Such a benefit

When it comes to wellness, keeping moving, and how you balance that, is very imporant.

I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and we had dogs, and a mountain with a path / trail on it by the time I came along. In the winter the hike was with snowshoes over my boots sometimes. And we had a lot of snow to shovel, wood to cut for the fireplace, dogs and horses to feed, and I wanted to garden as a child so that grew into something that my mother and I did for about four months out of the year as well. I was thought to be 'in good health' but in reality, once you learn what causes a person to have a health collapse that would be called 'chronic fatigue syndrome', symptoms track back maybe to birth (and before when you study genetics and epigenetics). 

I went to college at 18 and by that point, if it were today, I would know I was in a slippery slope. It was a progression. In junior high I didn't miss a day of school because I went to school when I was sick, and I remember having terrible colds. I'd have coughing attacks in classes if I wasn't able to talk and things could be draining in some different way than when you're 'shut up'. I recall realizing in choir that I was not being disruptive with my coughing. By high school I was getting rounds of what sometimes was strep and other times looked like it but didn't show that when cultured.

And I had my first UTI which was a 'bladder infection' (not kidney, which came in my 40s and went on for years due to medical mismanagement which included my not being proactive enough, which was a contributing factor to my enthusiasm for the Lumigrate YOU! Model when I created that in a brainstorming session in 2007 with my collaborator in allopathic practice as an OT, Dr Chris Young (a psychologist / pain management specialist).

Looking back, my diet changed a lot when I lived in the dorms, which thankfully was only the first year and I figured out a way to economically live off campus. Beer was widely available, Colorado was a 3.2 state at the time and it was even purchased for us on Fridays in the dorms for our 'mixers' on the floors. Most evenings we'd take a study break about 9 and walk over to the "Towers Tap" which had all kinds of snacks and drinks, including beer. My family hadn't been very restrictive about alcohol, it was available if I wanted it at home, but it had not been 'my thing'. And we didn't have soda pop, and at the dorms you could have all you wanted, as well as anything else. I'd been diagnosed with blood sugar issues in my teens and had been very compliant. And I was still aware and being cautious, but I realize that could be why my health shifted.

I was MOVING a LOT, though, because it was a large campus and the dorm were far from where classes were, and you had to go back to the dorm for lunch, then back for more classes (unless your classes had to do with athletics, and I'd not thought about the layout of the campus and it was really impossible to get between classes in 10 minutes, so on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I'd get up and shower and go to breakfast, back up four flights of stairs to my room, brush my teeth and get my backpack and go to the main campus at 8 am, back to swimming at 9 am, then I'd be expected to be dressed and looking presentable in a shorthand class at 10 am and then I'd go back to the dorm and be very ready for lunch at noon). 

Ten years later, my health would fall apart, while I was working for the University, through funding from the National Park Service. One day I woke up with the alarm to go to work and --- I just couldn't wake up and get up. My eyes wouldn't stay open and look where I wanted them to look, until mid morning. I showered and drove to work (which was at a remote research campus) and walked up the slight incline from the parking lot into the building and started up the stairs to my office and had to stop on the landing halfway up and rest. I sought the advise of my general practice MD, PCP they were called then, and fortunately he knew generally what it was and that there was one group of doctors (ENTs) who had gotten information / training from National Jewish Hospital in Denver. And after the first doctor there misdiagnosed and provided a medication that actually made me almost pass out in the shower the first morning after I'd taken it, I went back to the one that my doctor had recommended in the first place (stating he was easier to understand, they were all from India and I'd worked with Indians and had no problem understanding them after time). 

I was fortunate that he said to me "I know you're not going to feel like exercising, but if you can just go out and walk and don't go past when you are tired, and keep doing that as much as you can, it will help".  And I did, and it did!  

That fall I joined the health club near my house, and when they started a yoga class (imagine that, it was NEW at some point, and that was 1990ish, so funny when you see how common it is today). To this day I use what I learned from that instructor, in that class, every day.  The practice I'd had for years of meditation and yoga with a focus on the breath was in my internal 'toolbox' when I had surgery in 2006 and there was mismanagement within the nursing and doctoring (he wasn't supervising them close enough because in the past he'd never had to, but it was the timeframe that the nursing program graduated a new batch of RNs and they'd gotten a lot of them and the more experienced staff had been ousted somehow, voluntarily and not I ended up hearing a lot of stories). 

Then for my 31st birthday, my husband bought us Rollerblades, it was something he wanted to get into. So I did and we did! And I enjoyed that through most of my 30s and sustained very few injuries, but they were rather significant. And with what overall went on within my body and what I was learning about things that were extenuating circumstances, I guess you'd say, I've gotten away from that. And somewhere in there I got out of the 'habit' of 'doing yoga', but I realize that I had figured out how to incorporate a lot of the movements into my daily routine (putting on lotion, for one example). And walking has been my 'staple' throughout. When I badly sprained an ankle in 2001, in the fall and it was a year for rehabilitating it to where I could safely walk beyond paved surfaces, I had a relapse of symptoms (that were identified as 'fibromyalgia' in those days). 

