This is plan is suggested for the initial phase of the illness.  If you are plagued with excruciating, relentless  pain that takes away from your quality of life, then this is the plan for you .  This is an
allergy-free plan that enables your body to begin to heal itself by boosting your immune system.  It offers little diversity in eating patterns, and is implemented as a natural healing method that your body needs at this critical time.  The food is hearty and satisfying, offering subtle deviations depending on acquired tastes. 
It is regimented and should be applied exactly as stated.  I've had wonderful reviews on this plan and many clients begin finding relief in as little as a few days.  The plan comes outlined on four pages and speaks of
The Importance of Maintaining a Strict Schedule in assuring pain relief. It revolves on strategies implemented every 15 min. to an hour and is usually followed on a reduced work schedule or unemployment. 

Order Phase 1: Finding Relief
This plan is customized to include your morning awakening hour. 

"I lost my job due to fibro.  I felt at loss and wondered if I'd ever regain control of doing the things I loved again.  This plan gave me agility to get on with my life." - Jeremie

"Within four days I began feeling relief. I felt sick for so long, I never thought I'd smile again." - Kristina

"I have rheumatoid arthritis.  I tried this plan because a friend thought it may help.  I was having difficulty walking without a cane.  I can now walk further." - Marianne

This salad is a planned staple incorporated into my diet routine each day.  It provides essential nutrients and is preventative from future attacks of unknown viruses and bacterial infections.

There are four benefits from eating salads:

1. Eat Salads for the Fiber
Eating a high-fiber diet can help lower cholesterol levels and prevent constipation

2. Eat Salads for the Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables
If you frequently eat green salads, you'll likely have higher blood levels of a host of powerful antioxidants (vitamin C and E, folic acid, lycopene, and alpha- and beta-carotene,) especially if your salad includes some raw vegetables. Antioxidants are substances that help protect the body from damage caused by harmful molecules called free radicals.

3. Eat Salads to Cut Calories and Increase Satisfaction
Rolls, lead researcher of a prominent study, suggests that "bigger is better" as long as the salad is bigger in volume, not in calories - which means more veggies and less dressing and other fatty add-ons.

4. Eat Salads to Get Smart Fats
Eating a little good fat (like the monounsaturated fat found in olive oil, avocado and nuts) with your vegetables appears to help your body absorb protective phytochemicals, like lutein from dark green vegetables. - Taken from Web MD

2 cups dark green mixed lettuce
1/4 cup Feta Cheese or 2-4 ounces of protein
2 tab. Hemp Seeds
2 tab. Organic Cranberries
2 tab. raw sunflower seeds
2 tab. raw pumpkin seeds
2 tab. Organic Raisins
1 - 2 cloves orfOrganic garlic
Homemade or organic dressing of choice

Eat your way to better health!  If you need a full detailed diet on how to gain back your health order Phase I diet plan today!  Share my journey!

Have you ever felt like your own chemist trying to concoct recipes that put your fibromyalgia in the dormancy stage because nothing your doctor recommends seems to work?  Or, possibly you cringe at the thought of taking a new prescription wondering what lovely new side effects you'll experience for days - sometimes weeks - as it works its way through your metabolism?

Patients with fibromyalgia have difficulty tolerating regular doses of most medications and supplements. They are sensitive to medications, and adverse effects are common. About 50 percent of patients report sensitivities to noise, bright lights, odors, medications, and certain foods. To avoid these problems, use the lowest dose available or perhaps one half to one quarter of the lowest recommended dose.   Hence, when taking new doses, begin by taking the least amount prescribed by your doctor.

But many of you out there read this blog because you dread the idea of being put on antibiotics or other pain medications due to innate intolerances that the medical community just can't seem to fathom.  The only logical way is to become more preventative daily to ensure less flare ups by keeping your body at prime health.  If you are a fibromyalgia patient and been sick, you know how magnified your symptoms can become when there is a virus or bacterial infection ravaging your body.

Keep symptoms at bay by following this daily regiment:

1.  Be sure to take your probiotic supplement with a large glass of water each morning when waking.

2.  Drink a glass of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar shortly thereafter.

3.  Have a wonderful salad of raw garlic for lunch.

4.  Make your Fibromyalgia Smoothie before bed.

I write often on the reminders of the importance of preventative medicine.  This is due to the simple fact, we can prevent 80% of our symptoms if we follow the correct course.  But, life brings diverse joys and temptations that hinder our progress and we must be reminded intermittenly to regain correct course before a relapse occurs.

Recently at my nail spa I came across a delectable experience.  Here there are varying degrees of specialized packages.  There is the basic pedicure, the "flavor of the month", which encompasses a salt scrub with extra care, and "extra massage".  I found for approximately the same price of the "flavor of the month" I could indulge in the "extra massage" for about the same price.  

Extra massage immediately brought forth thoughts of reflexology wondering if it would benefit my condition.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and embark on this new treat.  What I found was utterly amazing!  As the massage progressed, my body immediately went into a deep relaxation mode elevating any resistant pain.  It was so pronounced and lasted hours through the night that I rushed to the internet to find out why!

