​Fibromyalgia is not a great condition to have at any time, but it’s especially frustrating when the holidays roll around. The stress of Thanksgiving festivities can bring on flare ups, and as if that’s not enough, the tempting foods that aggravate fibro are beckoning to you from the Thanksgiving table.

Whether you are going to see family out of town or you will be the one hosting the event, you need to plan things so that your stress and fatigue are minimized.

Cooking for a large crowd can wear anyone out, especially if you suffer from fibromyalgia. Follow these tips to make the holiday more pleasurable for you:

First, see if someone else can take over hosting Thanksgiving dinner. If not, purchase a complete holiday meal from a food merchant or grocery store. It can be very affordable, breaking down to as little as $6 per person, depending on how many guests you have.

Recruit family members to bring dishes in potluck fashion. Or, if you can afford it, you may consider hiring a caterer to prepare the Thanksgiving meal in your home.

If you’re cooking yourself, spread out the food preparation and cooking over a few days, so you don’t have to do it all at once. This can be more doable for you and you can take rest breaks as needed.

Don’t forget to ask for help if you need it. If you cannot tackle the housework, hire a maid to come in. If this is not feasible, the family can live with a little dust! Assign clean-up duties for several members to help with so you are not left with a disaster.

Dress comfortably for the environment so you are not too hot or too cold. Dressing in layers will help keep you comfortable, as you can take off layers as needed.

Don’t feel guilty if you need to get away to a quiet part of the house to relax.
​
Cut corners, like buying the pie crust already made. Other time- and energy-saving tricks include buying pre-made cranberry sauce or frozen bread to bake. If there is someone who thinks something has to be done a certain way and you’re not up to it, they can be responsible for it!

Use paper plates; this may not go over well with some people but it is a great way for keeping clean-up less of a hassle.

Thanksgiving Traveling to see family can be just as much stress as hosting, with the traffic on the roads and rushing to get to your destination. Here are some ideas for holiday travel:

• Call ahead and let your host know you will need a break once you arrive to their home. They need to know you will not be able to jump right into helping out when you get there.
• Take extra medications and supplements with you to have on hand. This is helpful in case you end up staying longer than you had planned.
• If you are traveling a long way try to leave a day early. It is best to have at least one day of rest before the holiday festivities.
• Contribute without having to do too much work by offering to supply a centerpiece or help out financially to provide food or dessert for the Thanksgiving feast. This way you avoid wearing yourself out, but you have helped out in an alternative way.

Being a mother can definitely be a very joyous experience, but it can also be difficult if you have to deal with fibromyalgia while simultaneously raising your children.

Is it possible for you to raise your kids while also trying to cope with your fibromyalgia?  The answer is yes, and we’ll go over some of the ways that any mother with fibromyalgia will be able to balance her chronic pain with her responsibilities as a parent.

Energy

The most challenging aspect of being a mother and living with fibromyalgia is that you’ll find it difficult to get the energy to handle both. You should be able to keep informing your family of how you feel so that they don’t expect too much or too little from you on any particular day.

If you’re feeling more energized today, let them know and maybe you as a family can do something fun.  If you’ve never felt in so much pain before, lay down on the couch.

​Spending Time with Your Kids

You should take your kids out whenever you feel great. But should you take them out when you feel bad and are trying to get through another lousy day?  A good way to cope with this is to run on errands only for essentials when you don’t feel well, and to take your children out to the park when you do feel well so that you’re good days aren’t spent on getting things such as groceries.

In the event that your kids are dying to go out when you aren’t feeling well, you may have to alternative things to do, such as giving them an art project, a toy or a game of some kind.  There’s nothing wrong in pushing things off when you feel bad, but remember not to make any promises that you can’t keep to your kids.

​Multi-Tasking

In our culture today, multi-tasking seems to have been accepted as a part of daily life. Mothers especially have to learn to multi-task.  Unfortunately, the more you multitask, the slower things will get done and the less organized you will be.  You’ll become significantly less stressed out if you take things one step at a time.
This means taking breaks when you need them and focusing on getting one task done.  Once that task is done, you can move on to the next.  Yes, this is a challenge especially if you’re trying to juggle around a bundle of different responsibilities, and it’s even more of a challenge if you have children to care for.   You have to learn to live without multitasking.  But is this possible?

If your kids are old enough, you can give them certain chores. Not only does this free up time for you to focus on one task at a time and get the stress out, it teaches your kids responsibilities.  Right now, all you may be focusing on is raising your kids, getting them fed properly, and work at your job.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but you must try to get as much of the stress out as possible.

Additional Tips
Here are some additional tips that you can go over for trying to balance your fibromyalgia symptoms with motherhood.

​1- The first tip is to get plenty of exercise. Yes, it is true that people with fibromyalgia do find difficulty in getting sufficient exercise due to the pain, but exercising is still a great way to energize your body and get your muscles to heal themselves.  A major reason why you are in so much pain is due to your muscles, so exercising stimulates them.  You also don’t need to put a lot of time into exercising each day.  Twenty to thirty minutes of exercise per day will drastically improve your strength.
2- You should also a void smoking. This is because nicotine is bad to the muscles by decreasing blood flow to them, which in turn lowers the amount of oxygen your muscles receive and increases the pain that you feel.
3- If you haven’t looked into fibronomics, you probably should now. Fibronomics is not only useful for mothers, it is for mothers to be as well.  Fibronomics is manipulating your body in order to minimize the pain as much as possible and result in being able to complete tasks more efficiently.  There’s so much information related to fibronomics that we can’t go into all of it now, but it’s still something worth looking into.
4- Remember to get as much rest as you can. Fatigue is a common symptom of fibromyalgia, so getting the sleep at night that you need can be tough.  Nonetheless, being rested will reduce your chances of developing illness and stress, and thus allow you to cope with your fibromyalgia better while raising your children.  Another way to get plenty of stress is to schedule some time each day to your personal hobbies, such as listening to music or reading a book.
5- The last thing we’ll go over is coping with fibromyalgia while in a pregnancy.  Most pregnant patients with fibromyalgia report feeling more pain towards the pregnancy’s end.  This is because each factor that can cause pain all join together at that time.  It will be very difficult for a mother-to-be to be able to get comfortable at this point.

