ok so i finally sat down and ranked everything i’ve tried against the flare log instead of just vibing about what “feels like it helps.” four months of data. baseline is a 5-6 most days. here’s what actually moved the number, not what i wanted to move the number: heat pad before bed, consistent 3+ nights a week: knocked maybe half a point off the next day average. small but real and it showed up every time.
PT stretches, the boring 10 minute set my PT gave me in month one: nothing detectable short term but my ok-days went from like 2 a week to 4 a week over the four mos. slow burn. the thing i thought would help most, actual rest days with zero activity: barely moved the needle and sometimes made the next day worse, which still doesn’t make sense to me. pacing (stopping at 70% instead of pushing through a task), the one thing everyone tells you to do: biggest single effect in the whole log.
bigger than the heat pad, bigger than the meds adjustment i made in february. what surprised me is how much the boring unglamorous stuff outperformed anything that felt like it should be doing something. no single dramatic fix, just the pacing thing compounding for four months straight. anyone else tracked long enough to actually rank what works instead of guessing?
curious if pacing wins for other people too or if that’s just my body being weird abt it.