Fibromyalgia Work. A very frequent question I get from fibromyalgia sufferers is about their work

In people with fibromyalgia work is easily disturbed and help is needed

Either they have lost their work due to fibromyalgia symptoms or they have difficulties dealing with their fibromyalgia at work to keep up with demand.

Obviously, those who have a physical work are more handicapped as to their working ability, but white collars are also in trouble. With fibromyalgia work is always a problem.

With the pain, fatigue, poor sleep, brain fog, work life a misery.
What to do?

Let’s look first at the ones that are still working

With the proper treatment, the long term one, they should be able to remain at work.

Agree, with their fibromyalgia work is not going to be easy and will require a lot of adaptation – but it’s doable.

First things first:

- You’ve got the diagnosis, so now you know you have fibromyalgia and you understand what it is about.

- You know that what you need is the long term treatment and not some kind of medication that will most likely give you side-effects or at best give you only a temporary improvement before going back to square one.

- You need to see your physician and make sure you have your thyroid levels and testosterone levels corrected. The same applies to your vitamin D levels. They have to be corrected and put at the ideal level ASAP – that will help with the fatigue.

At work, you are allowed and you need to be helped. It is your right!

- You should explain your disease to your boss, co-workers, human resource department, health work nurse etc… Why ? Well, if they know your disease they will understand it and they will help you whenever you need a hand.

- Your work can be adapted in order to have minimal physical activities. I didn’t say “no physical activity”, I said “minimal physical activity”!

- For example, whenever you have to lift a weight (heavy for you but not for your “macho” colleague :-) ) you need a hand. Don’t get people to do it for you. Get them to help you so you have a bit of physical activity without exhausting yourself.

- Participate in the activity but pace yourself.

- The best way is to act as if you were pregnant. For a man, act as if you have back pain (you most likely have some!).

Pace yourself

- For a start, if you know that an activity will lead to pain, get a timer and time yourself doing the activity. When the pain hits, that’s your limit.

- When you know your time limit for a given activity do not entertain that activity until you reach your limit and your pain!

- Take 20 % off your time limit, stop and take a rest before restarting.

- For example, lets say you can walk 5 minutes before pain hits. You take 20 % off. That means you take off 1 minute so you can walk 4 minutes and then rest. You will be able to walk again 4 minutes and so on without pain.

- But if you reach pain, then you are in trouble and demoralised.

- By pacing yourself you may be a slower than your colleagues but you will manage to carry on the activity.

- You have the right to be a bit slower! And by adapting, your colleagues will be happy to work with you and you with them. And if you follow your treatment you will improve and they will be happy for you!

Relax at work!

- This is part of pacing. You know your limit so give yourself short rest periods frequently like changing position, closing your eyes and relaxing. Even better if you know how to induce hypnotic relaxation and why not use your PMF at work?

- Not do-able? Well you just need a chair to plug on your PMF and sit on it! Give yourself a program 6 or 8 whilst you work or while you relax. Why not? Many businesses know now that stress is a big problem at work and needs to be tackled. PMF is slowly entering this area and workers can have a relaxing session, usually in a quiet environment with background relaxing music. So if your work environment does not provide it, you may well discuss it with your boss and provide it for yourself.

They may even fund you or, even better start this method for the workers.

- You may even become the local lead to help your co-workers. You may even turn your diseases into an asset at work.

- And by helping others, you will help yourself!

What about those that have lost their job?

- As you get better with the proper treatment you may be able to restart a job. The best is to look for a part time one and restart slowly. Your ex-employer may be willing to help you as you already know the job and do not need retraining. For sufferers of fibromyalgia work is not only a financial necessity, it is also a help to get better

- Some of you may be able to do it from home and that is great as you can use all of the above recommendations to pace yourself and have all the relaxation time needed.

- It is really a question of organisation. But they are still those who can’t make it back to their previous activity even as part timers or from home. Especially those who had a physical aspect to their jobs or those who can’t find a job proposal on the market especially with the recession at present.

Don’t’ despair!

- One possibility is to use the net to work from home. For sufferers of fibromyalgia home is an ideal alternative to work from

- If you have a hobby, a passion, a special knowledge you can set up your own business.

- What you need is a website to promote your products, your skills, your craft.

- You can do it. For those of you who have money or work problems you may want to have a look at How I Built This Site. See what others have done. You will be surprised. Their motto is “ tortoise pace “. That’s usually ideal for you. No risk, no stress, all in your own time.

- When I got tired of having websites set up for me by specialists who charged an arm and a leg for websites that never got visited I tried this offer. I carefully did everything that was said. I had little time for me to work in evenings and I knew nothing about websites, but I was so unhappy at getting nowhere with my websites that I carried on. The result is this website that is visited every day from over 26 different countries. In 6 months I got one of my page ranked No 1 on Google!

Have a look at it and come back and send us your comments. We may even be able to help you to deal with your fibromyalgia problems in that regard. Fibromyalgia work is not easy but we may help

Some of you have followed this path successfully and have regained an economically active life. They are so happy to have succeeded at it. Why not try it? You’ve got everything to gain! You may even write about your experiences and your techniques in controlling your fibromyalgia and dealing with your activity.

We may even enter into a partnership. Tell your story and how you manage. By helping others, you’ll help yourself.

You may even create or enter an existing fibromyalgia network!