The Fibro Flare-Up Map: During, After, and the In-Between

Sarah Clifford
Sep 15, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Jan 15

When Life Turns Into a Cycle You Didn’t Sign Up For

Flare-ups don’t come with neat edges. One moment you’re fine; the next, you’re slammed to the floor.

If you live with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, or chronic pain, you know this story.

One day, pain hits so sharp it steals your breath—and stays.

After, you’re stumbling through the aftermath—foggy, shaky, half-here.

If you’re lucky, you get a stretch of in-between time before the next one barrels in.

For me? I had no fucking clue how to handle any of it.

During. After. In-Between.

It all blurred into chaos.

I thought it meant I was failing—at life, at health, at recovery.

What I didn’t know then: there are ways to take the edges off, make flares less terrifying, and help them resolve faster.I just didn’t have them yet.

During: The Flare That Eats Everything

Mantra: Survival counts. Full stop.

When pain shot up to a 7–10, it swallowed everything—work, friends, chores, even hope.

My survival looked like this:

Curling up with a heating pad, fighting tears
Losing days to TV I barely watched
Eating a bag of Oreos because I couldn’t stand long enough to make toast
Pouring enough wine to blur the edges—sometimes the only thing that got me through the night

Not pretty. Not healthy. Just survival.

Later, I learned tools that softened this stage.Back then? No one taught me. No one had a map.

After: The Pain Hangover

Mantra: This is grief, not recovery.

When the flare eased and pain dropped into the 4–6 zone, I thought I should feel better.

Instead, I was flattened by guilt, grief, exhaustion—sometimes even despair.

I called it the “pain hangover.”

On the outside, I was “past the worst.”

On the inside, I was wrecked—still aching, still foggy, still dragging myself through molasses.

Chronic pain’s version of PTSD?PTFD: post-traumatic flare disorder.

And this is when the “shoulds” screamed the loudest:

I should be catching up on work.
I should be there for the people who expect things from me.
I should be grateful it’s not a 10 anymore.
I should be back to normal by now.

That pressure stacked on top of the grief—

The grief of what pain kept stealing.
The unpredictability of my body.
The pieces of life I kept losing in fragments.

And then came the guilt. Not just guilt for what I couldn’t do—But guilt for how I survived:

I "should’ve" gone to yoga.
I "should’ve" drunk more water.
I "shouldn’t" have spent three days in bed with Netflix, numbed out with wine, or eaten my way through another row of cookies.

As if lack of discipline explained chronic pain.

As if “better habits” could fix being flattened by searing, relentless pain.

💡 Looking back, I can see what this stage actually needed: pacing, compassion, and rest without shame.

But in the moment? I only knew I was stuck in limbo—not flared, not fine, and carrying a weight no one else could see.

In-Between: Living in Limbo

Mantra: This is where possibility lives.

This stage is arguably the hardest to understand.

I wasn’t in a flare. But I wasn’t “better,” either.

I usually hovered around 2–4 on that pain scale, living in limbo.

On paper, I looked fine—ready to go back to work, pick up the pace, act normal.Inside, I was still carrying:

Low-to-medium pain, always humming in the background
The constant anxiety of: will this ever end?
The crushing expectation (mine and everyone else’s) that I should bounce back faster

Some days I pushed too hard, desperate to squeeze in life before the next crash.Other days I froze, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Sometimes I went surfing, just to feel the Pacific slap my face—even though I knew I’d pay for it.

Other times? I couldn’t send a single email.

It was messy. Invisible. Draining.

And yet—this is where most of life actually happened.

Here, in the low-grade almost-normal.

Out of the woods, but not in the clear.

💡 I didn’t know it then, but this stage holds the most possibility.

It’s where healing can stack—tiny shifts, quiet wins, anchors that build slowly.

Examples:

Answering one email without crashing
Making it through a walk around the block
Laughing with a friend before fatigue kicks in

Small? Yes. But they built a foundation.

This is where you have the most capacity to experiment, be curious, and try again.

Man, I wish I’d had a guide for that.

Why This Map Matters

Flare-ups are brutal.

But when I started to see them as a cycle—During, After, In-Between—they stopped feeling random.

Instead of “Why is this happening again?”I could say: “I know where I am. And I can meet myself here, even if it’s messy.”

That’s not a cure.

But it’s a kind of power.

And it’s a place to start.

Final Thought

If you feel like you have no clue what you’re doing—you’re not alone.

Neither did I.

It was chaos. It was awful.

And no one was handing me a map.

Here’s what I want you to know:

There are tools.

Not prescriptive fixes.

Not one-size-fits-all wellness advice.

Tools you can adapt—layered, flexible, personal—that make the cycle less brutal and less confusing.

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have a cure.

(But let’s be real—neither do they.)

What I do have is lived experience.I’ve been through the chaos, found my way out, and built the framework I wish I’d had.

I help women with chronic pain and fatigue find the tools their doctors never gave them—so they can stop feeling stuck in survival and start building a life with more possibility.

🌼 Your Next Step

This During / After / In-Between map is the foundation of the Flare-Up Formula Mini-Course.

Inside, you’ll get practical tools that help you:

ease pain and calm your system more quickly during flares
recover with more energy, clarity, and confidence afterward
use the in-between time to build habits and routines that support your body, enjoy more good days, and expand what feels possible

This is support you can actually use — whether you’re managing a flare, bouncing back, or feeling well and want to protect and grow that progress.