Financial Tips to Beat Fibro Fog Prevent Costly Money Mistakes Caused by Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

Keeping symptoms of fibromyalgia from affecting other areas of your life is a challenge – but if you let “fibro fog” impair your ability to manage money, it can be devastating. With some simple tricks and tools (both high- and low-tech), you can learn to fight the brain fuzziness, increase your ability to concentrate and protect your finances... Besides chronic fatigue and debilitating pain, fibromyalgia can cause confusion and lapses in memory commonly called “brain fog” or “fibro brain.” The disorder changes cognitive functioning and leaves many women struggling to remember bank account balances, due dates for bills and other routine financial matters, says Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., fibromyalgia expert and author of From Fatigued to Fantastic! (Avery Trade). One cause may be a loss of brain cells, some researchers believe. Fibromyalgia patients showed 10 times the gray matter loss than those aging normally, according to a 2007 study by Montreal’s McGill Centre for Research on Pain. “The brain seems to age prematurely, which could contribute to the loss of focus and difficulty concentrating [or] finding words, which could be another cause for the fog,” says Bradley W. Carpentier, M.D., an Austin, Texas, neurologist who specializes in treating pain-related diseases like fibromyalgia. Clearly, brain fog can wreak havoc on your finances, causing you to incur costly interest and overdraft charges, Teitelbaum says. “Fibro fog can impair all thought and concentration, including when you’re doing banking [chores] or trying to manage finances,” he says. But these tips and tools can help keep your fibromyalgia brain fog from messing with your money. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Keep a Cushion “It's a good idea for patients with fibromyalgia to keep a bit of money set aside to ‘pad’ an error in bill paying or accounting,” says James Giordano, Ph.D., director, Center for Neurotechnology Studies at Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va., and a senior research associate at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, University of Oxford, England. A cushion can cover fees incurred by bounced checks or late payments, says Philip C. Lee, a certified financial planner in Boston, who has many clients with fibromyalgia. “We all make math mistakes or have surprise expenses [occasionally],” Lee says. “It’s a sound financial move to maintain an emergency fund or reserve.” How much depends on what you can afford. Generally, a few hundred dollars is a safe amount, he says. To avoid overdraft fees that can run as high as $35 per bounced check, “you also can apply for overdraft protection for your checking account,” Lee says. Just be sure you pay down the overdraft balance and don’t use your account as a credit card, because interest charges can be expensive – up to $10 each day your account is overdrawn. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Get Techy When Kristy Robinett, 40, of Livonia, Mich., realized her fibromyalgia was interfering with balancing her checkbook, she turned to technology. “I became adamant to stay on track despite the pain and [fibro] fog, and took advantage of my credit union’s online banking that includes online payments,” Robinett says. “I also set up monthly reminders for bills.” Also consider using smart phone apps that sync your calendar program with your phone, send you alarms or alerts messages when bills are due or help you track spending. You can even pay bills or check balances from the bed or sofa when you’re too fatigued to work at a desk. Here are some good apps: Account Tracker Free (Free for iPhone). This is a scaled-down version of Account Tracker, an easy-to-use tracking, budgeting and expense management application that lets you enter income and spending across multiple accounts. It will also categorize expenditures and help you budget by adjusting for charges you make regularly. (For example, if you get a latte at the same java joint every day, your phone will alert you if that charge will overdraw your account.) QuickBank Checkbook with Desktop Exporting ($.99 for iPhone). Balance your checkbook, keep track of credit card charges, cash expenditures and more. You can sync your expenses with other desktop programs like Quicken, Microsoft Money or Excel. Pageonce Pro (iPad, iPhone and Android, $13). Pageonce links into your bank account and credit cards to show transactions, but also lets you monitor accounts with major utilities (phone carriers, cable providers, etc.) to track upcoming bills and payments. It also tracks your credit-card annual percentage rates (APR) and calculates payments, then warns you if you're at risk of overdrawing your account after bills are paid. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Add a Pair of Eyes Fibromyalgia sufferer Tina Tidmore, 45, of Clay, Ala., turns not to a smart phone but to other people to stay on top of her finances. “I was constantly getting notices in the mail that I made a math error on a deposit,” Tidmore says. “I finally learned to hand over the checks to the bank clerk and asked her to verify my math.” Don’t want to turn to a stranger? Ask a trusted family member to go over bills or double check your math in your checkbook register. Sometimes just knowing that a trusted family member or friend “has your back can help you remember passwords or [focus on] calculations,” Giordano says. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Put a Dragnet on Due Dates Tidmore doesn’t rely on her memory to keep track of bill due dates. “I write the due date prominently on the outside of the envelope so I can easily spot [them],” she says. This works only if you keep bills in the same place and check them on the same day each week, Giordano warns. “Marking a bill or calendar as a reminder to make a payment is a quick and easy backup,” he advises. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Take a Break When you have a difficult mental task, your brain needs a lot of fuel and oxygen to handle it. To stay as sharp as possible, take breaks while working on your finances, Teitelbaum advises. “Take a break every 20-30 minutes – sooner if you notice you’re feeling foggy,” he says. Even more helpful: a workout – “even if it’s brief,” Carpentier says. A 10-minute walk, bike ride, swim, or yoga or Pilates session – even playing catch with the kids – improves blood circulation in your brain and ramps up feel-good hormones called endorphins, he says. The hormonal change along with increased oxygen flow to the brain can help you feel less fuzzy, “so you’ll be better able to address financial issues,” he says. Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Keep it Quiet TV, music, dogs barking or kids fighting can make it tough for anyone to concentrate. But such distractions are doubly challenging for someone with fibromyalgia-related brain fog, Teitelbaum says. “You shouldn’t have any mental distractions when you do financial work,” he says. “You need all your mental energy available to concentrate on paying bills or balancing the checkbook.” Fibro Fog-Proof Your Finances: Pick your Moment Don’t force yourself to balance accounts or pay bills when you’re foggy or fatigued. Instead, wait for times when you feel better. “Most patients with fibromyalgia have a point during the day – often after a nap or relaxing shower to ease pain – when they feel mentally refreshed,” Teitelbaum says. To learn more about fibro fog, read 6 Ways to Beat Fibro Fog. For more expert advice and information, visit our Fibromyalgia Health Center. How Much Do You Know About Fibromyalgia? Described by Hippocrates in ancient Greece, fibromyalgia is one of the world’s oldest medical mysteries. The disease – a complex illness marked by chronic muscle, tendon and ligament pain, fatigue and multiple tender points on the body – affects about 2% percent of Americans, most of them women. H