Getting By.

I'm slowly rebuilding my strength. I've spent almost a whole year doing as little as possible - except for one thing - focusing on myself.


About this time last year I had so much going on in my life - blogs, reviews, websites - building and maintaining my own as well as developing new sites for friends and family, research, product reviews, contractual obligations, reading, maintaining the FibroMen site, trying to build the FibroMates site and their associated Facebook, Google+ and Twitter accounts - and all the while feeling worse and worse, suffering from agonising pain that not even morphine could counter and sinking further and further into depression and at the same time holding down a physically demanding job and trying to cope with a disabled wife and a disabled daughter, it all just became too much and one day I sought refuge in the form of a little too much medication - cocodamol, morphine, fluoxetine (Prozac) and alcohol. Not an overdose, merely a combination that was too much for my fragile state of mind to handle. I imploded.


The meltdown was so swift and my mood so dark that I shut out everything and everyone - including my wife and, to a lesser degree, my daughter - quite literally overnight. I became obnoxious. My marriage crumbled.


Apparently my whole persona changed. At work I maintained my old jovial, friendly and helpful state, but at home I was rude, indifferent and bullying. I was simply awful. I didn't want to be around my family and I tried my best, it would seem, to make them dislike me so that I could have a valid reason for leaving - there was a deeper issue going on which I can't/won't explain here, but those of you who know me personally are aware of what this issue was. All I will say is that many years, many decades, of pent up emotions and past grievances came bubbling to the surface. I hated myself, my life and everything/everyone in it. I painted on my smile and went to work for sixteen hours a week.


Now I'm getting by. My pain levels are at an all time high because I dare not take morphine again, but I'm getting by without it. I started going to a gym in late summer last year and, whilst this may be adding to my pain, or at least perpetuating it, I have fixed in my mind that the pain is a good sign instead of coming from the unknown like fibromyalgia, and I'm finding it beneficial to improving my strength so I can still work sixteen hours a week in a busy retail role. I look better too, so to hell with the pain!!


As for my marriage - well, I'm still at home. We still row, and my wife is keen to remind me how awful I was, but we're getting by.....

Can A Scent Improve Your Fibromyalgia?

.I've never been big on aromatherapy. I mean, how can smelling some pungent odour treat your ailments?

The constant pain of fibromyalgia makes sitting, in a relaxed fashion for an hour or so, whilst inhaling some heated herbal concoction, a no no from the start. I can barely sit for more than five minutes without having to move around, fidget, or stand up and walk around the room for a few minutes. It's exhausting being unable to relax because of the pain.

Despite my known aversion to aromatherapy I was offered the opportunity to try out a new essential oil diffuser - a stylishly designed electric diffuser with a glass bowl and fluted pipe / chimney to disperse the aroma around the room. No sticking a tea light under a warming pot - no risk of fire, no mess, no hot parts on which to burn your skin. The company which make these diffusers, Organic Aromas, claim that it can help with the pain of fibromyalgia - hence my intrigue.

Having had constant pain in my lower back for many years now, as well as varying pains elsewhere and everywhere, and having tried many, many 'remedies' from medication to massage, exercise to electronic stimulation, with little to no success, I've reached the point of 'I'll try ANYTHING - just please let it work, for just an hour, or even half an hour! Okay, I'll settle for five minutes without pain.'

I've tried creams and potions, foam mattress toppers (which actually helped ease pain AND improved my sleep!) and drugs (not the illicit kind!) The drugs definitely don't work. I take them religiously because that's how to ensure that they have the maximum benefit - even when the pain is bearable - and they have absolutely no effect whatsoever (until, of course, I don't take them for a few days and the pain gets worse - so I suppose they do work after all, just not very effectively!!) and the drugs do have side effects, some of which can be worse than the pain they're used to treat!

So, getting back to the point - aromatherapy - would it work to get me relaxed and pain free?

The Organic Aromas Raindrop Diffuser

Within ten minutes of my package arriving in the post the device was set up, primed with the supplied essential oil and switched on. Instantly the room was filled with what I described as a heady, sweet aroma - unfortunately my wife thought it sickly sweet and 'cloying'. That was the Organic Aromas Signature Blend essential oil - sadly not a great success in our house. But I was enthused by how effective the device was - once a gadget man always a gadget man - it had seemed to fill the room within a matter of moments. So I decided to invest in a different scent of essential oil - we both love lavender, our garden is full of it, so I bought some of that.

The next day, whilst the wife and daughter were out, I set about my daily chores - with the added benefit of the beautiful aroma of lavendar silently filling the air. By the end of my daily tasks I felt as if I could do them again! Usually I'm fit to drop.

Could it have been the aroma? Had it had some therapeutic benefit after all?

Some time later I was contacted by Organic Aromas who were keen to learn how I'd got on with their product and, more specifically, their signature blend essential oil. I told them I was really pleased with the diffuser but that the oil they had supplied had not gone down too well. The mark of a professional company is how well they respond to negative feedback - Organic Aromas sent me two new oils to try out - their Serenity and Purity blends.

Both blends provide a delightful scent which helps me breeze through my domestic chores during the day, whilst on an evening I find I can sit for longer than my usual five minutes without fidgeting and when it comes to bed time I am able to switch off and sleep far more quickly than I have done for many, many years.

Relaxation is key to conserving energy for people with fibromyalgia, or any chronic pain condition. Often the hardest part of living with these conditions is poor quality, non-restorative sleep. My little diffuser works a treat at bedtime - and what's more, I don't need to worry about putting out the candles before I go to sleep - this little miracle turns itself off too.

All in all the Organic Aromas Essential Oil Diffuser is a massive hit in our household!