Living in Australia can be pretty alright.

Living with CRPS in all of my limbs makes exercising tricky. If my legs are flaring, I can’t handle anything that involves standing on them and that rules out most cardio. If my hands are flaring, I still experience increases in the pain from walking on my legs and I am also more likely to flare up in the lower regions if I’m already being pained by the upper regions.

Building any sort of muscular strength is a delicate balancing act, but is also a necessary part of managing chronic pain. A weak body hurts more and is more easily injured. This is why when one thing goes wrong in a CRPS effected body, it can very easily lead to another problem and another problem because of the difficulty in regaining strength after any sort of setback. When it happens, it’s kind of like getting stuck in a loop of weakness.

In the past, I’ve had some patchy success with undertaking hydrotherapy in an indoor pool. I found it easier to move without increasing pain whilst in the water and also enjoyed a lot of relief from the pain of gravity by using floatation devices. With regular visits, I was able to build up some core strength that helped to make other forms of exercise, like walking, more viable.

Unfortunately, my body really struggles to cope with a pool environment. Such places are ridiculously humid and the water and air reek with chemicals. Both of those factors are conducive to increasing my pain and tend to undo a lot of the progress that I make in the water, before I even get back to the car.