“We don’t go from severely symptomatic to fibro-free overnight, right? Improvement with fibromyalgia can be subtle, and it does take time.” – Tami Stackelhouse

Going through life with fibromyalgia, many of us quietly hope that one day we’ll wake up without pain, fatigue, or brain fog. Unfortunately, in reality, improvement is small and can be hard to see while it’s happening. Sometimes you might feel better for a week or two and then you have a flare and you feel like you’re back at square one. It can feel like nothing is changing, even if things actually are.

Improvement with fibromyalgia often shows up in quiet ways. Flares might not hit as hard as they used to. Recovery may happen a little faster. You might start noticing patterns that help you support your body before symptoms spiral. These shifts can be subtle, making them easy to overlook, especially when memory, brain fog, and emotional bias color our perception of our bad days. Learning how to track your symptoms in a simple, sustainable way can help you see those patterns more clearly and recognize progress that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In this solo episode, Tami walks through why tracking symptoms can be one of the most powerful tools for understanding your fibromyalgia. Tami talks about what improvement looks like in fibromyalgia, why progress doesn’t usually mean immediate symptom elimination, how daily symptom tracking can make a significant difference on your healing journey, Tami’s tips for making tracking sustainable, how to use your tracking and symptom logs, how the revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire can help measure meaningful changes in symptoms, the role of assessment, personalized planning, and ongoing adjustments in a wellness framework, normalizing setbacks and course corrections using the analogy of a GPS recalculating the route, common mistakes we make once we start improving, what remission actually means in fibromyalgia, what progress really looks like, the idea of the “sticky middle,” when improvement is happening but hard to recognize, recognizing the real life signs of improvement, when it may be helpful to seek specialized support or coaching, and more.

Have you ever wished people could truly understand what fibromyalgia feels like, or what it’s like to live with a condition that never really goes away? You are not alone. Explaining fibromyalgia to the people you love is one of the hardest parts of living with an invisible illness.

From the outside, you might look perfectly fine, but inside, you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck. It’s even harder when your symptoms change from day to day. You might manage errands or a social event one day and need to rest the next, leaving people confused or questioning what’s going on. Trying to explain that experience to someone who has never experienced chronic pain feels impossible.

Today, Tami is sharing tools you can use to make these difficult conversations a little easier without wearing yourself out in the process. Using the right strategies and language can make a world of difference. Whether it’s a simple analogy, a short story that captures the daily challenges, or setting clear boundaries around what you can and can’t explain, these conversations can make all the difference in whether you feel supported or alone.

In this episode, Tami shares why fibromyalgia is so hard to explain, how its invisibility, fluctuating symptoms, and emotional weight affect daily life, simple, relatable analogies others without chronic pain can relate to, the power of using tactile demonstrations to show pain and sensitivity, the Spoon Theory and other analogies to explain daily limits, sharing books and other media to educate others, how you can use stealth tactics to help your loved ones understand what you’re experiencing, understanding the three circles of trust, setting boundaries and learning to say no without guilt, resources that help with explaining fibromyalgia to children, how growing up with a family member with a chronic illness can teach empathy and resilience, choosing the right time and place to have these fibro conversations, accepting imperfect help and building a supportive team, why you need to create a flare survival plan, how professionals and coaches can help to improve your quality of life, and more.

“I’m having trouble finding my team, as you call it. I often feel so alone in this. How can I best find a doctor to suit my needs?”

Choosing your healthcare team is a highly personal process that requires you to really understand your specific wants and needs. There are so many options, and, let’s face it, there aren’t a whole lot of good doctors out there.

When building your health team, remember you won’t find one doctor who can do everything for you. You need a team of people, from a sleep doctor to a chiropractor to a primary care doctor and more in between. Once you have a team in place, there are still several reasons you may need to go back to the drawing board and find a new provider. Whether you’ve moved further away, you’re experiencing new symptoms or a new diagnosis, or you simply feel like you’re no longer in good hands with your provider, there are certain things that signal that you should move on. You should never settle for fine.

In today’s installment of Ask the Coach, Tami shares some of the varied reasons you may need to find a new provider and a detailed process for finding aligned practitioners. In this episode, Tami discusses red flags that suggest you may need to find a new doctor, reasons Tami has had to find a new doctor, balancing a doctor’s skills with their willingness to learn, why we need a team of providers when we’re dealing with fibromyalgia, steps to take when searching for a new doctor, the value of referrals from trusted sources, why you should include a naturopath or functional medicine doctor on your team, how to find a functional medicine provider or naturopath, getting clear on your specific needs and wants, how to go about researching providers, the benefits of bringing someone with you to your first appointment, critical questions to ask potential providers, trusting your instincts, essential healthcare providers to help you manage fibromyalgia effectively, and more.

“How do you propose we help low-income individuals with CFS and fibromyalgia? Self-care and wellness are rooted in privilege, choice, fellowship, support, time, and money to invest in themselves.”

So many people living with chronic illnesses are forced to navigate the issue of how best to support themselves with limited resources. While you’ll often hear Tami talking about coaching and our training programs on this podcast, that’s not everything available in the fibromyalgia community. Tami and other organizations offer many resources that allow people from all income levels to access tools and support to improve their quality of life.

It’s also valuable to recognize that while wellness is often rooted in the privilege of having money to invest in ourselves, self-care doesn’t have to be. Self-care is about how we treat ourselves, and it’s not a direct link to our income level. In today’s Ask The Coach installment, Tami answers how low-income individuals can access help with CFS and fibromyalgia and whether you can still work with a fibro coach if you haven’t been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

In this episode, Tami discusses the connection between wellness, self-care, and privilege, why I believe self-care has nothing to do with your income level, challenges faced by low-income individuals with fibromyalgia who rely on state healthcare programs, free resources and support provided by Tami and the International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute, organizations that can help you implement the suggestions for improving your symptoms, patient assistance programs that can help with covering the cost of medications, tips for accessing lower-cost options for supplements and services, advocacy and support offered through organizations like Support Fibromyalgia Network, Fibromyalgia Care Society of America, and the Sherri Little Foundation, how you can advocate for fibromyalgia awareness and support, working with a fibromyalgia coach without a fibro diagnosis, training to work with conditions outside of fibromyalgia, and more.

“How do you do it all?”

This question came up during one of Tami’s Ask Me Anything sessions during our annual alumni retreat, and it was so good that she decided to bring it to the podcast.

Before we get into the details, the short answer is Tami doesn’t do it all! At first glance, it’s easy to compare your life to what you see others doing. The problem with that is we tend to forget that we’re only seeing their highlight reel. You never know everything that’s going on behind the scenes at the deep level that you know your own life. On top of that, Tami’s fibromyalgia has been in remission for years, and it took a lot of work to get there. It doesn’t make sense to compare your everyday fibro life with that.

With that context in mind, in this episode, Tami shares how she chooses where to focus her energy and what to prioritize. She’s discussing the importance of making choices to prioritize the things that move you forward, how I learned to be intentional about choosing what to do, what it means to say no to say yes, the challenges of choosing between two good options, how to add more joy into your life, recognizing that you need to choose one habit to build at a time, why it’s worth it to prioritize improving your sleep quality, delegating tasks that are not in your zone of genius, offloading tasks in your personal life, how you can reduce your load with minimal resources, embracing imperfections in life, seeking support from others to reach your goals, the difference between talking to a coach versus a friend, finding the right professional help, and more.

As you continue to move forward into the life that you want to have, don’t be afraid to take a step back. Sometimes, that’s precisely what you need.