I am wondering if it is physically healthy to push through the pain and allow symptoms to
persist for lets say 8 hours a day? I am trying to get a job but I worry about long term damage to my vascular system. I am curious if the swelling of your veins could damage them and therefore cause plaque to form?
I have been living with EM for 2 years now and after about a year of trial and error I have figured out what lifestyle has worked for me (so far). I don’t have a job (im 20yr) which is a problem I am still trying to figure that out. Standing in one place and using my hands to do precise movements still cause some pain but not as bad as it used to be.
Here is what has worked for my symptoms but every person is different and I cannot say for sure that these things would work for you.
I stick to a strict diet cutting out greasy foods, fried foods, white sugar (which is in a TON of food), basically all sauces, and certain carbs such as noodles, cheese and white breads. The important ones to avoid I think are the greasy foods, sauces, and having too much white sugar. (jelly/jam i am not sure about the sugar free ones).
The foods I eat mainly are all fruits, ground beef, steak, ribs(without sauce), chicken, fish, french fries, cooked vegetables (sometimes uncooked), ezekiel bread, eggs, nuts, unsweetened almond milk, juice(without added sugars) and water. I eat chips sometimes too but I can’t recommend it.
I have cats which I can’t help but pet them and my hands hurt after, so I wash them off in cold water and DRY them after, if you don’t dry your hands well or soak them for a long time, you can damage your skin and cause more pain in the long run. Getting dirt or basically anything on my hands causes them to hurt as well as gripping heavy things.
Smoking and alchohol also cause flare ups for me, I have recently quit smoking and alchohol a few months ago and since then my symptoms have reduced even further. If you have to keep doing either I recommend you only do it in the morning or when you have the most energy as doing it when you are tired such as before bed seems to make it much worse.
Hopefully this is in the right section for this post but I just want to share what has solved my symptoms for basically every hour of the day.