MPNforum Magazine

Yes you can exercise.

So, is exercise something other people do, like eating bran flakes and broccoli and turning down chocolate cake? Or is it an essential part of successfully living our MPN lives… and perhaps, along with diet, the single best strategy for quality survival.

Here’s Jeremy Smith, our local exercise guru, revisiting his classic Crawl. Walk. Run. article that first appeared five years ago. It’s worth reading and taking to heart. Not least of all because he’s still here and healthier than ever despite gloomy prognoses.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM EXERCISE

(May, 2016)

Over the years I have written numerous articles on the subject of exercise. The lessons I preached back then have proven over time that exercise is as important to an MPNpatient’s quality of life and survival rate as their medication is. That’s not to say exercisis a cure for an MPN patient, its not. Exercise is however a cure for fatigue and a way for MPN patients to make sure they not only have the highest quality of life but are in shape for a SCT if they need one. The years of battling this nasty disease have taughtme that the dangerous loss of muscle from any Cancer can be slowed and in some cases muscle can be added to the body. It requires a great deal of work and unbelievable commitment. I have proven by combining large amounts of protein through the right diet and protein supplements with a weight lifting program MPN Patients can add muscle back to their frame. The added benefit of long-term fatigue reduction provided me with enough strength to never miss a day of work due to my MPN.

Has any of this slowed my disease? My Doctors would tell you no because they don’t track this. MPN doctors don’t study the impact of exercise on MPN patients. There is however ample medical evidence showing that patients with other Cancers who exercise live longer and have better qualities of life than patients who do not exercise. I do know that after six months of not exercising due to a broken rib my fatigue came back. March it was getting really bad but now that I am finally back in the gym again I am once again fatigue free. There is a long list of benefits from exercise including reduced inflammation, increased HDL, lower LDL and of course the best reason to exercise better overall health.

FATIGUE WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! OH YES YOU CAN

As an MPN patient our lives are similar to the crew of the Starship Enterprise. We are on a journey to “boldly go where no man has gone before.” It’s the reason you search the Internet, are part of MPN lists and why you have joined us here at MPNforum. We seek information, answers to questions our doctors just cannot answer for us.

In the World of living with an MPN we all at some point must deal with fatigue. The medical community does not know exactly why fatigue plays such a debilitating role in MPN’s or Cancer. MPN’s are very complex and there is little clinical data to help doctors understand fatigue.

(Read more here: https://mpnforum.com/mpn-life-fatigue/)