Hello my name is Joe Reed. I'm the owner and founder of Trainouttapain.com
I am a health coach and a strength coach; AKA a personal trainer who specializes in helping people with fibromyalgia.
I've had fibromyalgia for a little over eight years. It was not diagnosed first as fibromyalgia. 4 00:00:30,00→ 00:00:36,00 And the neuropathy always made me scratch my head because I've had four nerve conduction tests and they were all normal.
Over the years, I've seen over thirty physicians, most of them specialists.
I have seen two acupuncturists, two chiropractors, and went to a holistic practitioner as well.
I spent thousands of dollars and never felt better.
I just kept getting worse and worse. No doctors gave me the blueprint,
no doctors have me a magic pill, nor did they give me any idea of how I could overcome and get better.
So, I had to kind of do some research myself. And over the years, I have studied all the things that your doctor's haven't.
What I have discovered over the years is the things that help me to beat fibromyalgia.
And when I say beat it, I really mean it. Because last year, 2018, I had four very small flare-ups.
The pain was very manageable and the fatigue wasn't too bad.
So far, I'm about at the end of March of 2019, and I have yet to have a single flare up this year.
But, you know, my story was pretty terrible and you'll probably relate to some of this stuff.
With all of the physicians I've seen, nobody really said, “Hey Joe this is what we want you to do, this is how you're going to get better.”
What I used was some mental tools. I went through a pain management course that gave me some great tools to allow me to think about my pain in a different way.
When before it was, “God, why me? Here we go again! How long am I going to be in bed this time?”
After I had those mental tools, I reacted a little differently and it started to make me feel better.
Then I started to move more. The first time I exercised in a few years, I walked a half mile.
If I had to walk another 10 steps, I would have had to crawl.
I lost my ability to walk a few years ago.
I had to apply for and was granted a handicap placard.
While I was still working at my previous job where I was a warehouse supervisor for a school district, I lost all of my abilities to do my job
I lost all of my grip strength to the point that I have screamed three times from lifting up a sheet of paper. I lost all of my hip strength and have fallen five times over the past few years.
The last time I have fallen was a little over three and a half years ago, and that was the turning point for me. I said I'm never going to fall again.
That's what really sent me down this path of discovery about my health, about my body, and about moving.
It's really the thing that changed my life.
My wife, who is disabled, was the one who was picking me up off the floor, because I physically could not pick myself up off the floor. It was one of the very worst feelings I've ever had.
When my wife and I moved in together, about four years ago, I had to move both of our places. We had a few people help us, but it was an eight to nine hour day of moving.
I spent the next four days in bed. When I finally got out of bed so we could go to Target,
I had to use one of their electric wheelchairs for the first time.
While I was working, my weekends were spent in a wheelchair or they were spent in bed.
It was really tough to work a physical job, and in May of 2015 I had to retire due to disability.
After I retired, I stayed in bed for the next nine months. I felt sorry for myself, I didn't do anything, and only made me worse.
It made me severely depressed, gave me a ton of anxiety.
My wife said, let's get out, let's go on a trip. I went up and saw my friend who is lives about twelve hours away.
While we're driving, I did a lot of thinking. I thought to myself that I'm not going to live this way anymore.
And when we got back, the next day is when I walked that half mile.
My pain started in the back of my left arm and went throughout my entire body. And it got so bad that a feather touch would make me scream.
The fatigue was overwhelming.
I got to the point that I really couldn't use my hands. I was dropping glasses of water all the time, I was not able to cut up my meals.
I remember really well, in December of 2015, at my family's Christmas party,
my wife was cutting up my meal and twisting off my water bottles and my sister-in-law looked over and said, "Is that real?"
I said yes, it's very real. Why would I ever have somebody do that for me? It's not like she was just catering to me. I just couldn't physically do it.
So, fast forward a couple of years and I’ve found that movement is something that really helped me feel better.
And it wasn't just like hey, we're going to go out we're going to squat and going to bench press.
It's not about exercise, it's about movement.
I found that it helped me. I started posting some videos online and I found that I was starting to inspire some people that have fibromyalgia like I do, or some other chronic illnesses.
And that really motivated me to learn as much as I can about fibromyalgia and autoimmunity and pain conditions so that I can help people like you.
I realize that you probably have been doctors who haven't given you any answers. You might have received a couple of medications that probably didn't help.
You might be on some opiates right now to try to alleviate your pain.
But, let me tell you, none of that stuff worked for me.
I want you to know that you're not alone and you're not your diagnosis. That is something that I really want to emphasize.
Because when I found out that I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I said, FINALLY, I have a diagnosis, something I can really hold tight onto.
Something that's become my identity. When I talked to people, "I'm Joe, I have fibromyalgia."
That's not a way to live. That's a great way to make yourself worse.
It's not going to take some crazy trek around the world, it's not going to take a magic pill.
It's going to take some effort on your part. But, I promise you, you can get better.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me. You can contact me via email at JOE@TRAINOUTTAPAIN.COM.
You can also use the contact button. I want to thank you for watching this video and I hope to talk to you soon.