectively manage treatment efforts. I needed to be able to not only research what treatment options were possible, but to quantify results and validate the combined treatment approach that we were developing. I learned that the research data indicated a multi-faceted treatment approach. Such an approach consisting of pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, exercise, diet changes, therapies and alternative medicine was most likely to yield lasting results, but determining what combination would be best for Michele would be an ongoing individual process.
The more I learned, the more I began to seek out information about self-management programs. Among the very few things I found consistent among the "experts" on fibromyalgia was the call for patients to embrace the concept of self-management. It was clear to me: given the nature of fibromyalgia that a patient-directed, team-focused self-management approach made by far the most sense, but moving from the conceptual idea to implementation proved to be very difficult.
I began to seek programs or systems to utilize in this process. Given that there is so much material out there relative to management of illnesses in general, I expected to find structured online programs specifically aimed at assisting those fighting fibromyalgia in their running of an ongoing self-management program. I searched extensively, but no such program existed. Experts and educational programs exist that are aimed at convincing you that embracing the concept of self-management is crucial to treatment success. However, I found nothing in online systems aimed at facilitating an ongoing process. Its one thing to learn what one may need to do, but it is something else to determine how to actually do it. I found no "how."
This need is what has driven both this ebook and the development of the FibroTrack application. My focus is not on telling you specifically what you need to do in order to treat your fibromyalgia. Anyone who purports to tell you what treatments will be effective for you probably does not understand fibromyalgia at its most basic level. The reality is that effective treatment varies from patient to patient and the only way you can tell if any given treatment will be effective for you is to test it. My focus is on this part: the systems and processes required to improve your ability to intelligently test and determine what does work, for you.
In effect, I am not trying to tell you what you should do for effective treatment - I am suggesting to you how to proceed toward effective treatment. What is a self-management program? How do you develop, implement, and manage one on an ongoing basis? This ebook answers these questions.
The concepts and processes that I present in this book are not new. I have not been engaged in new conceptual research and the processes discussed here are not revolutionary new developments. What I have done is take existing research data and treatment process suggestions from many different experts and combine them into an overall strategy that can be implemented and managed by those struggling with fibromyalgia.
I hope this ebook helps you to improve your fight against fibromyalgia. You will find references to the FibroTrack application throughout this ebook and I do firmly believe that FibroTrack can help any patient improve their self-management efforts. But you do not have to utilize FibroTrack in order to put the concepts and systems outlined in this ebook into action. I urge you - please - make the effort to implement what you learn here. Knowledge without action never yields success. Please take what you learn and put it into action.
I also need to point out that a great deal of relevant information about fibromyalgia is not in this ebook, but is available on my website. The following 3 main sections of the site have expandable menus to the left through which you can navigate to hundreds of detailed articles, all based on medical research with most including references to source research materials. My goal for our website is simple: To provide the largest and most accurate repository of fibromyalgia information on the Internet.
Click these links to learn more!
What is Fibromyalgia? Fibromyalgia Treatment Fibromyalgia Symptoms
Also - Please follow my Blog.
Finally - THANK YOU. Thank you for downloading this ebook and taking the time to read it. I truly value the trust you have placed in me by taking the time to read the information I have put together for you.
If you have any suggestions, questions, concerns or problems that you feel I may be able to help with, I urge you to contact me. Email: terrycspringer@yahoo.com
