Hi, I don't know if I can help much, I am new to fibromyalgia. My background, I have had horrible back issues including an injury followed by 2 surgeries that did not relieve my radiculopathy. So 3rd surgery to implant spinal cord stimulator & now pain daily from head to toe, leading to the fibro diagnosis. So that's me. Your post caught my attention b/c of your work situation. I, too, am feeling same as you. Still working, and the stress makes all my pain so much worse. I used to be one of the top performers at my job. Now I feel like a has-been. I am not as sharp, it takes me 4 times longer (at least) to get things done. I am no longer respected. I feel like my coworkers think I am not carrying my weight. Because I have worked there a long time, I am one of the highest paid people, which makes my coworkers resent me even more. And being paid well makes my husband NOT agreeable to letting me retire. I often feel I have become his cash cow, and I feel powerless in the he decision. Yes he is controlling.

I do think you should talk to your doctor, and please be very careful about mixing alcohol with medication, or using alcohol to manage your pain. It could cause very serious consequences, do a lot of damage to your body. I hope things improve for you.

Alcohol & Fibro do not mix. Alcohol & Gabapentin do not mix. I have Fibromyalgia & I take Gabapentin for RSD/CRPS. It is like Fibro on steroids.
I understand your feelings of frustration & just wanting it to all end. Please be careful mixing prescription drugs & alcohol.

I'm sorry to hear work is causing such troubles for you right now. Venting here is always allowed, of course. I hope you felt a bit better after getting it out of your system.

In my personal opinion, I hear a lot of denial language in your post. I can compleeeeeeeeeetely relate to that. But whether because you listen to doctors/other patients, or because your fibro will take you down in a way you can't power through - your body WILL enforce its limits. You know that, because I'm sure those limits have been increasingly trying to strangle you while you're increasingly trying to ignore it. If a chronic condition could go away by ignoring it, none of us would be sick.

For some people, the fibro will draw a clear line in the sand that they cannot cross. Some of us are stubborn to a fault. I know I am, at least. My denial that is still present in certain ways after 5+ years can have me overdo it for months on end, and then sink into months worth of bodily nonsense that makes life not worth living. If you're like me, you're secretly hoping that something (bodily) will happen to take the choice of out of your hands, because CHOOSING to accept that this is the medical reality feels damn-near impossible.

I doubt I need to tell you that the coping mechanisms you are leaning into right now are neither a good short nor long-term way to deal with your diagnosis. Upping dosages at your choosing can lead to chemical and/or emotional dependency on medication. Fibromyalgia is already hard to control, and it won't get any easier when doctors refuse you major narco classes because they don't want to tempt addictive, self-medicating behaviour.

Alcohol makes everything worse. Alcohol prevents REM sleep, which is the most necessary for getting your muscles and joints to do some healing overnight. On top of that, you're risking the health of your kidneys and liver. Heavy medication alone can already do damage to those organs, but combining prescription drugs with alcohol is introducing a lot of toxicity for your body to deal with. That's not even mentioning how they're both central nervous system deppressants, and if you're not careful you can end up in respiratory distress or cardiac arrest.

In the strongest possible terms I would urge you to do three things. See a doctor to discuss the effects of your symptoms again. Consider a counsellor so you can get help with the steps of acceptance which tend to come with a lot of depression and anger. And lastly to gather all the possible information about your country's/state's programs for the chronically ill. Disability. Partial disability. Programs to find condition-appropriate work.

If you refuse to address the pain, it will dominate and destroy every aspect of your life. This is not a maybe, this is a fact. Fibro medication doesn't treat fibro - it's there to make the symptoms more bearable while we nurse our fibro back to the best possible places. If you demand from your body while not giving it the rest it needs and just drown out the body signals with drugs, then you are taking from your body without ever putting back in what it needs. You are drained.

Please find a way to take care of yourself, because you deserve it. In my humble opinion: the hard part isn't ignoring the pain – the hard part is accepting that I'm sick and that I have to yield my life's choices to that despised pain. Best of luck, and I hope you'll feel free to vent here whenever you need.

Dovie, unfortunately it's not my co-workers who are being unsupportive and questioning me, it's my partner who also works with me. This is why it's so hard to accept because she knows what I am putting myself through. She is also the reason I suffer in silence. Don't get me wrong I love her to pieces and she would try and help if I asked her but she also has a spinal condition and is struggling too, the difference is she moans about it all the time and she's had a sinus infection so moans about that too, every day I hear her whining about how she feels, it just irritates me so I vowed not to do the same.

