OK, now the CHEAP TRICKS...

• Get an eggcrate mattress cover at your local department store. Really helps you sleep better when a regular mattress feels like you're lying on a marble slab. About $35.00.

• Trade massages with a friend. No cost, fun and relaxing. What? No friends? Go to a local massage therapy school and have the more advanced students work on you. Usually low or no cost. Make friends with a massage therapist, if you can find one locally, and barter child care, web design, bookkeeping, or whatever you do, for massage therapy.

• Stretch every day. Stretch before you even get out of bed. Do what feels good to your body but go very easy the first few days. Or get a good video like Stretching Made Easy One Day At A Time, available at Amazon.com.

• Get a Brita water filtration pitcher instead of bottled water. (I can't lift those giant bottles of water anyway). Questionable things are in our water supply. About $25.00
  
  
  
• Go to your local essential oils for aromatherapy provider. For the following conditions, put a few drops of suggested oils on a cotton puff and place in room:

  (WARNINGS! Please consult an aromatherapist before using ANY oil if you are pregnant or have high blood pressure, epilepsy, severe allergic responses or asthma. Never apply essential oils directly onto the skin - always combine with base oil. Avoid accidental ingestion - Keep out of reach of children and pets!)

  • Environmental Stress (fluorescent light, ringing phones) - use cedarwood, chamomile or bergamot.
  • Mental Stress (finances, unemployment, taking exams) - use patchouli, lavender or sandalwood.
  • Emotional Stress (grief, guilt, relationship problems) - use sandalwood, rose or cardamom.
  • Chemical Stress (inhaling smoke, overdoing caffeine, food or alcohol, pollution) - use lemon, patchouli or rosemary.
  • Physical Stress (overdoing exercise, driving long distances, fatigue) - use chamomile, lavender or geranium.

• All the above are cost less than most prescription drugs. They really work, are not addicting and smell great, too. If you need to leave your home while under any of these stressors, put a few drops on a tissue or handkerchief and casually sniff it from time to time. Make your own body oil by using 10+ drops in an ounce of base oil such as sweet almond oil. The oils mentioned here are approx. $5.00-25.00 per 1/3 oz. Rose is one of the more expensive essential oils. My resource for oils is AROMALAND. Call and get their beautiful catalog. My opinion is that their oils are the purest I've found. They are effective and pleasant to use and do not cause an allergic reaction in an environmentally sensitive person like me.

• Another good resource for pure products made from essential oils is V'TAE, 41A Commercial St., Nevada City, CA - tel: 800-643-3011. Or visit their website V'Tae. They use pure, distilled water from Nevada County and very small amounts of alcohol (made from corn) in their products. I swear by their "Stress Relief Water" and "Sleep Soother Smelling Salts" (these work so well, I may eventually be able to stop the sleeping meds!). I think I have never smelled anything as beautiful as their "Sensuality Water". When you're feeling icky, it's always nice to at least smell good. These products really work, are extremely pure, the company is owned and operated by women, and their packaging is made at a sheltered workshop by disabled individuals. All 'round, worthy of a call or visit.

• You are obviously on the Internet, so go to the Fibromyalgia Newsgroup (hello FMily!) and get your daily dose of support, interesting ideas and questions. My opinion is that this is the one best thing you can do for yourself if you have FMS/MPS/CFIDS. Contribute yourself and you will raise your endorphin levels by helping someone else. Eliminates the isolation FMS can cause. Cost involved is basically your time.

• I found these great medicated patches in my local herb shop (try your nearest big city's Chinatown district). They are called "JAKO - Medicated Bone Strengthening Plasters". They are incredible! Slap one on and that pesky shoulder and neck pain, especially, disappears. Price (in San Francisco) is $1.00 for 5 patches! (Note: Sorry, I don't know of any catalogs or other outlets that carry the JAKOs.) Also try Salonpas patches. I think they work as well as the JAKOs and are a little more gentle on sensitive skin. You can get them at Walgreen's and Long's Drugs or ask your local pharmacist.

• giving your money to doctors who do not/ can not/will not understand and treat your Fibromyalgia. Always confirm that a new doctor treats/understands/is up-to-date on Fibromyalgia BEFORE you make an appointment with her/him. Any decent doctor will give a potential new patient a 5-10 minute consult on the phone (or in person) without charge. Ask the doctor what his/her definition of Fibromyalgia is. If you hear things like "wastebasket diagnosis", "psychosomatic", "hypochondriac", "patient is usually just depressed", or "how do you spell that?" you know that you need to keep looking. Call the Fibromyalgia Network or The Arthritis Foundation (see my FMS Bookshelf page) to get names of GOOD doctors in your area that treat Fibromyalgia. They ARE out there, it just takes some searching on your part. Potential to save $1000s. Better yet, email FibroBetsy (see below).

  Betsy (kindness@fibrobetsy.com) recommends only patient-referred, fibro-literate doctors. She needs to know exactly where you live. If yours is a small town, DO give her the names of other nearby larger cities or towns. You'll also receive along with doctors' names, a bunch of FMS info including a short resource list, a treatment modality list, abstracts from some major MDs, and a list of coping strategies.

  She welcomes names of doctors but only if they're patient-recommended, and she only needs their full names and degrees, phone numbers and city or town they're in. If you have time to add a few comments about the doctor, terrific, but this is optional.

  Also, Betsy is so swamped with emails, that she automatically deletes any group emails no matter what the subject is, so please omit putting her email address on these group emails or "forwards" (and mine, too...thanks!)

  

• Try some of the tricks in Penn & Teller's book "How to Play With Your Food".You'll be laughing before you know it and will forget all about your pain. (Note: If you are at all shaky today, please leave the "Stabbing a Fork Into Your Eye" trick for a day when you're feeling better. Instead, try some of the card tricks so you don't get hurt.) About $20.00 in bookstores for hours of tricky fun! Or, for some real endorphin boosting, pick up a copy of the movie Penn & Teller Get Killed and you'll get a real look at these bad boys' twisted, diabolical and excrutiatingly funny minds. Pick up their newest book "How to Play in Traffic" for more laughs when you're feeling down.

• 
  You know those times when nothing is working? - not the pain meds, the heating pad, the ice pack, your significant other's massages, etc.? That's the time to break out the movies and books and try distracting yourself from your pain. I'm telling you, it works! I tape the "The Osbournes" and, when things get really bad and I'm totally strung out with the pain and ready to hurl the medicine bottles against the wall and cry hysterically from the frustration of it all, I just slap one of the tapes in the vcr and get lost in Ozzy's family for a while. (Sometimes crying hysterically and hurling things around helps, too; but keep it to a minimum or you'll scare people. Also, this tactic should only be done in the privacy of one's home - do not attempt this at work.) I also have a stash of vintage Jerry Lewis movies, the master of physical comedy and the pantomime, that not only make me laugh, but also transport me back to the 50s and 60s, when life seemed so much simpler. Good choices are The Errand Boy, The Bellboy, and The (original) Nutty Professor.

• Speaking of laughing and movies, you can also take your pick of any of Jim Carrey's movies, and just laugh yourself sick, or un-sick, I should say. In my opinion, he is the funniest man alive and real easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean. There was a time when watching "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective" was the only thing that helped me out of a major depressive slump. A dose of Jimmy-Gene beats Zoloft any day of the week! Check out my links to some great Jim Carrey Web sites on my Cool Things I Like page and catch a few movie wavs to brighten up your day. OK, OK, I'm a HUGE fan! Allllrightythen!!!

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