In 2025, I was diagnosed with pre-menopausal osteoporosis. This wasn’t that surprising, thanks to having 2+ autoimmune diseases and a long-time history of corticosteroid use. In January 2026, I met with my new endocrinologist. She recommended that I make some lifestyle changes to slow my osteoporosis progression. Basically, you can’t undo osteoporosis, but you can act preemptively to reduce your risk. Those lifestyle changes include increasing my calcium intake and doing some sort of exercise where my feet touch the ground for 30 minutes a day. 

Due to my chronic pain, this means yoga, pilates, or walking. While doing this exercise for 30 minutes every single day is not feasible or likely given my health, my goal is to get to a point where I’m doing this for 5 days a week on average. 

I decided to keep a journal of this progress to both provide me with accountability and to shed some light on what all of this looks like for someone with autoimmune arthritis impacting basically all of my joints, not to mention other pain conditions like fibromyalgia. 

I am not a medical professional and the things I’m doing are what my medical team has determined to be right for me. Please speak to your own doctors and medical team. Additionally, this blog post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Kate the (Almost) Great™!

Vest | Water Bottle | Mask

January 27, 2026

A 6-hour workday with no appointments was the perfect day to start this, as is the fact that it’s January. I have a couple of months to make this a habit before the heat makes it a lot harder for me to do, even though it will be just as important. 

I’m trying to start a habit that will last for (ideally) decades, after all. 

Since it has been a while since I did any kind of exercise that wasn’t basic stretches, I figured I would start with an easy-on-the-body yoga session via Yoga with Adriene. My plan is to stick with yoga and walking for a few weeks and then try sprinkling in pilates. 

I can’t hurt myself while building a habit designed to make it harder for my bones to decide to fracture, after all. 

And it felt really good! I can stretch and do some pilates-like exercise, but it’s not the same as a yoga class. While my history of doing yoga will help me get back into it, I wouldn’t be able to jump right back into an intermediate class. 

Is Fibromyalgia an Autoimmune Disease? What You Should Know

January 31, 2026

Very glad to report that I went for a 30-minute walk today. It was trickier than expected because we had 14+ inches of snow last week and not all of the sidewalks were cleared, but I did it. Then I got home and experienced the other side of a 30-minute walk when you haven’t done it in a while: my heart rate went up to 162, then down to 73, and then up to 112. 

After chugging water and lying down for 30ish minutes, I feel a lot better, but man is POTS annoying. 

I think it wouldn’t have been so bad except the second-to-last chunk of my walk had a part of the sidewalk that wasn’t cleaned at all. I almost fell over twice and I know I would have twisted one or both of my ankles if my ankles were capable of twisting. People – clean your sidewalks!!!

Part of the reason why I went for a walk, though, was to calm my mind, and that worked. In addition to how messed up the country is right now, my grandma has been in the hospital this past week, and I still have to go to work and take medications and cook dinner. My brain has not been my friend this week. I knew that yoga wouldn’t cut it.

PS – As of March 22, my grandma is doing a lot better.

How I Spent My Blog Break: Trips, New Illnesses, Hobbies, and More

Leggings | Water Bottle | Yoga Mat | Sneakers

February 4, 2026 

Just did another round of yoga! It was pretty much all stuff that I could do without needing modification, which is nice, but it was still tricky in the best way. 

I wasn’t sure how much it would do for my anxiety but it definitely helped. I had to focus in order to not fall over! Plus, it’s a Wednesday, which is always a long tricky day for me. I worked for 8 hours, organized my new IVIG supplies, did yoga, and now I’m eating dinner. 

So far the food side of osteoporosis help is going well. I have new calcium supplements, drink 1 glass of orange juice fortified with calcium and vitamin D, and try to get the rest via food. This week, I’m eating quinoa bowls with kale (among other things, but that’s the calcium food). 

Chronic Illness Management: 5 Things New Patients Need To Do

February 13, 2026

Woof. I’m at a … tricky time right now. 

1 – My infusion has left my body, so my RA is taking control more often. 

2 – I think the Healy family has been hit with a curse. In addition to my grandma, some other family members have had emergency health issues (not me, for once), as well as other random misadventures. So it has been an emotionally difficult couple of weeks for us all. 

3 – I may or may not have stress fractures in my foot again. I’m not going to go to the doctor for this because they haven’t been able to do anything for me the last 2 times these bones had stress fractures, so I don’t really see the point, but stress fractures are the only time I have had pain in this place. So I have unfortunately hit my first roadblock in this process. 

I’m not going to stop it, as that would be counterintuitive, but I am going to have to do more on-the-ground yoga and such for the time being. 

I also haven’t done anything active in a few days because I’ve been building a new desk! This has required a lot of sweat and pain, so while I’m not considering it towards my workouts for the week, I do consider them more workout than non-workout. 

How To Actually Rest When You Take Breaks

Sneakers | Yoga Mat

February 21, 2026 

I have been repeatedly reminded that there’s a reason I stopped working out on a scheduled basis after the POTS Exercise times: generally, the net result of me working out is more pain than less. 

I’m so frustrated with my body. My ribs weren’t bothering me much before I started doing this and now they’re very unhappy. I’m choosing to focus on the fact that this will (hopefully) reduce my stress fractures in the future, so even though I’m in more pain, I’m reducing future pain. But it’s hard to focus on that when you’re consistently doing activities that you know will cause you more pain. 

The biggest issue with all of this is the fact that I have problems in so many parts of my body. Doing yoga regularly might end up reducing my fibromyalgia pain, but it’s increasing my joint pain. Because all of my joints are problematic, I can’t change how I do things to support one specific problem area without hurting the rest of me. 

Something else I’m doing is tracking my overall symptoms in the Bearable app. Not only am I noting what my pain is, but I’m also tracking my sleep and adding things about the weather, stress, and activity levels. This enables me to see connections across time and to adjust accordingly. 

COVID Recovery Diaries of an Immunosuppressed Patient

Like this post? Share it! Then check out: 

POTS Exercise Protocol Diary: Month 1, 120 Resources for Living a Better Life with Chronic Illness, POTS Exercise Protocol Diary: Month 2, Hacks for Chronic Disease Management That You Need