Leaving the house with fibromyalgia: my tips and tricks

Leaving the house with fibromyalgia

My tips and tricks

As some of you may know, I have a pain condition called fibromyalgia (on top of a few other conditions but that’s for another time) and as a full-time university student, I often find myself having to leave the house on high pain days.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had days where I haven’t been able to get out of bed and I’ve tried to do learning at home, but sometimes the pain and fatigue has been so bad I can’t even work from bed.
Those days are known as “write off days” in our household.

But on other days the pain has been bad, but not bad enough for me to stay at home so I find myself having to get dressed and venture into the outside world.

Over the past few years, I’ve been working out what can help me when I’m out on the go to help push through those few hours until I can get back to the sanctuary that is my bed with my heating pad and a mountain of pillows to support my back.

And I’m here to share those tips and tricks with you today.

Now it goes without saying that this may not work for everyone with the condition, and maybe you have some tips of your own. If you do be sure to leave them in the comments, I’d love to hear them.

1.      Always have a bottle of water with you (reusable ideally). I have found that my pain is far worse when I haven’t had enough water which makes sense. Most of the water in the body is stored in our connective tissues which are all over the body, and when they haven’t got enough, they are fry and stiff, making them harder to move and causing more pain.

I now never leave the house without a full water bottle and I’ve found when I sip on it throughout the day, I find that my pain decreases, only a small amount but when your out and about anything is better than nothing. I’ve also found that many shops now that serve food will also fill up my water bottle for me to make sure I have water with me wherever I go. 

2.   Have a radar key and an “I can’t wait” card. Now often those with fibromyalgia may also have some type of digestive issues. In my case I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and a mix of that and not being able to stand for too long in one place means I need to find another solution (especially with the queues for women’s toilets).

I have a radar key that gives me access to disabled toilets in the UK without having to ask a worker in the place I’m in to open it for me because sometimes I can’t even wait that long.
But what if I’m not near public toilet and I need to go?

Then that’s what the “I can’t wait” card is for. The card states “the holder of this card has a medical condition and needs to use a toilet quickly. PLEASE HELP!” meaning that if I’m in a shop then they should give me access to a toilet without me having to say anything out loud, which could be embarrassing for some.

The reason I say, “they should” and not “it has” is because I have not had to use it yet, but just having it there gives me peace of mind that should I find myself in that situation then it can be deal with quickly and with little hassle.
                                                                                                                                                 
3.    Have a walking aid with you (if needed). Now over the past few months, I’ve been working on my mobility so that I don’t have to use my walking stick out and about as much (be sure to let me know if you’d like a post about how I’ve done that) but always make sure to have it with me, especially if I’m going to be out for a number of hours as it’s likely that my legs and back will hurt by then and I’ll need just that little bit of extra help to get home.

My walking stick is just a very simple on that cost me £10 from Argos and it folds down so it fits nicely into my handbag and can be brought out and unfolded in a matter of seconds to stop me from falling over and spending a good amount of time to get myself back up again.
4.  Carry with you disposable heating pads and cooling packs, depending on how your pain responds to them. My body is a little tricky as from the waist up, my pain responds to cool/cold. But from the waist down my pain responds to heat, so I have to carry both of them around with me.

As much as I would love to use reusable heating/cooling pads, the reality is that they aren’t practical when going ab out your business for the day. You can’t always get to a microwave to heat up a pad or find a freezer to put a cooling pad in, wait a couple of hours and then use it.
I try to only use them when absolutely necessary but with any disability, sometimes you have to do what is best for you and not worry about it. I have been making an effort to reduce my waste in all other aspects of my life which overall balances the waste of the heating/cooling pads.   

Now that that’s been addressed, the type of pads I like to use are the ones that activate once a backing has been peeled off and that can be stuck onto my body so that rather than having to sit there while it works, I can keep going while getting some pain relief or using the ones that are often found in first aid kits as they last for a long, long time. 


And there are my tips and tricks for leaving the house with fibromyalgia. Now I also do the average thing like carry some pain relief medication (paracetamol, ibuprofen) with me and I take them when needed but I thought I’d give you some ideas that don’t involve having to take medication because to be honest, I’m on so many regular medications a day for all my conditions I already rattle when I walk so I don’t want to add any more to it.

Let me know what you thought in the comments and be sure to add your own as well.

Be happy, be healthy, from Abbie x


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