Fibromyalgia - Cutting Through the Fog Know as Fibrofog

Living with "fibrofog" is not easy. It can make a simple drive home from work an adventure as you make a wrong turn despite having driven this route a thousand times before. It can mean forgetting the milk, even though all you went to the store for is bread and milk! It can mean, despite having a perfectly good vocabulary, forgetting the word "groceries" when you get home from the store and are trying to tell your spouse about your day. It is one of the few symptoms among fibro sufferers that is universal, and the doctors don't know exactly what causes it. A recent study suggests that it is caused by the brain being so overwhelmed by all the pain information that it simply can't process other information. This seems logical to me, knowing how many aches and pains I have!

So, what can be done to overcome the fog?

For starters, lists!

I bought a dry erase board for my kitchen, and I keep a list of the day's chores and upcoming events for the month there. Every evening, I double check with my husband what needs to be done the following day. (As an example, tomorrow I need to clean the kitty litter boxes, do dishes, straighten the living room, and do my yoga stretches.) And I do write down everything I need to do, even if it's something I do every day, like the dishes and yoga. I stagger chores that require a lot of bending and stretching, or physical activity. Tomorrow, I do the kitty litter boxes. Saturday I'll do the vacuuming. Sunday I'll do the laundry. Those three chores require a lot of physical effort, so I don't do them all the same day, because it's just too difficult.

I digress.