Surviving Daily Household Tasks When you Have Fibromyalgia
There are a lot of household tasks that must be done on a daily basis whether or not you have a disease or condition. When the condition you have is fibromyalgia these daily household tasks can be very challenging to complete because of the symptoms of fibromyalgia specifically the pain and fatigue. Here are a few tips that should help you to survive these daily household tasks with your dignity and your body intact.
Neck and shoulder stress is one factor that causes a challenge when it comes to completing common household chores. You can utilize tools and alternative ways of accomplishing these tasks in order to save you from experiencing the stress in your neck and shoulder.
The operative word that compels you to achieve this in many of these household tasks is: support. You really have to be aware of supporting your arms as much as possible when you do the physical work yourself. You can use pillows that are designed to support your body or by supporting your arms.
Pillows are great for other support tasks outside of doing housework too. Just think of any situation in which you are in need of support to your arm muscles such as: when you drive a car. Most of us have our forearms or elbows hanging or trying to rest them to the side of us while driving. Why not use a support pillow placed to the side of us for added support? Now apply that “mental image” you have and think of ways to support your arms while doing household tasks. When leaning to wash windows support the arm you are leaning on with a pillow. Now, do you get the idea of using a support pillow?
Speaking of driving, let us stay on the subject for a little while longer and imagine placing one of the wheel covers around your steering wheel. The one I am imagining I already have on mine, and I know that it helps to prevent my hands from slipping or loosing my grip on the wheel. It also is larger than the original wheel and allows my fingers to spread out more, so they don’t cramp up as much.
OK, now this is what you need to do for all your household tasks. Think of tools that will make your body more comfortable as you perform these tasks, just like the wheel cover makes my fingers more comfortable and allows my hands to grip better.
Obviously reaching above your shoulders and head can cause strain on your body so make sure that you are utilizing tools to help ease strain. A good tool for when you need to reach is a step stool. Use a step stool for when you are cleaning or organizing the kitchen instead of reaching. The stool should be high enough to allow you to easily reach shelves, cupboards and windows without raising your arms over shoulder height. Make sure you are using a sturdy and steady step stool. You can also use a step stool when completing tasks in the garage or bedrooms too.
Think about using a long-handed, collapsible pole for when you need to reach up and grab things like when you need to reach that switch on your overhead ceiling fan. Use the collapsible pole or another similar gadget designed to grab things when you are in need of picking things up from the floor. They make these long metal contraptions that are designed to pick up dog stool, that work wonders picking up anything in your yard or on the floor in your home. When making purchases think “outside the box” at the design of a tool to make good use of it in doing tasks around the house and not just the task for which it was originally designed.
Use a long-handled mop to scrub out your bathtub. This method is much better than bending over and scrubbing with something in your hand!
Organize your cleaning supplies and tools so that you have them on all floors of your home. This way you do not have to make extra steps getting them from one central location. For instance, when you notice some dusting that can easily be done while you are sitting near the end table or coffee table etc.