#fibromyalgia, #mecfs & "exercise"

I've just had physiotherapy and it makes me want to write something about the common belief that "Exercise is a good treatment for fibromyalgia and/or ME!"
When people hear that exercise is good for people like me, they think things like "He should go swimming!" and "Let's get him a bike / gym membership / into a sport!" People with no specialist medical knowledge regularly suggest that I go for long walks, cycle, play football etc and don't believe me when I say that doing so would make me very ill because they heard that exercise is *good* for people like me!
Here's the reality. Exercise is good for people like me. But what counts as "exercise" for me is pretty different to anything abled people are likely to consider exercise. My exercise consists of very small amounts of very gentle strengthening exercises once or twice a day. My new exercise from my physio for example is to "Get up from your chair, sit down again, rest and then get up again" once or twice a day. Doing very small amounts of frequent exercises to strengthen my legs for *several months* now has resulted in my being able to lift my legs into bed and out of bed without assisting them with my arms. That is progress and just a few days of not doing my exercises unravels it almost immediately. If I consistently keep this up for several years, I might be able to stand unaided for longer than a minute. Maybe. Walking unaided for more than a few steps might be decades away. That is what health professionals are talking about when they say that exercise can help people like me - progress coming slowly in near-invisibly small baby steps, always one flare-up from going back several steps.
Exercise is good for me - but my body works to very different rules from most others. What most people think of as "exercise" would land me in bed for days or weeks, not help me. What exercise I can do does help me, but much much slower than exercise helps most people.

Reply · Report Post