Sonyacon- I have great respect for everything you said and it was put so well, thank you. I have been dealing with FMS for 15yrs I'm not in denial as such but I do refuse to give in to it. You're right though, this isn't helpful because I'm not giving my body what it wants. I think you also hit the nail on the head, I self destruct so that I don't have a choice to give up, my body will eventually force me to stop and also at this point my partner will look up and realise that I'm not coping and start to help me.
At the beginning of the illness I was off sick a lot over a 3 year period, then managed 7 years without a single day off then for 2 yrs I struggled again, it's been 18months in this new job without being off sick and I'm not ready to break that winning streak yet. I am very stubborn and even when my managers and staff tell me to slow down I refuse. I need the adrenaline from being busy to act as a natural painkiller, it's worse if I take it easy as that doesn't kick in. The problem is I pay for it later.
I know how unhelpful alcohol is with fibro and as a rule I don't drink coz it does make it worse for days after but right now I just don't want to feel anything even if it's just for a couple of hours

I'll ditto Sonya, and I'll add that depression and alcohol and pain are a very bad combination. Please, do consider long-term consequences. They suck, but you're hurting yourself.... Healing to you, okay?

Hi rainbow I agree with a lot of the responses on here so I won't get into all that. I did want to add that I know how you feel, but also wanted to tell you I pushed and pushed and pushed myself as well. I was running a restaurant going through so much pain and working like I wasn't. I went like that for a while but I started getting worse pushing myself to the point that a couple weeks ago I put in my 2 week notice, my last day was this past Sunday. Oh the tears. I know I'm telling you what you already know but pushing your body to extremes can for sure make you feel worse. I'm saying little prayers for you and sending you a big hug :)

I'm glad you found some use in my post, and you're very welcome of course.

Well, some of the things you said in your reply could be taken right out of my diary! ...If I kept one, but you know what I mean.

The fear of losing momentum.

I haven't personally found a way to tackle that mindset for myself. For me, it's often a matter of (stubborn) heart over mind. Sorry if this get a bit long and rambly - it's a topic I chew on quite often.

When I finally get something going, I'm loathe to stop before it's done. The feeling of accomplishment in a much-diminished life is a huge boost for me, and I don't want to risk feeling like a slacker for not finishing something.

If this happens with something small - cleaning the kitchen, for example - the fall-out is also relatively contained. I clean too much - I flare for one or several days. But when this behaviour happens in long, sustained periods of over-doing it, I get into some unhealthy cycles.

If I overdo it for weeks or months, then my health completely, utterly crashes. Anything and everything feels like far too much. The household starts suffering because something like going to the grocery store is inconceivably demanding. When this feeling goes on for weeks or months, I actually start doubting myself. Am I depressed? Am I unwittingly wallowing in depression, holding myself back by listening to what I think are the rest demands of my body?

Time has taught me that, when I take and have the time to mostly respect the ridiculously limited energy, I will suddenly feel better after a few weeks/months (depends on how much I pushed things). From one day to the next, I wake up feeling *shocked gasp* okay? Wow! Suddenly just wanting a little something from the store can get me to go grocery shopping, and I can keep it up for several times a week again.

The big overdoing it leads to vicious circles for me - a self-fulfilling prophecy. I push too hard for a long time, because my health keeps taking away my ability to do things for a long time - my health takes away my ability to do things for a long time, because I push too hard for a long time. On and on and on. I haven't quite gotten off this particular hamster wheel.

I do know I need to learn. The "down-swings" of the cycle, where I flare for months and am left with nothing but self-loathing because of how little I accomplish, take a lot out of me. And they don't make things better for my partner. I always have limited energy, but she doesn't deserve to have me bow out of any weekend activities for months due to my decisions. I have to do right by her and manage my health the best I can so that I can be there for and with her as much as my limitations would allow. It's not in my power to cure myself, but if I'm aware of these follies, I still have work to do on myself.

So, Rainbowsearching, I suppose my advice to both of us is to work on our black-or-white mindsets. Taking a sick day, or taking all the yearly allotted sick days, is not failure. :) It is maintenance - a pit stop to refuel before you jet off. Like a Formula1 car. It might not even mean loss of momentum, since rest does honestly make us feel better. I say "might" because I'm not going to lie, and I think that in those "manic" periods of activity, I have NEVER been able to convince myself to allow the maintenance moments that my head was arguing for. Stubborn heart over mind. So, so stubborn, hahaha.

I'm very sorry for the length, but I thank you for your reply, as it gave me another chance to ruminate on this subject. Hopefully repeating these facts to myself will keep the knowledge closer to the surface when my stubborn heart kicks in the next time.

And of course this is a lot of pondering about my own situation, since I can only speak from personal experience. Feel free to disagree with anything or everything, since no one ever knows all the details of another's life.

Hope you're holding up okay!

Yes what Sonya said! With this illness, there are good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks, good months and bad months, good years and bad years. Some of us have had such good years between the other stuff it even felt like a "remission". One thing to keep in mind is it doesn't have to be all or nothing (or black and white like Sonya said).
Learn your body's limits and give it breaks & the recovery time it needs and you'll be able to do a lot more than you ever thought possible.

Also, if you haven't been to a pain management doc, tried aqua therapy, acupuncture, or some other form of therapy that you can benefit from, then maybe it's time to explore that route? Hey, if it helps even if a little, that's major for us, right?

Hugs and I hope you start feeling better soon....