Trying to help my partner with her health

Hey Docs,

My gf has had a lot of health problems throughout her life. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when she was 16 and yesterday she was diagnosed with MS. From the little research I’ve done, I’ve seen that in combination with treatments from her physicians, nutrition and exercise can help. She’s 29yo, 6ft, 215lbs with little lean body mass. She experiences debilitating soreness from any exercise with impact. Even a light hike we took a couple months ago left her extremely sore for the next couple days. She attributes this to the fibro which very well may be the case. Swimming has been the only exercise she’s found that doesn’t really bother her but she’s struggled with consistency. Would you recommend she stick with the swimming, and if so what minimum frequency would you recommend? I’ve also tried to gently educate her about her diet. She should probably be in a caloric deficit as soon as she’s mentally and emotionally processed this diagnosis. I’m hoping that along with regular trips to her neuro, some lifestyle interventions could help her live a pretty normal lifestyle. I’ll certainly pick the brains of her MS specialist once we meet them, but if you could offer any advice I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks,
DC

Hi there,

This sounds like a difficult situation. Sorry to hear about it.

I think a lot of education pertaining to things like pain, exercise, nutrition, and coping strategies can be helpful here. I’d first recommend learning about pain (as a lot of the lessons can translate into other areas, like exercise). Good starting resources include Butler & Moseley’s book Explain Pain, as well as the phone app “Curable”. With this knowledge she’ll be better equipped to exercise with less fear and apprehension from things like soreness – but the dose of the exercise needs to be started in a tolerable range (e.g., it sounds like her capacity was too low for the light hike, and you may need to start lower and progress gradually). But you are correct that exercise can provide significant benefit for individuals with MS (and fibromyalgia). Nutritional interventions can certainly help, and she may need some professional assistance here if she’s unable to do it on her own (e.g., from an RD).

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Thank you for the thoughtful response