retired teacher

I can lay around and feel sorry for myself or I can get up and face the day straight on. I am going to hurt no matter what so I do the best I can and suffer. No one wants to hear about my aches and pains so i don't tell them. I have lost 34 pounds which has helped.

Feather3

I was dx'd with Fibromyalgia in 1999. I tried all the meds, depression(5 kinds), pain meds (several), Lyrica, etc., you name it & all they did was give me tons of side effects to deal with & never touched my pain. I get massive triggers/muscle knots in my back & shoulders. I have come to learn to pace myself. Over doing anything causes pain & more fatigue. Exercise, altho it may cause some pain at first, is the number one treatment that has helped me. Other than that I've tossed all the meds & now take 10 vitamins a day. Vit B, C, D, E, CoQ10, Amino Acids, Multi vitamin, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium. I eat healthy & avoid preprocessed foods & artifical sweeteners. I rest/sleep when I'm tired. Cold increases pain ten fold. Massage is a must to not only loosen muscle knots/triggers, but also lowers stress. Long trips in the car cause pain & fatigue, so I usually try to plan a day or so down time after a trip. Any surgery, which I've had seven ina 23 month period, causes a fibro flare. A flare can take a few days to a week or more to shut down. Each person is different, as to how this nasty disease affects us, so you will need to find what works best for you. You may also need to try things more than once to see how they affect you. I've actually gotten better as time has gone on, due to learning how to deal with/treat my fibro symptoms.

Best wishes & gentle hugs :)

Aussie Quilter

See if you can get hold of a copy of " Living Well with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia "(Living Well (Collins)) (Hardback) By (author) Mary J. Shomon.
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk has it for $US 13.28 and $A15.12, with Free WORLDWIDE postage, (they also have 1587 books on Quiltmaking, Patchwork & Applique!). I borrowed it from the local library, and couldn't put it down. It answered so many questions. Apparently it is also linked to low thyroid.

It contained the best description of FMS that I have come across. "Think of your worst bout of flu, multiply it by 20, then imagine feeling like that all the time!" To me that is a good day. Multiply it by 50 for a bad day, and 80+ for a *very* bad day. When the family asks how I'm feeling, and I tell the on a scale of 1-80+ they get the general idea.

I've been taking 1 Dolased at night to help me sleep, but the last few days, even though they have been 20 days, all I want to do is sleep. Yesterday I got up at 9.30,opened the blinds then went back to bed. Woke at 1pm. Today I woke up at 11 am. Well over 12 hours sleep each day. A few years ago I was given 25mg Endep, but that knocked me out for 24 hours - literally! 12.5mg knocked me out for 12-18 hours, and 6.25 mg for 9-12 hours. Didn't matter what the dosage was, I got around like a zombie for the next 4-5 hours when I got up. Definitely wasn't safe to drive. If I planned on going into town I had to stop taking it 2 nights before I went. Decided that the cure was worse than the complaint, and ditched them.

The Dr that diagnosed me told me that fibro does NOT like cold, damp weather, or humidity. Well, it gets cold here overnight in winter (down to as low as minus 10C/14F), but there is no humidity at all. No where near the heat in Melbourne - 3000 km south - from where I moved 8 years ago, and I'm coping a lot better. It has only got to 40C/104F twice in the last 8 years. The year I moved here from Melbourne it was 28C/82F on Xmas Day,and Melbourne had 47C/117F. Best thing I ever did moving north.

Just as well I live by myself, I doubt if I could manage a family some weeks.

tdgiffin

Have you been able to continue working?

sahm4605

Like many others have said keep a food and pain diary for a month and then compare the two. the days that are really bad go to the food diary and see if there are any connections. Stay away from those. I know a few people that have Fibro. My mom my grandma and both my uncles are among them. I think that I have it starting also.
My mom finds that a water bed turned up nice and high helps a lot for her to sleep. there is something about not getting enough of rem sleep or something because the body is missing something to tell the body to paralys(sp) itself.
There are a couple of people who have gone to a raw food diet with no meat or fish that have found much relief from the pain. The best thing is to go to a natural food store and get a few books and start to read read read up on this. Unfortunately the diagnosis of Fibro is kinda a catch all for wide spread pain that the docs are clueless about. you are your own best advocate in the medical world. read all you can and stay away from all things processed and it should help some.
I being in the beginning stages of it do find that when I work out it helps and staying away from processed foods and sugar help a ton. which stinks because I am a sugarholic. hope that this helps.

minnow895

everthing everone has helped it seems most everone says about the same thing. i am starting on antidepresants tommarow and saw my nuroligist today he and my other doc says the first thing is to get the colestral undecontroll then the sizures and then work more on the pain management of the fibro this all happened after a head and neck injury in 2007 then married a man which stold all my wrokcomp money and now am in the process of divorce i am no longer working because of my stability and pain management i will have another surgery on my neck this fall got a bone spure on top of the new disck.
life does go one one day at a time and i just do the best i can each day and if anyione complains about it i tell them to take a long walk off a short pier
god bless each of you and i will hold all of you in my prayers.

sahm4605

I am so sorry that life has handed you some lemons lately. just remember that lemonade is a wonderful drink. Pull closer to God and you will find strength. as for the seizures and the colestral, I would defiantly do your research on it all. I have family on my dads side that has grand mal and petty mal seizures. and you must learn the antidepressants. they many times make seizures worse. my grandma went on one and it really threw her for a loop. she ended up having absent seizures. and this little boy I know as well as my cuz were on these seizure meds and they made the seizures worse. so when they give you a scrip, take it to the internet and look it up. and find out everything that you can on it before you take it. good luck and i will be praying for you if that is okay.

minnow895

my doc is aware of this problem so am i and so is the nuroigilist it will be just finding one that cooperates with my body.
one book i had read at one tmes brings back memories and i am going to try and firnd it again it was by erma bombeck it is called if life is a bowl of cherries what am i doing in the pits it helped at that time so i am going to look at it.
as i go on i makes my faith in god much better at this time all i can do is trust in god i have had many talks with my priest for guidence and my faith is what keeps me going as he saya and a friend in aa says but for the grace of god there go I

charwhit

I also have it. I take Lyrica and antidepressant. Plus vicadin when the pain is extra bad. Talking about stress I am a librarian in an elementary school and have a sister that has been diagnosed with cancer in May and told that she has 3-6 months. My school district is working without a contract. I just walked for an hour for an informational pickett after working all day. My knees and hips are really killing me. enough feeling sorry for myself. I hope you can get some relief some how