In the beginning of the guai treatment, it may be hard for the fibromyalgic to believe the difficulty they’re experiencing is making them into a better person. When our symptoms intensify and generate negative feelings such as hopelessness, depression, guilt, regret, anger, self-pity, etc., we literally feel as though we’re degenerating even further. However we need to remind ourselves that these responses are normal with any chronic disease. In time, if we will look at our submission to the guaifenesin protocol as a form of resistance training and a very strenuous, difficult workout, it will make champions of us all.

Since beginning the manuscript for this book, I’ve seen even more improvement in my energy level, digestion problem and brain fog. I don’t expect to clear each problem area completely before going to the next. The guaifenesin reversal process doesn’t work that way. My reversal, so far, hasn’t been a complete reversal of every problem I have had at all levels of the disease.

What I’m experiencing is more of a gradual improvement in each area that fibromyalgia has affected: physical, mental and emotional, some greater than others. Once in a while, I can still feel beat up during a tough purge. However there’s too much success and triumph for the feeling to last. I will never again feel like I did six years ago when I had given up hope, believed I had lost the battle with fibromyalgia, and wanted God to take me home. My progress makes all the pain and anguish involved in my surrenders seem like a small price to pay for the gift I’ve received: the resurrection of my normal life.

I have now found hope with the guaifenesin protocol. If you’ve read this book, you probably have fibromyalgia, and you have either started the protocol yourself or are considering it. If you’ve started and are finding it difficult, keep going! Let your fervor for a life that you once enjoyed inspire and motivate you. Let your eagerness to discover who you might have become without struggling with fibromyalgia since very young, arouse in you the determination to give the guaifenesin treatment a chance.

If you’re considering this treatment for your fibromyalgia, I would have to say, “Do not wait another day to get started on it.” You now have two roads you can take: the traditional road of exercise and prescription drugs for FM or the guaifenesin road. You have two choices: try the guai with the hope that all I have said in this book is true, or stick with what you’re doing now for your FM, hoping that Dr. St. Amand isn’t right when he says that it will only worsen with time.

If you’ve chosen to stick with the protocol or you’ve chosen to give it a first time try, it will be a decision you will never regret. “Life is about managing risks,” my husband used to say when coaching our children as they entered adulthood. “It’s about which risks are worth taking and which ones will have little value and should be avoided.” The guaifenesin treatment has great value and is a risk well worth taking.

All of the unpleasantness and discomfort you fear will seem inconsequential compared to the hope you’ll experience when you see your quality of life improve because of the risk you’ve taken! Even though the journey may be painful, frustrating and confusing at times, the reward will be worth all the difficulty on the journey.

After five plus years of watching me on my guai journey, my husband describes it the way he sees it:

The guaifenesin journey is one with no rest stops, only refueling stops. Mileage to destination is indeterminate. There is no minimum or maximum speed limit. No shoulder to pull off on. Signage is constantly being revised. A journey that has delays because of “construction” in certain areas. And no one knows how much sludge is in your engine or how much cleaning solution it’s going to take to clean it out.

However when we do finally reach our destination, the reward is a life of fewer and fewer limitations that had become all too familiar to us. It will be a life full of energy again, with a brain that can think and remember again. You will have a digestive and hormonal system that works like it’s supposed to work. I could go on, but just know that, best of all, you will have the energy to live normally like your family and friends, a life that has eluded you for years.

Six years ago, I could not have even thought about writing a book. Today, not only am I accomplishing that feat, but I’m also able to get up in the morning without longingly thinking about how wonderful it would feel to crawl back into bed. Nor am I glancing at the clock throughout the day, counting the hours left before I can get back in bed without feeling guilty. Those fibrofatigued and energyless days are long gone.

Now there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all I want to get done. My severe headaches are a thing of the past as is most of my severe depression. I no longer have inner trembling, draining exhaustion and muscle weakness. I’ll stop with those improvements because it would take another whole chapter to list all of the improvements that add up to much improved health.

During the months of writing this book, I went through some difficult purges with much pain, fatigue and some severe brain fog. I had to put my writing aside for a few days, sometimes weeks, until I was better and could proceed again. Pre-guai, I didn’t have that choice: to wait, get better and then continue with a productive activity; it was bad every day without getting better.