3 Things to Create a Pain Relieving and Relaxing Bath Time

3 Things I Use to Create a Relaxing and Pain-Relieving Bath

I’ve always heard a bath is a great way to de-stress and over the years there have been a few times that I’ve decided to regularly take a bath before bedtime. I haven’t done it as much since we’ve been in this house, the bathtub isn’t as big and I just couldn’t seem to relax. I’d always stress out about what else I needed to be doing or something. Then came Fibro and lots of things changed.

Shortly after I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a friend with Fibro recommended taking a nightly bath with Epsom Salts to help ease the deep muscle pains that we get with Fibro. She told me that doing this regularly had really helped her pain levels. How could I not try something so simple? So we bought some Epsom Salts and I gave it a try. After a week or so of this I did feel like it

• helped me sleep better
• did seem to ease the muscle aches I was feeling at the time I’d take the bath, as well as decrease the pain the following day.

I LOVE Bath & Body Works Eucalyptus Spearmint Aromatherapy line. So I went there to see if they had any scented Epson Salts. They don’t. They do have bath salts, but there is a difference and you do want to make sure you get bath salts that are real Epson Salts OR that list Magnesium Sulfate as the main ingredient. One day I happened to stop in CVS and found a product called REV, which happened to be the exact scent I love and made from real epsom salts. So I picked it up and fell in love with it. One container lasts me about a week and costs $10. It’s well worth it. I still usually put in a bit of bubble bath, just because I like the feeling. But the Rev has the aromatherapy aspect built-in.

In the process of looking for bath salts, I also found three other things that have created the perfect relaxing bath time.

1. The bath pillow.  My hubby had bought me a bath pillow from Bath & Body a couple of years ago and I tried it, but it was just so thick I couldn’t really relax against it. I went in search of another one. The second one I bought looked like it would be great, but it just stressed me out. It was long and should have gone the height of the tub plus had a little headrest on top. The problem was it wouldn’t stick to the tub once water went into the tub and kept floating up. When it comes to bath pillows, cheaper is probably better. The cheapest ones are ones you have to blow up yourself. I found this one: Swissco Bath & Spa Pillow With Suction Cups or one very similar. It worked well for me. Luckily, Bed, Bath & Beyond (where I’d purchased the first pillow) let me exchange without a problem.

2. Deep Water bath. This is a producte I ran across online, but have since discovered is available in stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond (for the same price), all of $5.99. It’s called Deep Water Bath or “Bottomless Bath” and this little plastic thing will allow you to add inches to your tub water. Basically, it just covers the overflow drain, so that you can now fill your tub up all the way to the edge if you like. I wouldn’t recommend going that far since you might want to be able to move around in the water… and you may still want to have room for the next item as well.

3. Bathtub Caddy. When I first considered this third item I really thought I was being kind of wasteful. Do I really need it? I didn’t know, but I wanted it. I pretty much always read a book in the bathtub and occasionally I’ll have a glass of wine as well. This gadget makes both of those so much easier. My bathtub has inclined corners so I had nowhere to sit my glass of wine except on the floor and then it was a reach to pick it up.

I’d seen this Umbra Aquala Bamboo and Chrome Bathtub Caddy in the store and thought it was a cool idea. There were cheaper ones usually made of metal slots, but it just seemed like everything would fall through them. So one day when hubby was feeling particularly giving I convinced him to buy it for me (so I wouldn’t feel guilty about buying it for myself). I tried it out the first night, setting my wine glass on it and it was great. My wine was now right in front of me in easy reach. No more stretching or stressing to get to my wine. I really didn’t think I’d use the book part. I like to hold my book in my hands. But, then last week I was feeling so weak in my arms that holding a book up was just too much. The first few days I tried listening to an audiobook in the bath instead of reading, but it just didn’t relax me like reading does. So I decided to try using the book stand. It worked well and made my bath more relaxing, even if I just propped the book up on it with my hands still on the edges. To get a book to really lay on anything like this and stay on the page you want you’ll have to pop the spine, or come up with something else that works (let me know). Either way, I went from using this thing only when I had a glass of wine with me to every night.

Reading seems to be the one thing that really helps me relax and take my mind away from everything else that is going on. TV doesn’t do that for me, listening to a book or music doesn’t do that for me.

We also had to institute a rule in our house, one I’d suggest you adopt. No interruptions during bath time! We don’t have kids, I just have my husband, but it seemed like it never failed that five minutes after I got in the bath he’d walk into the bathroom and say something that would totally kill my ability to relax. So he’s no longer allowed in the bathroom when I’m taking a bath. Period. No exceptions.

This one little thing, 30 minutes to an hour, has helped me so much, and it will help you so much that it should be worth it to your hubby to watch the kids for a while and leave you alone. It doesn’t solve all of my pains or ills, but for me it has definitely helped enough that I miss it on nights when something happens and I don’t get my bath. Maybe not that night, but the next day for sure. I’ve even found that on the days when I wake up feeling the stiffest, those days when I can barely move and don’t even want to take a shower, that a bath in Epsom Salts helps so much to ease that stiffness. I still may end up spending the day on the couch, but at least I’m not hurting quite so much while I’m doing it.