Why is nutrition so important for managing fibromyalgia?
So, last time I wrote about the importance of sleep. Which really helps you have the strength and energy to begin working on your other challenges associated with fibromyalgia. One of these challenges is looking at your nutrition. Every person who has fibromyalgia will have some sort of food sensitivity that affects your body and causes more inflammation. What is it? I wish I could tell you. I wish there was a magical answer that made all your symptoms go away. There isn’t though. So now comes the hard part, although it’s worth it.
When I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia the second time. I knew I needed to get to work to figure out how to lessen my symptoms. I remembered the first time I was diagnosed back in 2012, I started to do some research on how to fix this problem. Once I saw there was no cure I gave up and then continued to grit my way through life, until I couldn’t any longer. Almost two to three years ago in 2019, I had to face the hard reality. It was up to me to change my fibromyalgia symptoms one by one.
What came back to my mind though was a book I read called “The Fibromyalgia Solution” by David Dryland with Lorie List. As I began to read it again, I came across the part on nutrition and where an elimination diet comes into play.
The Diet
At first, I remember being resistant to starting this diet. I definitely was defiant about it in 2012. However, in 2019 I realized the only way I could find out what was affecting me, was to do this diet. Now you can also do an allergy test where they stick you with a ton of needles in your back, but I opted for the slower probably less painful way of doing this. Don’t get me wrong the first two to three weeks were extremely tough. I felt hungry often, but I told myself, if I can get past these first few weeks, the insights I will gain will have far more value than the pain. The results did not disappoint.
For me when I started to reintroduce foods; gluten, sugar, and dairy, (except hard cheeses like blue, sharp cheddar, etc.) these would cause me to have more: fatigue, brain fog, numbness/tingling on the left side, as well with some weakness and irritable bowel syndrome, among other symptoms. Not a fun combination!
The Result
As I began to limit the amount of these food groups and slowly, but surely change my eating patterns. I have noticed a big difference with my energy level. Where I was able to even climb a 14,000-foot mountain last year. Back in 2019, that wouldn’t even be a plausible idea. So, whether you want to climb physical mountains or are just trying to deal with the mountainous challenge of fibromyalgia look at your diet and see how it can help you.
#takeitslow #onefoodatatime #yourdiestisessential #mountainanalogy #summitingfibromyalgia