Abbasbride

Close Depression
: Clinical (Major) Depression

I was diagnosed with depression due to the fibromyalgia and all of my back problems which then becomes a vicious cycle. I am depressed as I have no life and can do nothing. Everything from housework to groceries I have to have someone do for me. Even tho I am on Fentanyl, Norco, ultram, zanaflex, & celexa the pain never fully leaves or even becomes something I can tolerate. I have been on so many different drugs and one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia is the fact that your body is very sensitive to medications. This whole myriad of drugs to try and not work and to deal with some of the side affects from the meds increases the depression. The depression causes me to stress out over most things (& even tho I also take xanax for the stress it doesn't seem to do anything except keep me from biting off the heads of my loved ones. The more stress I carry the worse the fibromyalgia is as it feeds off of stress making the pain worse and the whole cycle begins again. Hopefully I will find the time to log in to this forum every now and then and just share with others who are going through the same situations as myself

Close Fibromyalgia

to give and get help and support

Treatments

Cyclobenzaprine Somewhat Helpful

flexeril worked for a small amount of time but made me sleep all the time (and with fibro you already have fatigue) but it wasn't a restorative sleep. Once my body got used to the med and it didn't make me drowsy any more, it didn't help with the pain or stiffness - just messed with my head and sleepwalk/cook/eat/chat on line with nonsense letters that meant/spelled nothing! when I did finally sleep and never remembered a thing

Duragesic Patch Working / Worked

use 75mg patch, works better than the 30mg x 2 daily morphine I was on but doesn't totally do the trick still take many meds for breakthru pain.

Elavil Not Working

didn't work, made me more depressed and FAT which is VERY VERY hard to lose

Guaifenesin Working / Worked

take mucinex-dm daily helps with the postnasal drip that started with the fibro and seems to add a little oomph to the pain meds. I can tell when I haven't taken it so it must be doing something

Heat Working / Worked

use it all the time- in fact my back is all mottled due to using it so much

Lyrica Not Working

tried this twice and my feet and ankles swelled up so badly that I couldn't even get my flip flops on my feet

Morphine Somewhat Helpful

When I moved and changed docs he took me off the morphine and put me on fentanyl which has done much better but still have constant breakthru pain

Ultram Working / Worked

was taking ultram as needed for headaches but doc didn't want to up my fentanyl or norco doses so added the ultram 4x daily and also upped the zanaflex dosage to 4x daily

Vitamin B12 Not Working

before I was officially diagnosed with fibro I was getting the b12 shots weekly but I never seemed to get any benefit from this.

Zanaflex Working / Worked

The only muscle relaxer that I have taken that has worked.

Hydrocodone Working / Worked

Was originally taking 8 a day when was on 30mg x2 daily of morphine. Started out with vicodin in 95 3 daily doctors wouldnt prescribe anymore until I went thru battery of testing in which of course ended up not revealing anything. After accident in 2006 was finally sent to pain specialist who could prescribe more for me. Doc now seems to think that the fentanyl should take care of most of the pain and refuses to increase dosage to at least see if it helps