Fibromyalgia Support Group
You're not alone in your pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose and manage. If you're trying to cope with pain throughout your body, sleep problems, general fatigue, or other common fibromyalgia symptoms, you're in the right place. The community is here for you to talk about therapies and share your challenges.
I am not a fibromyalgia sufferer but my sister-in-law is. She is a recovering heroin/cocaine addict. During the day she is lucid and seems to be very normal. However, when dinnertime hits she staggers around, her speech is slurred and eventually she passes out on the couch. She says that she is so active during the day that it exhausts her and that is why she does this. However some people in the family feel that she is doing drugs again. I personally want to believe her but I've come here to ask fellow sufferers what it's like and is this real?
but that is not to say thats what is going on with her...
This Pain that we go thru on a Daily Basis is Very Difficult to adjust to...it can be Excruciating, Feel Threatening, and we get Very Little Help...
A Prayer for your SIL...I Hope she gets some Serious Help no matter What is causing this within her...either way, she need to Find Real Relief !!
I don't want to condemn the girl, but I would tend to side with your family. I know how much you want to think that someone has changed.....been there, done that....but it takes a strong person to bring that addiction and the attitude that goes with it.
I'll keep her in my thoughts and prayers.....gentle hugs,
Basket
I get really slow, too in the evening. I have to really concentrate on each task I am doing-even if it is serving one child's dinner at a time and making sure the plate has each item I prepared on it. Sometimes I need to talk out loud to myself to remember to not forget something....say, ok, I have the rice, where is the fish...there is the fish, ok got the fish, where is the asparagus? got the asparagus. Ok, who's plate is this? Call out the name of the child.
It feels like my brain functions slows way down in the evening.
I hope this helps.
A lot of people with FM suffer with profound fatigue as well. There is just so much we can do on a daily basis and then the system just shuts down. This is really hard for family to understand.
Just because she once used drugs doesn't dismiss the fact that she has a life altering invisible illness.
We all have a very difficult time getting family support.
yea, kinda like carrie says...if she is passin out and Not all WoWed Out...she is prolly just responding to her meds, or this Dis-Ease...am gonna go look up what heroin does to ya...I have no flippin clue !! our big drug of choice when I was growing up was Pot...not that I could smoke it, yes I DID try as a matter of fact...
Hmmm Heroin is a Pain Killer...I did not know that...Unfortunately, if she has Fibromyalgia, and is Not receiving Beneficial Treatment from her Dr.s I can Get that someone would turn to this...and it is Highly Addictive...
will pray for her...
Heroin is just another form of Opiate pain medication and is probably cheaper than the pain meds above that we pay for legally.
She's your sister, trust your instincts, listen to your heart---she is lucky to have you.
The easiest way to explain it is you feel as if you were hit by a semi-truck, who then backed up and ran over you again, and while you were down a couple of folks took baseball bats and beat the hell out of you.
Well, ok, that may be a bit much, but not by too much. One of the hardest things to deal with is that the pain never stops, it is unrelenting.
It is this that is one of the primary reasons for our fatigue, it simply wrings every bit of energy from us. Add in the sleep disturbances and a host of other symptoms and it is no wonder by evening we have pretty much worn ourselves out.
The more pain and fatigue we are feeling, the more our symptoms become pronounced - and yes speech difficulty is often an issue.
But you can see our pain, it seems a tangible thing. We move slowly and stiffly, we can't stand or sit in one position for long and we usually can't keep the pain from showing in our faces and our eyes. We are like a clock that was wound in the morning and by evening we are slowly winding down.
However, if she acts completely normal and pain-free during the day, and evening is an instantaneous change in behavior I would lean more towards drugs.
If she does have Fibro and she doesn't have adequate pain treatment she might be driven to drugs to relieve the pain. Unless you've felt it, it is difficult to imagine, but there are so many different pain levels with Fibro, it is entirely possible she might turn to drugs to try to make it stop for a while.
I am not excusing her behavior - or possible behavior. People with chronic pain (and those who only claim to be in pain) who resort to drugs cast a dark shadow on the rest of us who are legitimately seeking treatment for our pain. We are fighting an uphill battle to remove the stigma of drug addiction from the treatment of chronic pain.
If she does have Fibro, support from her family is vital, one of our most difficult obstacles is getting our family, friends and medical community to believe us. We hear 'you LOOK fine' or 'its all in your head' too often, and without proper treatment and support...well, it makes dealing with this terriblly debilitating illness even more impossible.
I think it is admirable that you came looking for answers in order to help your sister-in-law and I hope you are able to give her the support and help she needs, whatever the problem may be.
however the fentyle patch & one time methdome would make me , so to speck just "nod" off in a sitting postion! but that ws intermitn!
as everyone has said we have sleep edpervation can't sleep for a long peiord of time w/out waking up! & we do get exhausted over any little movement or activity like washing a few dishes or vacuming or laundry! can put us in a three day flare, we can't get out of bed! like a very bad flu=don't want to eat, talk, just stay in bed!& in alot of pain!
sometime my pain is so bad! my mind will just shut my body down & i go to sleep=like i have been drugged, anywhere!
have you asked her! take her to the docs, do blood test!
everyone knows i don't drink lol= water
i can vividly recall a time when i was trying to deal with fms without any medication or herbal/vitamin supplements. on my way home from work one day, i became severely tired and i was afraid that i wouldn't make it home. the fatigue was so pronounced like i have never seen before or since that day. it took all of my energy to make it home safe and get myself into bed. i woke up feeling somewhat confused. i knew i had to pick my daughter up from day care, so i got up and started getting my things together to leave. i got in the car and totally couldn't remember where i was supposed to go. it's like there was a time delay in my brain. it took a few minutes for everything to register. when i finally remembered what i was supposed to be doing, i called my husband because i was terrified, so he picked her up. once again, it took soooo much energy to get out of the car and get to bed. i passed out and woke up an hour later. my husband asked how i felt; when i responded my speech was slurred and it was difficult for me to find the right words to say. The slurred speech went away after about a couple hours or so.
i was told at my next doctor's appointment that i was "just stressed". an mri and other tests reveal nothing going on in my brain - everything is "fine", he said. and remember, i wasn't taking anything at this time, so it couldn't have been side effects of medication or supplements.
i say this to say that i can understand the severe fatigue and slurred speech. so, if she displays this behavior every now and then, perhaps it's fms. but, if it's everyday - i think something else may be happening and perhaps you'll need to take some steps to figure out what the culprit truly is, whether it's medical or drug-related.