Reflex Points to Relieve Fibromyalgic Symptoms

To Improve Mental Clarity

Head & Brain reflexes -– the medial and lateral sides and the top of the big toes.
As well as helping to aid memory and reduce fatigue, this can encourage restful
sleep.

Balance - found against the base of the fourth toe, this is an important point to work
if your symptoms include nausea and dizziness.

To Reduce Fatigue and Improve Sleep

Pituitary -This reflex is found in the centre of the plantar surface of the big toe. The
pituitary gland governs the activities of all other endocrine glands. 
 
Pineal & Hypothalamus -– both these reflex areas are found on the plantar surface of
the big toe close to the edge of the nail. 

Adrenals - this reflex is painful in most people (which also makes it easy to find) – it
is a small area about the size of your thumb found on the plantar surface of the
arch of the foot about halfway down the foot and between the first and second
toes.

Thyroid - found on the plantar surface of the foot on the fleshy ‘ball’ of the foot
between your first and second toes.

To Improve Your Mood

Working the reflexes listed above will also help to improve your mood, however it can be
invaluable for clients to learn how to find their solar plexus point so that
they can start to help themselves during the time between reflexology treatments.

Solar Plexus -– An essential point to encourage relaxation. This point is found on the
plantar surface of the foot just under the ball of the foot and between the second and third toes.

For Pain Relief

Joints are often particularly painful, working the reflex areas associated with the following can be a great relief:

Shoulders - the fleshy ball of the foot immediately under the smallest toe on the plantar
surface of the foot. Most people have crystalline deposits here.

Knees, Elbows, Hips - work down the lateral edge of the foot from the smallest toe to
the ankle, stopping to rotate above and below each bony prominence.

Jaw/facial - area – found just below the nail of the big toe on both feet. Focus on this area
if you experience TMJ pain.

Spinal reflexes -– found on the medial side of both feet, the spinal reflex area is most
closely linked to the nervous system and will be particularly effective in providing pain relief.

For Irritable Bowel Symptoms

Colon - The colon reflexes are found across both feet. The ascending colon starts on
the plantar surface of the right foot just above the fleshy part of the heel
(and below the smallest toe). Work up the colon (from heel to toe) until you
reach the fleshy ball of the foot, turn your hand sharply to work across the
foot (for the transverse colon) from the smallest toe to the big toe. The
transverse colon on the left foot is in the same area – so you would work from
the areas below the ball of the foot underneath the big toe towards the area
underneath the smallest toe. Turn your hand to work down towards the heel for
the descending colon, then follow the shape of the fleshy part of the heel to
work the sigmoid colon and rectum reflexes.

Small ntestine -– found inside the area just marked out by the colon reflexes. 

Indulge, indulge!  If you can't find a good pedicurist, do find a reflexologist and reap the benefits!

By now I'm certain you've explored the benefits of your afternoon relaxing session.  It is imperative that you find quiet time each day, especially late afternoon, to recharge your batteries.  This will enable you to complete your evening tasks with less pain. 

Before resting, I prompt you to read a few pages of Louise Erdrich's The Round House.  It will engage your senses, allowing you the freedom to wisk away to another place and another time.

Book Description
Release Date: October 2, 2012 
 
National Book Award Winner


One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North 
Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine 
Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either
to  the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one
day,  Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but
she will  not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly
alone, Joe  finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is
ill  prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a 
situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official 
investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to 
get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a 
sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of 
contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, 
The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of 
literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world 
very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of 
injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in
our  own world today. - Amazon

Sixteen years ago, psychologist and author Michael Lewandowski devised a series of questions for patients suffering from chronic pain to identify specific factors that aggravate and perpetuate pain. Those questions became the Behavioral Assessment of Pain (BAP) questionnaire, which is now used throughout the world in the treatment of chronic pain. Now, for the first time, this book brings this powerful set of tools to people just like you who are looking for a way to live better with pain.

The causes of chronic pain are many.  Depending on your physical or emotional stability, pain can increase at the most undesirable times.  This book examines the emotional, psychological, and social consequences of having chronic pain.  Researchers have coined this term the biopsychosocial view of pain.  What a great deduction!  After all, when can you attribute your pain to just one reason?  This book will prompt you to take a look at several components that embrace your well-being.  It is a multi-faceted approach that will have you working nightly in an easy to use workbook enabling you to become more and more pain free by changing your insight.

The tools in the Chronic Pain Care Workbook will give you control over your own pain-management process by helping you monitor your responses to pain. Use the assessments to help gauge your levels of physical and emotional pain, sleep habits, and general  ability to function throughout the day. Then put the book's practical advice to  work to maintain a higher quality of life despite pain. Ultimately, you'll start  to achieve higher activity levels and a greater degree of fulfillment.

Use these techniques to:
 

• Reduce fatigue and boost energy levels
  
• Manage medication use wisely
  
• Change your thoughts about chronic pain
  
• Stop avoiding pleasurable activities
  
• Limit emotional pain and suffering
  
• Enjoy greater family, social, and intimate engagement