Hi, Carolyn! You caught me in Heerlen in the Netherlands on our working vacation. DH just finished the work part and now comes our 2 weeks of seeing Germany and ancestor hunting. Yes, I was diagnosed with Fibro about 20 years ago and gardening is one of the few things that I can do that seems to make me feel better...I highly recommend it! I can not walk on City sidewalks or shopping malls for very long at all but on the soft earth in my garden I can work outside for hours, resting when I need to then returning to the job. WIth a disorder like Fibro that makes us feel so crummy, Gardening, with its wonderful sensory experiences, is a real upper. I do get my guy to dig holes for me (Bad arthritis in my knees) and he runs the rototiller and mows lawns but I do everything else myself. Part of the secret is to learn to pace yourself...never work to exhaustion just to finish something...slow and steady with breaks when ever you are getting tired will get you thre sooner. I do not listen to my own advice so currently am touring Europe with cortisone shots in both knees and one hip...the hip due to bursitis caused by sitting on the ground and butt scooting along to weed a row of sunflowers. I thought I was saving my back and knees by working this way and was so proud of how much I had done, LOL. The bursitis hit me about 2 days later and I am on my second shot for it. I think with Fibro one of the things that makes me feel better and cuts down on the pain is any gentle activity that keeps the blood flowing through the tender muscles and bringing fresh oxygen to them. I know that gentle stretching exercises make my pain better, where as sitting in the house guarding my pain makes it worse! The wonderful colors and textures, the armth of the sun, th esound of birds and wind,,,,all help with the depression that accompanies Fibro. I not only hsve a huge garden, I run a cut flower business. It make sme just enough money to order more plants and bulbs and tubers and seeds and buy an occasional load of compost. I love my business though and it keeps me out among people in a way I can manage energy wise. I do take muscle relaxor to sleep at night, and pain pills when that is not enough, as well as arthritis meds. They have all been part of making this work for me, and I have an excellent Dr who understands fibro and works with me to manage it on my terms. Experiment...find out if this works for you. My buddy with fibro can not work out when it is cold and I can not tolerate the heat. By the way, I do not dig my dahlias every fall! I divide them about every 3 years in the springtime, and only do as much in any one day as I can without pain. I mulch with straw or co mpost in the fall, what ever I have around. WOrks for me! work to improve you soil, stay away from chemicals that could react with our poor immune systems, and just plain enjoy the garden. And last but not least..I am having amazing results from treatment for sleep Apnea...I am really excited about it!

Paula, I can't believe you had to go to work in this mess. Well, yes I can, because it is the FAA after all. You be careful out driving in this and especially walking on the parking lots and sidewalks! So many people are falling and breaking bones and stuff. Tracy, I'm just across the river from Gainesville and while I-35 is a mess, Gainesville itself is basically fine. As far as I know, their power has remained on more or less and they only had 3-4" of snow. Some people on the Texas side of the Red River have had minor rolling blackouts where the power is out for about 15 minutes at a time about once every couple of hours, but I think that all occurred yesterday and not today, and I don't even know if the affected area included Gainesville. I know it included a lot of the D-FW metroplex. DH drives through Gainesville on his way to work and thought Gainesville seemed fine once you get away from the low-lying river valley area along the highway where all the traffic problems are occurring. If you want to see the Gainesville news, you can go to KXII.com or visit the webpage of the Gainesville newspaper, which I've linked below. Most of the "bad news" (other than travelers rolling over on or sliding off of I-35) locally seems to be coming more from the Sherman and Denison area than from the Ardmore, Marietta, and Gainesville area, if that is any consolation. Maybe your friends are down in Fort Worth for the Stock Show? I'm sorry to hear the cold has hit your plants so hard. It doesn't seem fair that the cold would hit y'all that hard after you already had to endure all the summer heat. Hang in there and when your DH finishes his degree, y'all can move back here where the weather is more normal. Well, OK, not exactly normal, but you know what I mean. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Gainesville Daily Register

devorah Luckily at this time my dot is not struggling. The 1st 2 yrs was hell tho. She missed more than 3/4ths of Jr high. My very active sports oriented honor student could not lift a plastic cup to take a drink it was to heavy. She could not say her ABC's or count to 5. The tutor school sent out for her in home schooling would show up and a lot of the time we could not wake her up for tutoring. If she did wake up she would forget 5 mins after he left that he had been here. It was a real struggle to keep her awake for her lessons. Yet this child knew she belonged in school and often tried to go to school at 1 or 2 am because she was late for school or wanted to get there in time. This is while she has the dog on a leash going down a full flight of steps with her pants down around her ankles. We'd say pull your pants up she would say they are up then we'd say well push them down and THEN they came up. Then we still had to struggle with this very strong 200 lb kid to keep her in the house and not going out the door for school. Often her eyes was not even open she was sleep walking. Dot could not go to that bathroom by herself she didn't know the tub from the toliet. Argued everytime that the tub was for pottying in and the toliet was for bathing. Bathing was another story she fell asleep in the shower and tub so I had to sit her in the tub and bathe her. Then it was a real challenge to wake her so I could get her back out of the tub. Oh it was real scary when she would fall asleep mid step while crossing the street and we couldn't wake her up. HMMMM wonder why we only took her out when we had to. Then she got to the point she couldn't even walk. WE finally was able to get dot on a med that works well for her and she's doing VERY VERY WELL now. To have came back the way she has just amazes us. Hopefully she will never have to struggle again like she did in the past.

Thank you! I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome 20 years ago. I am almost 59. I take some other supplements, but I am trying the coral calcium as soon as i can get out to buy it. I am retired now, which helps but still find when I have a really active busy day that the next day I am a couch potato. tried some prescriptions early on, but did not like the side effects. thanks again