I had very severe pain all the time. I could not even eat or dress myself at times. now my pain is much better. I would say the 4 biggest factors in getting better for me were

1) Stop doing the irrritating actvitivies for a while. I stopped work and hired help. Gradually I reduced the help and added activities that used to bother me. Some I still can't do (repetivtive work, things that involve a lot of grip strength, lifting heavy things or heavy housework) but I can do alot more than I could at my worst.

2) Finding PT's that are good at teaching the subtle exercises needed for tos and devoting alot time to them. I wrote a long post on how to teach yourself the edgelow tos exercises without a pt if you can't find a good pt

3) making sure my pain was properly treated. Undertreated pain can damage your nervous system. I was undermedicated for a long time and them properly medicated for about a year. After that year I could come way done on my meds because the exercises and the lack of untreated pain helped improve the nervous system problem.

4) doing as much cardio as you can. initally this may involve forms that don't use your arms but you may eventually be able to forms that use your arms.

the basic idea is to, as one provider put it to me, work to the edge of a flare. I.e. Don't do so much you flare up, but try to be as active you can with your exercises up until that point. You may need to keep a log to figure out that point as it can take a few days after an activity to flare you.