Well, I for one, am in total awe of all that you do! I wish I had some sage advice or piece of wisdom to offer, but I'm sorry to say I do not.

The one thing that jumped out at me was your comment about your vision. That could be caused by the zoloft. Anti-d's can & do affect vision. Be sure & ask the eye dr about this.

Keep being proactive. Ask, ask & ask some more. I pray you are able to find a great team of drs, counselors & chiro... I'm starting to ask each one if they treat the WHOLE person rather than just the symptom...

Gentle Hugs

I do not know if 90 pain meds are too much it depends on your body I guess. I take 90 methadone and usually 120 narco a month for pain along with all the other meds so I cannot answer that. I ask myself the same question when I am expected to be able to take care of 4 people besides myself. I thank God have found a wonderful counselor. I started seeing him in 97 for abusive marriage I got out of and when I started going to him for FMS he informed me his wife has it also, so he can somewhat relate. I feel so drained most days I cant think straight. I have had to give up alot of my favorite things to take care of myself & my family. Somedays we just cant do it, so dont beat yourself up if you cant do something or have to say NO!! If you keep going the way you are you will be headed into a burn out. I hope you can find a wonderful counselor as I have, dont give up keep looking.

Thanks! I am trying hard not to give up--but I've been fighting the good fight for like 10 years! I'm just tired. I'm just SO tired. Depressed (clinically now) and in pain. And in pain in my soul.

I feel sad for you. dont give up. keep on fighting. you can read my journal if you want.

I DON'T THINK 90 IS TOO MUCH WITH YOUR SCHEDULE, AND THE PAIN DOES GET WORSE AT TIMES. I KNOW MINE GOES UP AND DOWN. YOU HAVE TO TRY TO NOT LET THE DRUGS MAKE YOU INTO THE PERSON YOU ARE NOW.THEY ARE ADDICTIVE AND YOU JUST HAVE TO WATCH THEM, I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.....LOVE....HELEN

i for one have to applaud u.. there is no way i could do the things u do.. i have days i can hardly make it out of bed let alone try and do anything or go anywhere... try not to be to hard on yourself . i honestly cant say u r taing to many pills .. that is between u and your body. as time goes u may learn u will have to cut some stuff out of your schedule but doing what u can when u can is always good..**hugs**

I just have to say that I feel I have met my match. I always said I'd fly to Iraq if it meant they had a treatment for Fibro!! I too have seen too many specialists, counselors, accupuncture, accupressure, massages once a week, another failed mri that found nothing. It is a crazy cycle but we keep it up to find a way to cope. I admire you for trying so many things. I am not quite ready to admit that I need percocet but I am on valium which works well for now. Does the percocet work well for you?

You have a really busy schedule!!! How long do have you go to finish your study? I think it would be a tall order for a healthy body person to cope with a three month old and study on top of that. I went to college and had two small children with fm and I felt much the same way as you.
My advice would be to stop and give yourself some more you time. The hot tub sounds great but we know that looking after a baby gives you about three seconds spare in a day. Can your husband schedule some routine time for you to be on your own and have quiet time? You sound like you need to quieten your brain. I listen to guided relaxation tapes and that helps calm my brain last thing at night and helps me a little. Hope that helps

I just would like to say, it might be the bibro with your eyes. i had that problem last fall, and I wasn't on any medications yet, I had not had a dx. it seemed to happen when i was the most fatiuged. please let me know what you find out, they could not find a reason for my issues, it was like i just lost my vission for a few seconds. I think you need to slow down some, I was working when this was going on..since I went on a medical, I have not had any more problems.. take care of you, because no one else is going to. enjoy that baby as all to soon she will be grown up, and not need you.

