working out with fibromyalgia and carpal tunnel?

[threenorns]

hey: anyone have experience with lifting as a sufferer of fibromyalgia?

my mother has it and it's scaring me, how rapidly she's deteriorating. she also has non-operable carpal tunnal (60% chance no change, equal odds it gets better or gets worse from the surgery) with ganglions in her wrist.

maybe i'm obsessed, but i can't help but thinking that resistance exercise would be good for her, especially since living like a cripple is so obviously BAD BAD BAD for her. she's aged 20 yrs in the last 2 - she used to look 20yrs younger than her age of 57, but now she looks to be in her sixties.

i've tried researching it on the net, and i'm getting too many conflicting stories - some say "no, never!" and others say "go fer it, it helps". her doctor is old-fashioned and he's been warning me about getting an aneurysm from the weights i'm using (ladies, you see, have more delicate blood vessels than men do, which says more about his qualifications than he thinks but mom's been with him forever and won't switch).

another big problem is mom's inherent wussiness. i mean, bicep curls with a 10oz soup can and she was pissing and moaning about it for a week and a half..

any ideas? should i keep pushing her to get more active? should i back off and let her rot? does anyone know anyone who improved or worsened from exercising with the aforementioned conditions?

[copperman]

I have had three clients now that have had fibromyalgia. Every one of them came to me after their Doctor had suggested they started working out. After a couple of months with each of them (providing they followed their diet) they all said their quality of life was improving. I would suggest sending her to a dietician who knows about fibromyalgia, then a personal trainer who knows the same.

[threenorns]

cool - thanks much. just since i posted that, she's gotten so where she can't drive for more than an hour - and she used to drive to quebec for a weekend jaunt twice a month.