The Reality of living with Fibro Fog

Back in March, I wrote about Learning to Live with Fibro and during that post, I briefly mentioned Fibro Fog.  It is a memory problem that can affect people with Fibromyalgia and today I am going to talk about some of the reality of living with this.

My memory used to be superb

I’ll be honest I used to be really proud of my memory. When I was supply teaching I could walk into a classroom and by morning break I knew the names of all the children in the class. When I was learning scripts for stage (Amateur Dramatics), if I gave one my full attention I could learn it in about four reads through, let’s face it I didn’t often give them the type of complete attention needed to do this though because the rest of my life was all stuffed in my brain too. About three or four years ago I could still remember All of my lines from a show when I was about 17. Sorry, I’m not trying to brag just give you an idea of what was my normal.

Doesn’t everyone’s memory weaken with age?

Naturally, I’m in my early forties now and I expect my memory will have begun to slow down on its own. That whole Perimenopause thing seems to be rearing its head. People may be up to ten years older than I talk about going upstairs and forgetting why so within this decade of my life natural decay seems likely. Memory problems most often seem to occur when there are disruptions to a routine. Like for an example going up the stairs or answering the door. Fibro Fog is so much more than that!

Examples of Fibro Fog

Conversation

One of the regular effects of Fibro Fog I have had to get used to is it affecting my speech. This particularly happens when I am tired, I will be having a conversation and simply stop dead because I have got no idea what the word was I wanted to say. I am not talking about complicated expressions either simply basic everyday language. This can happen more than once in a sentence and it is completely disabling especially given the fact that I love words and language.

  Medication

This one can be potentially painful. I have alarms set on my phone when I need to take my medication and I keep my day’s pillbox next to my phone. I have a Pill Organiser System Like this from Amazon which is a really big help in getting organised.

When the alarm goes off though I can literally turn it off and forget to take the tablets. Sometimes it is because I do not have a drink at hand which I suppose is fair enough but other times I have everything I need right in front of me and I still turn the alarm off and forget to take them.

What I have done recently

 This one can be really frustrating but I sometimes find I can’t think what I have done when. I will mention something I thought I did yesterday to be told that was three days ago. I can even lose track within a day as to what I have done. I can forget the name of the book I am reading (even if I am loving it) or not know what series number I am currently watching on Netflix.

Concentration Ability

Sometimes my mind simply won’t work, even to do the simple or pleasurable things. I will be wanting to work on a craft project and can’t think what to do next. I don’t mean the creative block which everyone can get but simply how to do a fairly basic crafting technique that I know well. I will be sitting in front of my computer pondering over how to do some simple process (I am a computer geek so before Fibro that would have been unheard off, I was the one helping everyone around me!)

Quick Fixes

There are some things in the list that are harder to work with but other simple things I can do to try and help the situation. The first idea I am going to trial is to set a 17:45 alarm on my phone to tell me to get a drink. There is virtually no chance I will have drunk a pint within 45 minutes so when my 18:00 alarm goes off I will already have a drink available and I will be less likely to switch the alarm off and forget to take the tablets. I’ll let you know how I get on with this.

Creating Beautiful Memories

I am really excited about this one actually. To help with the problem of not remembering what I have done when I have got myself a Happy Planner from Amazon. I saved a small fortune by getting one that finishes this December (they are 18 months) so I can use the rest of this year then update the rest of the pages with new date stickers to repurpose all the out of date pages. By the time I have used those pages I plan on totally designing my own from scratch so this beautiful planner will last until I fancy a new cover at which point I will do the same again or even just create my own cover and laminate it.

I have been using my Butterfly planner I talked about in January but found I just wrote things in it, ticked them off or put a forward arrow to carry it over to another day. It was functional but didn’t look great even though the butterflies were pretty round the edges. Happy Planners are so much more than a diary. They allow you to create a beautiful record of your day and are fantastic for crafty people. You just need to do a simple Google search for Happy Planner stickers and there are so many available so you can customise it just as you like. I bought myself some full-size sticker sheets from Amazon so I can print of designs I find then cut them with my ScanNCut. Planning Bliss. I even have a sticker to record what I watched on Netflix. This only arrived yesterday but once I have some whole week spreads I will add some images for you to see. By the new year, I plan on designing my own stickers as well as creating some extra sections for my planner. My membership of Pixel Scrapper will help with this I am sure. Even if life is painful there is no reason to stop it being beautiful!

I can’t wait to share more with you about my planner / scrapbooking journey.

Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan