Strategies: A Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia Journey

By Tami Brady

Published by Baker & Taylor, Ingram Book Group ISBN 1932690484

Given to me by publisher through arrangement with ReviewtheBook

Tami Brady was a winner: She was one of the few graduate archaeologists able to work in the field of archaeology rather than drive a taxi or flip burgers. She succeeded in everything she tried to do. She supervised digs; she wrote; she journaled. She was married with two children.

Tami Brady was a loser. She was a perfectionist; her best wasn't good enough, and less than her best she simply wouldn’t do. She was in constant pain and exhaustion from chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. One day both legs gave out and she was stuck in a hole for a while. She forgot things in the “fibrofog” of lost memory.

Finally she managed to put the two sides of herself together and figure out to what extent her winning abilities caused, or at least triggered, her losing qualities. She was able to determine what she could do to get rid of the perfectionism and to ease the suffering of her ailments.

Not content with solving her own problems, she put together this book, which first details her wins and losses so that the readers may join her in figuring out the causes/triggers of their ailments, and see which of her solutions can help them. She goes on to create a chart of what to do if such-and-such a problem or such-and-such a disease trigger occurs, and then continues to create a workbook whereby the reader can determine his or her own triggers and figure out what helps them to heal as quickly as possible.

As a long-time sufferer of these two ailments--I am presently writing with a severe backache, and can't take any more meds until four hours from now--I can assure you that I will be trying out her suggestions. I already know that some of them work, and I expect that others also will help me. I recommend this book to anyone fighting chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, and particularly to those unfortunates who are combating both at once.

And having said that, I am going to follow Tami's advice and make myself horizontal for a while.

PS—I feel much better now, thank you.

Tags: CFIDS, chronic, fatigue, fibromyalgia, syndrome