In article <961111191342_225330...@emout07.mail.aol.com>, Cheryl Holmberg
<Grey
...@AOL.COM> wrote:
> My grandmother is reading me an article in the Nov. issue of Readers Digest.
> They are talking about exercise and accupuncture and meditation and I don't
> know what else. I have to read it to really know what it is talking about.
> Anyway here goes another article about how all the meds we are taking are
> making us sicker. My grandmother now thinks that if I would quit taking meds
> and start exercise esp. swimming I would be better.
Amazingly enough, I still have thing thing laying around. Here is what it
said, and I quote:
Andrea Schmitt was 19 years old when she was injured in a car accident.
Afterward she suffered from fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by
widespread chronic pain in the neck, spine, shoulders, and lower back.
The paid was so severe that Schmitt had trouble sleeping, and was forced
to give up volleyball and bowling. She took muscle relaxants,
painkillers, and inti-inflamitory drugs: they brought no relief, but
caused jitteriness and weight gain.
Finally after 25 long years and at least 8 doctors, Schmitt tried a
totally different kind of treatment. A team of specialists at the Pain
Evaluation and Treatment Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center taught her stretching exercises for her damaged muscles, relaxation
techniques and new pain-preventing ways of doing her
work............Chronic pain...lasts longer than three months and often
for years. While potent drugs are often prescribed, they aren't always
the best way to relieve chronic pain.
[ommission of paragraph about NSAIDS]
Today, many leading chronic-pain clinics are encouraging patients to cope
with pain using drug-free-therapies. Treatments once considered offbeat,
such at biofeedbackand meditation, are being used all across the
country.......
The rest of the article describes biofeedback and meditation and
life-style changes. Of course, in a very Reader's Digest way,
autobiographical info is added for effect. Basically, I wasn't impressed
with the article, probably because it doesn't sound like anything new to
me.
My impression of the article is that it is misleading for people who don't
know the full symptoms of FM. Some illogical leaps are made, the most
notable that muscles achiness cause sleep disturbances. they seem to have
is backwards. I wonder who they were talking about. The article is found
on page 135. I would never think of using this magazine as a bona fide
source. We keep it in the bathroom, for a little light reading. Thats as
far as it goes. Hope I didn't offend anyone by baggin on the magazine.
They're just a wee bit biased.
Michele