BUT at that time I was listening to a lot of live blues music, as my beau and I had gotten into that. So I was getting out at least once a week to wiggle around. Many things that others enjoy frustrate me because of incoordination. I really didn't realize how uncoordinated I was until I was in college and my future husband and I took a country western 'swing' dance class. I thought he was this science brain, jock (football) who had done martial arts and had a similar upbringing to me as we grew up together. I thought he'd struggle with learning it and I'd just sail through. It did not work that way, I was needing things broken down for me. And we'd practice and then go out dancing and then you'd not have known anything 'was wrong' with me.

But as I continued to learn about what I have going on inside that's causing a variety of symptoms, I now recognize that it's interrelated with what has been considered 'fibromyalgia'. (I was diagnosed in 1998/9 but had symptoms kick up in 1994, after regaining a higher level of wellness by age 31 when I got the in-line skates I referred to, above, than I had EVER had.

This is why I'm encouraging people if they've lost their wellness, recently or long ago, to find ways to get movement into your daily routine. And if you think of yourself as 'well' and are wanting to stay that way, to look into new ways to keep growing and moving as well. Please look at what's in this forum, and it will be a 'grate' start.  

Sometimes people are 'bound' to their chairs, couches, beds because they've been so taken down by chronic illness. Some sort of movement is needed; as an occupational therapist, I learned that if someone is unable to move, they will be moved 'passively' with the trained professional or whomever cares for the individual being the active one. Find something you ENJOY, that brings those 'happy chemicals' to you beyond what happens simply from the circulation and inspiration that goes on with 'movement'. Remember to seek out the professionals who can help you, sometimes insurances will pay for things that are really helpful to people, and sometimes there are providers who aren't recognized by organized medicine, but they're VERY helpful (such as Analli and Kohava in this forum who so kindly provided information at Lumigrate to help others learn about what they do and find helps people.  

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! ~ Mardy

NOTE from Mardy, September 13, 2014 - I modified this topic to make it current and reflective of what Lumigrate YOUsers are looking for in today, which was very different than our audience in 2009. (It had 388 reads in all that time).

Comments

Sat, 09/13/2014 - 4:59am

#1 [2]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

Adding a comment to bump this up in the list

I revised this in 2014. In it's original form, it was created within weeks of when Lumigrate started and if someone read it today without knowing the whole history of Lumigrate and where we started out inside an integrative health clinic that was new and floundered on it's original plan and lead to us all going our separate ways (with new people coming into the clinic, 'turnover'), they'd not understand AT ALL what they were reading. I was going to go to a pilates seminar at the clinic and report about that (and try to get the presenter to register at Lumigrate and write about it).  

I was then soliciting people to comment, and we really didn't get users registering and writing until May when, through Facebook, we gathered a lot of attention and got 'off the ground' with women who were active about the fibromyalgia awareness day. And we were really lucky to have many wise women register and write, our content really was very good, and you'll see examples of that in this forum. Often people who wrote and took the time to register and do a photo and signature and all that were asked by me to do so. And sometimes I'd get up and to the website and see a gold star indicating something NEW and I'd find a gem from a new user having registered.

Then we got vandals, spammers, and I'd already been concerned about 'forums' and people who are not qualified stating things that others might act on. Really, people have TONS of places they can go for talking with others now, and seeing what cohorts would advise, and we had so many experts registered to write that I opted to keep it very limited who was adding new content. SO that our YOUsers, as I call them now, can find great leads here in terms of places to learn from on the Internet (or books, DVDs etc), and lessen their efforts while keeping the likelihood of getting great information that helps them. And by 2012/13 I was finding that I was spending so much time trying to build new connections and relationships for experts, or maintaining the ones we had, that our content was lagging behind what I'd like to see be on Lumigrate. So we've been in a phase since then where I've provided all the new content, mixing with the layer of all the amazing experts we have on a wide variety of areas of specialties they have, and then the formative times in 2009/10 when we got off the ground in the forums with the wise women with fibromyalgia who were not 'professionals'.  

(In a 2011 activity for 'awareness day', I asked people to write about what they thought fibromyalgia was and if it was curable or not, as I wanted us to go beyond 'awareness', to educated. And Analii, who is a provider in this forum, came out of the closet and realized she'd felt that as a provider she shouldn't say that she had some sensitivities and symptoms of chronic complex illness. And she shared about her massive breakdown that occurred in her health at one point when she was exposed to a lot of chemicals. I've always particularly enjoyed when I see the providers having 'aha moments' when interacting about fibromyaliga education, that was something that happened in our live forums in 2007 when Dr Young heard April Schulte-Barclay (who was newly hyphenated and married at that time) say something about traditional Chinese medicine's approach to the body and a 'dot connected' that had never made sense to him when looking from the allopathic model of medicine which he (and I) were immersed in via our education and working experience. And then in 2008 I was immersed in the integrative center and have then continued on with Lumigrate lighting the path to health and well-being using a functional medicine and integrative medicine approach to the content we provide.  

 

__________________

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate [1] and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!

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