‘Slow My Roll’ Day-Saturday, March 14

Every once in awhile in while I have a day that I call, “Slow My Roll” Day. The reason for this is my body gives me all the signs to slow my roll such as fatigue, sensitivity to light and sound, high pain flare, and sometimes other symptoms. When I feel these signs, I decide to take a day to rest in my room. Also with Fibromyalgia, the body doesn’t know how to process outside stimulus because the nervous system is over reactive.

I find that controlling my environment is one of the ways that I can help me rest and let my nervous system decompress. I’ll watch Netflix or sleep. I don’t normally leave my room for the majority of the day. Around dinner time, I’ll have recuperated enough to hang out with my husband to eat dinner and watch a movie.

I don’t have many of these days, but when I do, I’ve learned that I have to listen to my body. If I don’t it gets worse. These are different than the “Lazy Days” we all have. The difference is on a lazy day I can do things if I would like but just don’t feel like it. Slow my roll days I should do it because my body needs to rest to recuperate from either being pushed to hard, doing to much, or just fibro in general.

A little background on Fibromyalgia 

I was reading an article on http://www.arthritistoday.org/. “It is as if the volume control is set too high in the nerves in a person’s body so things that wouldn’t cause pain in most people do cause pain in people with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia cannot be diagnosed with laboratory tests. The results of X-rays and blood tests are normal. Therefore, the diagnosis is based on a careful history and physical examination.” It goes on to say. ”

No one knows for sure what causes fibromyalgia. Researchers suspect that many different factors, alone or in combination, may contribute to the development of fibromyalgia. For example, factors such as an infectious illness, physical trauma, emotional trauma or hormonal changes may trigger the development of generalized pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances that characterize the condition.

Studies have suggested that people with fibromyalgia have abnormal levels of several different chemicals in their blood or cerebrospinal fluid that help transmit and amplify pain signals to and from the brain. There also is evidence that the central nervous system’s ability to inhibit pain is impaired in these people. In addition to patient reports, brain-imaging studies have confirmed that when fibromyalgia patients are given a small amount of pressure or heat, they experience much higher amounts of pain, as if the “volume control” is set too high on pain processing. Whether these abnormalities are a cause or a result of fibromyalgia is unknown.”