This is going to be long, but I'm hoping to get some help in here.

My now 17 year old daughter has been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I've suspected it for a while as my mother also has this. I also believe she has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but that has yet to be diagnosed. I'm going to give a quick rundown of the problems she has had - I would love to hear from anyone that might have insight or knowledge to help us.

Several years ago when my daughter was about 8 or 9, she started having chronic pain in her abdomen. We went to her doctor, who couldn't find anything wrong and referred us to a gastroenterologist. He thought she had IBS, but treatments he suggested/prescribed didn't work. He had her scoped from both ends and looked at her insides. Had sonograms and ultrasounds done but found nothing. We basically were told that there's nothing wrong, she's making it up. However, my daughter continued to complain of pain and nothing really seemed to help. We continued to seek help from other doctors but none could find anything wrong. One doctor removed her appendix as that might have been the problem, and did some exploratory surgery to look around and could find nothing wrong. We were left with nothing but "maybe she'll outgrow it".

My ex-husband thought she was faking it, but I didn't agree and still don't. While I know she would use it as an excuse on occasion, she also missed too many things that she really wanted to do because she was hurting. My ex became a different person and started to become emotionally abusive toward our daughter, so when she was 12, we left and I got divorced. During this time, my daughter became depressed and started having anxiety attacks. Not because of the divorce, she was relieved to be away from him, but because of her symptoms. Doctors started her on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds, both of which have changed over time. She also started having issues with sleep and to this day cannot sleep like a normal person. She was prescribed numerous sleep medications over the years - the one she keeps going back to is Ambien. She still takes that one, and it only sometimes helps. She wakes up just as tired as if she didn't sleep. It seems like she's in pain all the time and I just feel so helpless that I can't do anything about it!

She really had difficulty attending school - I had to get special doctor notes to excuse her excessive absences. She began having anxiety attacks at school and finally in her sophmore year just couldn't handle attending anymore. We tried the online school, but with her crazy sleep schedule she couldn't do that either as it's required for the student to be online and "attend" a class every day. Her plan is to get her GED once she turns 18, which is only a few months away.

She barely leaves the house, other than for doctor appointments. She has panic attacks in crowded places. She has heart palpitations sometimes. She's exhausted and in pain most of the time. I really don't see her being able to hold down a job at this point. I'm thinking I should try to see if I can get her on SSI when she turns 18. I know that's going to be an uphill battle, but I don't know what else to do at this point. Does anyone have any advice for me? I'm really at a loss here.