Summer Cold + Fibromyalgia = Yuck!

Summertime is typically my favorite time of year. The weather tends to be warm with fewer barometric changes, so my pain levels tend to be a little more stable and easier to manage.  This means I get to spend more quality time with my family, which is incredibly important to me, and I am able to walk around outside more and participate in more activities.

This summer may be the exception.  I caught my first summer cold.  I have never had a cold in the summer before. Honestly, I didn’t even know it was possible!  I thought colds were simply the result of being in closer quarters with other people during the winter inside. But I actually caught a cold and it is the middle of summer.  And it has been miserable.

Actually, my youngest daughter caught a cold, and shared it with me.  Simply, picked up one used mucus filled Kleenex and didn’t wash my hands quickly enough.  Then just as the symptoms were starting to improve a bit after four days, my older daughter got the cold and I was down for the count again.  Both of my daughters ended up kicking the cold pretty quickly and were up and about within 48 hours, back to normal activities with a bit of a cough and sniffles at night.  Not me though.  Eleven days later, the cold is just hanging on, like some hideous leach sapping what little energy and strength I have. 

I have had some symptom relief and have managed to post a few things throughout this time and the first four days were not as bad as the last seven.  As a result, I am behind on my Ultimate Blog Challenge, but only by a few days.  I will catch up. 

The stuffed nose, sore throat, extra aches and pains (believe me no one with Fibro needs extra aches everywhere), fever, and chills have me feeling like a bus ran me over and left me on the side of the road.

In my opinion, summer colds are far worse than winter colds.  I’ve been stuck inside most of this time (which is not unusual during the winter months, especially as the seasons are changing), but feeling too icky to work on the computer at all or hang out with my family or enjoy the beautiful weather has me feeling grumpy.  Meanwhile, everyone else around me is out and about enjoying the summer weather and activities.

I did manage to post a few articles that I’d previously written, so my blog wouldn’t be totally stagnant as I snuggled in my blanket with warm tea and chills in 90 degree weather.  But it has been miserable.

So, is there anything I could have done to avoid the cold?  Well the most common advice for avoiding colds is to do some simple things.  

The table below shows the common rules of thumb to avoiding colds and the reason this is virtually impossible with a family and Fibromyalgia.  Warning: I am feeling a little bit grumpy at the moment, but at least I’m actually clearheaded enough to write this!

	Common Suggestions for Avoiding Colds	My Grumpiness About the Suggestions
1.	Wash Your Hands Frequently & Use Hand Sanitizer	Ok, well this I actually do without too much difficulty.  Although, if the pain is really bad, getting up to wash my hands all the time can be really painful. Fortunately, it’s not too tough to keep hand sanitizer relatively close by.  But being clear headed enough to actually use it frequently enough can be a quite the task, especially if the brain fog has rolled in.
2	Get Plenty of Sleep	Well, duh. Sleep is fantastic.  It’s also exceptionally elusive with Fibromyalgia and medicines don’t help much with the sleep issues.
3	Stay Well Hydrated	I have been drinking lots of water and 7-up (I splurge on it when I’m feeling especially sickly). Many of us with Fibro have Irritable Bowel Syndrome as well, which can sometimes manifest with diarrhea, making hydration even more difficult.
4	Eat a Balanced Diet	Sure, because I feel well enough to get up and cook a properly nutritious and balanced meal. Truthfully, when I’m sick on top of the Fibro, I am unable to move easily, I can’t think clearly enough to write, much less plan a meal, and I am not entirely sure I wouldn’t burn the house down (plus more heat from an oven to go with the fever, yikes!). Normally, I do try to eat a balanced diet, but once I have a cold, it’s really unlikely to occur.  My husband, bless his heart, doesn’t seem to know what a balanced meal is, so that’s not much of an option either.
5	Avoid contact with sick people	Yeah, fantastic idea and totally uncontrollable.  If your children get sick, the option to avoid them is impossible.  I mean really come on! No parent is going to avoid their children, especially when they are sick.  What’s more, when I used to work, people came to work sick all of the time and just passed it around through the building.  Avoiding sick people isn’t always possible. Enough said.

I’d like to be able to say getting back on my feet after this cold was easy, but it wasn’t.  I’m still sniffling and coughing as I write this, but treating the symptoms and trying to take it easy seems to be working – slowly!  I am doing well enough, that I’m planning to venture out into the world outside my house tomorrow, to go shopping for camp stuff for my younger daughter and a more comfortable swim suit for me.

I find myself wondering if other people with Fibromyalgia find summer colds to be this miserable.  The cold truly seems to be exacerbating my Fibro symptoms (especially the pain and brain fog).  But I keep telling myself at least there is a clear cause for this, so it’s probably not a Fibro flare-up, but this also seems to be a lot worse than colds that I’ve had in the winter time.

Do those of you with Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain and fatigue issues find colds to be more difficult to handle now than before you had Fibro or other conditions?   My experience with this cold is that it definitely makes everything worse for me, but I’m wondering do colds affect everyone with Fibro so badly or is this so especially miserable because it’s in the summer?