I'm not too sure which forum section this belongs in, but i'll post it here and see where it goes.
My wife has the above conditions, for which she is taking certain medications under the advice of the local health authority. She has had these conditions for the past 6 years, with the exception of Joint Hypermobility syndrome, which she has had since puberty.
The other two conditions reared up after giving birth to our two children, and has got progressivley worse after giving up work to be a housewife and mother.
In order to be clear, I feel I should detail a little history here to allow the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Although she was aware of the Joint Hypermobility syndrome all her life, the job she used to do and the step aerobics she used to do kept this pretty much in check. She was extremely active and had good muscle tone (one of the reasons I noticed her!

After giving up work (and step) to have children, she has gotten progressivley weaker, which I beleive has aggrivated her Osteoarthritis (which runs in the family and is a side effect of Joint Hypermobility Syndrome). Financial stresses etc then brought about the Fibromyalgia, which is a muscle fatiguing condition, similar to ME and MS.
The result of all this is my wife is now classed as disabled. She finds it very difficult and painful to walk more than a few hundred yards, sometimes she will need a walking stick to help her. For example, a trip to the supermarket will leave her suffering for a few day's and her quality of life is now getting to an all time low. She suffers pain notibly in her hips and lower back.
On top of all this, her diet is very poor. A couple of years ago she started to suffer constipation. After much experimenting with her diet, we established that Gluten was a factor in this problem. As a result of diet changes, her diet does not contain much protein or fat, as she has to avoid most types of processed foods and cant stomach fish or meat. After re-evaluating the Gluten problem, it is now looking like she is becoming Coeliac.
The Doctors dont seem much use (U.K. NHS). Instead, they prescribe a cocktail of drugs and laxatives, she takes around 200 pills a week.
She is 37 years old, 6ft tall and far from unfit, she is not grossly overweight at 160Lbs. I would estimate 25% fat. I feel that the Health Authorities are letting her down. We have to fight to get reffered to departments for scans and tests that should be automatically investigated in order to sort or solve some of the outstanding questions and as yet, cannot offer any sensible advice othet than 'here's another pill for you to take'. I cant help but feel we would get somewhere if we were 'Private' medical customers.
I personally, do not accept this, and have decided to take matters into my own hands.
Right at the beginning of her problems, her Physiotheripist suggested resistive exercise would help, but they eventually shyed away from this once Fibromyalgia became an issue.
I want to start her on a high protein diet, followed by some resistive training (obviously very light to begin with), but to increase in intensity over time. I believe that her gradual muscle loss is slowly aggrivating all her conditions (even the constipation, given bowel movement is muscular).
I'm wondering what a suitable starting routine might be? She has trouble with a couple of disks in L4 and one in her neck, so this must be taken into concideration. Before starting any training, I'm thinking of a high protein diet for a few weeks before starting out to prepare the body a little.
Any feedback would be most appreciated, we are going to do this anyway!
Thanks in advance,
Rik and Marylea