In order to get as comfortable as possible, you can participate in a physical therapy program that will provide heat and massages to your lower back.  An alternative would be to get trigger point injections, but you should carefully review this with your fibromyalgia doctor to make sure that it will have no negative effect on your pregnancy.
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While suffering from fibromyalgia while late in your pregnancy will be difficult, just know that you’ve almost reached the end.  With help from treatments and physical therapy, hopefully you can get as comfortable as possible. - Fibromyalgia Treating

​I have this storybook picture in my mind of what a holiday should look like, and I knock myself out trying to make it happen. Of course, in this picture, I don’t have fibromyalgia.

When I was young and my symptoms were less severe, holidays meant an onslaught of out-of-town relatives, all staying at my home for several nights. I began cooking and freezing meals about a month ahead, intent on enjoying their visit rather than spending the entire time in the kitchen or (worse yet) lying on the couch.

Then came the year when everyone got the flu the minute they arrived. I spent the entire time making chicken soup, borrowing extra blankets from the neighbors, taking temperatures and distributing Tylenol. Somehow, I stayed healthy until the day they all left. But, by that evening, my temperature soared. I was in bed for the next three weeks. I swore then that I wouldn’t be at home the following year. And I wasn’t. We spent the next holiday at Disney World.

So, here’s my point:  Holidays will be what they will be. Some will work out just fine. Others may not be ideal. Either way, life goes on. It’s pointless to punish yourself with the shoulds.

My advice is to listen to your body. It will tell you what you’re capable of doing. This may be the year you have all kinds of energy, and you prepare a whole meal, including that special pumpkin pie that everyone loves. Or, it may be the year you buy a pie at Safeway (or someone else buys it for you), or you have no pie at all.  Either way, it is what it is.  Do what you can, not what you think you should.

If people congregate at your home every year, maybe this is the year to make a change. Let someone else have a turn. Or, if your house is the only possible choice, let it be known that you’re having some health challenges. This year, you’ll be happy to set the table, but others will need to bring the food. Or perhaps you’ll even delegate setting the table to a younger or healthier member of your tribe. Just don’t knock yourself out because you think you should.

If you’re in the habit of traveling on the holiday, allow yourself to reconsider. Don’t go because you think you should and regret your added pain and fatigue when you get there. Yes, traditions are important.  But so is your health. If you can do it, then go and have a wonderful time. You may forget your health issues, and be very grateful you made the effort. Only you can judge.

If your symptoms just won’t allow it, then stay at home. Call your family and friends to wish them well instead. Watch the Macy’s Parade on TV. If you’re a football fan, enjoy the game. Buy yourself a prepared turkey dinner and be thankful for the things you do have — rather than those you think you should. by Christine Lynch

Fibromyalgia is not a great condition to have at any time, but it’s especially frustrating when the holidays roll around. The stress of Thanksgiving festivities can bring on flare ups, and as if that’s not enough, the tempting foods that aggravate fibro are beckoning to you from the Thanksgiving table.

Whether you are going to see family out of town or you will be the one hosting the event, you need to plan things so that your stress and fatigue are minimized.

Cooking for a large crowd can wear anyone out, especially if you suffer from fibromyalgia. Follow these tips to make the holiday more pleasurable for you:

First, see if someone else can take over hosting Thanksgiving dinner. If not, purchase a complete holiday meal from a food merchant or grocery store. It can be very affordable, breaking down to as little as $6 per person, depending on how many guests you have.

Recruit family members to bring dishes in potluck fashion. Or, if you can afford it, you may consider hiring a caterer to prepare the Thanksgiving meal in your home.

If you’re cooking yourself, spread out the food preparation and cooking over a few days, so you don’t have to do it all at once. This can be more doable for you and you can take rest breaks as needed.

Don’t forget to ask for help if you need it. If you cannot tackle the housework, hire a maid to come in. If this is not feasible, the family can live with a little dust! Assign clean-up duties for several members to help with so you are not left with a disaster.

Dress comfortably for the environment so you are not too hot or too cold. Dressing in layers will help keep you comfortable, as you can take off layers as needed.

Don’t feel guilty if you need to get away to a quiet part of the house to relax.
​
Cut corners, like buying the pie crust already made. Other time- and energy-saving tricks include buying pre-made cranberry sauce or frozen bread to bake. If there is someone who thinks something has to be done a certain way and you’re not up to it, they can be responsible for it!

Use paper plates; this may not go over well with some people but it is a great way for keeping clean-up less of a hassle.

Thanksgiving Traveling to see family can be just as much stress as hosting, with the traffic on the roads and rushing to get to your destination. Here are some ideas for holiday travel:

• Call ahead and let your host know you will need a break once you arrive to their home. They need to know you will not be able to jump right into helping out when you get there.
• Take extra medications and supplements with you to have on hand. This is helpful in case you end up staying longer than you had planned.
• If you are traveling a long way try to leave a day early. It is best to have at least one day of rest before the holiday festivities.
• Contribute without having to do too much work by offering to supply a centerpiece or help out financially to provide food or dessert for the Thanksgiving feast. This way you avoid wearing yourself out, but you have helped out in an alternative way.