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Lupus Symptoms In Women And Pacing

Lupus patients are often told that they need to pace themselves to ease the symptoms in women, doing this will make life easier and less tiring. I have found though, like many other sufferers, that lupus pacing to reduce lupus symptoms in women is not easy to do. Family and work commitments make pacing yourself very difficult, as things always need to be done by a given time.

For many years my Rheumatologist has told me that it is very important to pace myself to reduce the lupus symptoms in women. What I hadn’t realised though, was that my understanding of pacing myself was very different to his own idea of my pacing myself. This went on for many years until my symptoms became too much and I attended a pain management presentation.

My understanding of pacing myself was to split my day up into sections. I would start by having breakfast and getting my four young children off to school. Then, once they had gone, I would start on the housework and do as much as possible before lunch fighting through lupus symptoms in women.

After lunch I would relax or catch up with friends. I would prepare tea next and then spend time with my family: running my children to numerous activities, reading books, playing games and helping them with their homework; this did reduce the lupus symptoms in women slightly.

As I was saving my afternoons for quiet, restful time I thought this was what pacing myself meant. What I hadn’t realised was that, by doing so much in the mornings, my resting time was not helping me; my pacing wasn’t effective and my lupus symptoms in women were not getting better. It was only allowing me to get through to the end of the day before falling into bed exhausted with the symptoms for women as bad as they were in the morning.

What my Rheumatologist meant by pacing was not to tire myself out by doing a lot all in one go, but to break my day up into smaller sections and also to have lots of breaks in between tasks. Only real pacing like this would reduce the lupus symptoms in women.

Lupus Symptoms In Women And Pacing

Once I understood this is what pacing myself meant, I changed my whole life and sure enough the lupus symptoms in women became more manageable.

Now I would get the children up and ready for school, then have a coffee break and plan what needed to be done throughout the day. If I were having a day where I felt ill, I would decide if it were possible to leave some chores for another day and only complete the important ones. After this, pacing myself was easier; I would make a start on the tasks whilst listening to my body and having plenty of rest breaks. Some days I would have to stop more often than others, depending on how well I felt but at the end of each day I was sure that my symptoms were easier to cope with.

An average morning went from no rest breaks at all to at least two or three. This meant that because I was pacing myself I spent longer doing the chores, but; I was not wearing myself out, so the rest in the afternoon was more beneficial and eased my symptoms.

After keeping to this way of life for a few weeks my family and I found that I was coping better with life: feeling happier with myself, not in so much pain and I even had more energy due to my proper understanding of pacing. The lupus symptoms in women I had been suffering from were gradually getting easier to deal with.

On my good days I am still tempted to do too much as I hate to see things not being finished. I also think that if I get it done now I will have more free time later, however; this is not the case. What usually happens when I don’t stick to my pacing is that I find I need to rest more and the lupus symptoms in women get worse. My husband is now much more helpful and he reminds me not to do too much.

There are exceptions to this pacing that I have put into place and these are family days out and family holidays. I want to be able to keep up with my family and join in with activities. These times are very special for me and I am not prepared to let my Lupus symptoms in women rule this part of my life. So, pacing becomes even more important to ease the lupus symptoms in women. When something has been planned, I always make sure that I have two or three days afterwards free so that I can rest and refresh myself, I can promise you that I really need to do this to properly reduce my symptoms again.

For the last few years I have been struggling with a Lupus flare which has put a lot of stress on my family and myself, as well as making the lupus symptoms in women worse. This means that pacing myself has become essential, I have also had to think about other things I can do to make life easier for myself and reduce my symptoms.

Food shopping was a very big problem for me because the pain and lack of energy made it very difficult to keep on top of, the symptoms for women were unbearable. Pacing myself helped but if something has to be done, it cannot always be moved to another day.

There have been many times when I have stood in the queue to pay and I thought I was going to pass out, as I felt so ill and my symptoms were so bad. The solution to this was very easy; I started to do my food shopping on the Internet. I always made arrangements for it to be delivered when someone else was at home to help me put it away so I didn’t make my symptoms worse.

Having four children, all with different interests, wanting to be at different clubs at different times all over the place was beginning to be a real problem for symptoms for women and for stress. I couldn’t keep pacing myself because their activities were essential to them. There were times when I was so tired that I felt I wasn’t safe to drive. This is when I had to accept help from my friends because my symptoms had got so bad.

At first it felt like I had lost my independence by asking them to take my children to clubs but I knew it would ease my lupus symptoms in women and in fact increase my independence in the long term.

Once my children were old enough, they made their own way to places using the local bus service. It worried me a lot that my children were going to places on their own, would they be safe? This is when mobile phones became very important for us all to have; any problems and they rang me. They also began to take themselves school uniform and clothes shopping and their freedom made it easier to reduce my lupus symptoms in women and pacing.

This has had a good effect on my children, as they are not only very independent but also very caring and affectionate to others. My lupus symptoms in women and pacing is very important to me and my family, as it makes life so much easier for us all.