browser life

I reached a milestone today, at least the best I've done in two years: 15 minutes on the Gazelle glider. Yes, I know it's only half the amount of exercise the Sioux Falls rheumatologists I've seen so far have pushed me to do, but, hey, you gotta start somewhere. There are plenty of people with autoimmune disorders and/or fibromyalgia who cannot exercise at all.

For me, it's real progress. I hadn't been able to use the glider at all for a year because of shortness of breath that I now know to be exercise-induced asthma. I had to start all over again (my best time ever was 25 minutes in May 2006) with a measly five minutes in March that was surprisingly painful and not surprisingly exhausting.

I am frustrated, though, that is has taken me five months to increase my time by only 10 minutes. You know how they say to increase a workout in baby steps? Well, this has been more like amoeba steps.

And today's victory seems a bit hollow. At the 12 minute mark, I was getting more spasms than usual, and during the last minute, my feet went numb. And I am so weary I can hardly put one thought in front of another, a sure indicator that I'm gonna have to back off a bit.

But according to Tony Little's annoying video, I have progressed from the beginner to the medium level (or whatever he calls it - I'm too wiped out to remember exactly), which is something, I suppose. It's just tough to be patient with myself. But if I can work my way into doing 15 minutes consistently, I can remind myself that I have tripled my time since I started, which sounds more impressive, heh heh.

I'm hoping that I will have added to the time before I see the new rheumatologist September 22. I want to be told by a specialist that I am doing a good job instead of being criticized for not getting a cardiovascular workout (I still can't exercise hard enough to raise my heart rate past 90 or so). I am still doing aquacise three days a week in addition to the other three days a week on the Gazelle, so that should count for something.

What's sad is that exercise is considered a "cure" for fibromyalgia, yet my progress doesn't seem to have helped it one bit. It's a Catch 22 because poor tolerance of exercise is a feature of fibromyalgia, so doing too much can actually make it worse. What the so-called experts have failed to grasp is that the definition of how much is enough varies wildly from patient to patient, so tossing out a guideline like 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity three days a week might work for someone with a mild case who is already fit, while someone with a severe case could land themselves in the hospital doing the same workout.

Wonder how these "experts" would fare if they had to do the same workout while, say, fighting a severe case of the flu? Still wouldn't hurt as bad as fibromyalgia does, but the fatigue level might be comparable. Maybe we could make them work out during a migraine or something?

Ok, now I'm flaky enough to be getting silly. No self-respecting medical "expert" would be caught dead using a Gazelle, heh heh.