Patient Stories Project
Flexibility and Resilience: Anna’s Path to Managing Chronic Pain
Written by: Anna Samson and Dawn Richards
Anna is a queer, racialized young adult who lives with ankylosing spondylitis and fibromyalgia. Anna was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when they were 17 years old. Looking back, Anna feels it’s likely that being physically active helped them and even prevented them from being diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) until they were 20 years old.
As a child and teen Anna was active on school sports teams and recognizes now that they felt worse during the summer when they were less active. Given that movement often helps people who live with AS feel better, it now makes sense to Anna about why they felt worse in the summers than during the school year. As they got older, they lost interest in sports, and their pain got worse. In their early 20s, they were nearly bed-bound from their conditions.
When Anna’s family doctor recommended they see a physiotherapist, things started to click for them about movement. With their physiotherapist’s guidance, Anna learned and practiced basic stretches over the course of a year. Initially, they started with a lot of pain and little flexibility and progressed to the point where these stretches really helped them be able to move. To this day, even though Anna no longer has coverage for physiotherapy, they still do the exercises their physiotherapist taught them.
Anna feels that alongside the medication that they take to help their conditions, movement and exercise also play a big role in managing their conditions. Part of Anna’s approach is being intentional about movement throughout the day and as part of their daily life. For example, when they take public transit, sometimes they will walk to a station further from home, or if they’re feeling ok, they will walk more briskly than usual or take the stairs instead of the elevator to their second-floor apartment. Anna has also found that using a mobility aid like a cane or a rollator helps reduce pain and fatigue and helps their ability to move.
More than anything, Anna feels they have shifted their mindset from being overwhelmed by the idea of exercise and fitness to “motion is lotion.” For Anna, movement is about maintaining mobility, not about burning calories. For example, on days when Anna was bed-bound, they did bed yoga to help alleviate their stiffness. Anna feels that regular chores around home can be turned in to mindful movements, like overhead stretches to reach something up high, or doing a squat to pick something up. Anna also has a daily to-do list with an exercise reminder and checking it off makes them feel productive and good.
Anna has learned to respect their body’s limits. Understanding the conditions they live with and how they manifest in Anna has been really helpful. Anna realizes they don’t always get it right when it comes to movement, but they feel it’s a work in progress and that’s ok.
Anna continues to practice mostly what she’s learned at physio to keep flexible and mobile. They’ve also taken some beginner yoga classes online and feel the lying crossover stretch really helps their back (AS affects people’s backs). Their favourite exercises are walking or brisk walking, yoga, stretching, being on the elliptical machine, and doing toning exercises with 2-3 lb weights. These latter exercises have really helped with their arm toning and have positively affected their upper back and neck pain too.
Anna knows it can be hard to exercise when you live with a chronic condition. They feel the intention you go in with makes a big difference on the experience of exercise/movement. Feeling like exercise is part of taking care of oneself makes it an overall better experience and has helped Anna stay consistent with their own exercise approach.