What can I say? It sounds all too familiar, and only those of us who have this disease can really relate. I take a Vit. D supplement and an all natural supplement that replaced 12 prescriptions. I started the supplement this past May, as well as, the prescribed Vit. D supplement, and it has changed my world. I am so blessed. I was doing exactly what you were doing a number of years ago. I raised 6 children, went back to school when I was in my early 40s, and then, took on a very demanding professional job. By 1997, the exhaustion forced me to retire on disability. Finding the Vit. D (prescribed supplement, not over the counter, by the way) and this all natural supplement has been a God send. I have tried so much over the last 50 years, yes, that is not a typo, and this is the only thing that has really worked for me. It would be my prayer that you are fortunate enough to find something that works for you. But, please, try to get those Vit. D levels checked out. It could make such a difference if those levels are low. Prayers and Hugs.

no, you are not taking too much. i was a drug addict for years and years. i had been clean for almost three and a half years when i got sick with the fibro. i know from experience that the worst thing "addiction" means is that if you were to stop taking all painkillers you would go into withdrawel for about 3 really bad days and four kind of shitty days then, TADA! you are done. now with a new drug called suboxone, you don't even need to go through any bad days. it totally takes care of all the syptoms of withdrawel and lets you lead a normal life while you are detoxing. no pain.
the one thing i would be very careful about is all the tylenol in the percs. you can ask for norco, the same thing but with almost no actemetiphin(which can damage your liver in large doses) or ask for roxycodone. they have no tylenol in them at all. thats what i take because i am scared of liver damage and my tummy is more sensitive to all the buffers than most.

i also take methadone. this, is where it gets a little scary. methadone they SAY, can take up to 22 days to detox. in reality, i have had friends complain that thier detox lasted for up to two or three months. suboxone can also be used for this, but you have to switch to taking regular opiates for a few days to get the methadone out of your system first or else it will send you into instant withdrawels.

doctors and people throw around the word "addiction" like its the boogeyman. a bad addiction is only bad because you start to avoid loved ones, and it distracts you from what is really important in your life. you lose your job, your house, your car, your dignity. everything. thats when you hit "rock bottom."

we take pain meds so we can ENJOY our lives. honestly, if you have been taking pain meds for a few months in any amount you will go through some withdrawels when you stop cold turkey(with no other medication to ease withdrawel symptoms)
i can't imagine what my life would be like without the medication for pain. it would just be awful. i study bio-psych as well. i know that being in pain constantly, puts a lot of uneeded stress on your body. releasing a hormone called cortisol. this hormaone can break down cell tissue and cause other side effects like causing a weakening of your immune system.

it is healthier to take what you need to get rid of your pain. yes. be addicted to drugs. it won't hurt you as much as the fibro pain and the cortisol. there can be no morality attatched to a substance. its just a medication. who you are has more to do with how you handle having an addiction. sounds like you are handling it fine. these drugs were meant for this exact purpose. to kill pain. nobody deserves to be in pain. methadone is so good because it lasts for so long. but all other meds. even the really, really strong ones, like diluadid and morphine. they take the same week to get over as the percoset. i have been through so many of these weeks i can't even count them any more. i have survived them all. usually some rest and some valium or klonipin or xanex or all of the above combined(do not take all of them at the same time, i meant each drug on seperate days has worked before because i took what i could find at the moment) will get you through. i have done it without anything to help me. fibro is worse. trust me. you are already beating the crap out of syptoms that would make most junkies cry like a baby. don't ever feel guilty for taking what you need to live the life YOU want to live. you have a right to accomplish ALL your dreams. congrats on doing just that! a family, work, school, being active in fighting a disease. way to go!
you are obviously a strong person with a very strong will. not the type of person brought easily down by an addiction. keep fighting the good fight. don't let anyone ever tell you or make you feel guilty for taking what you need to enjoy life. talk to your doc about possible liver damage and ask for something with less tylenol if it is a concern. or maybe you need one or two stronger pills that you can break in half and take once a day. or twice a day if you need it. i take one dose of methadone in the morning (about thirty mgs) and then take another around 8 or 9 at night after i am sore from moving around all day. (usually anothr 10 or 20 mgs depending) this weather change has increased my dosage. i usually took half of that a day. find what is right for you. whatever keeps you out of pain for the longest amount of time.
ironicaly, most of these anti-depressants these doctors are throwing at us have longer and nastier (mentally and sometimes even physically)) withdrawels then for opiates. but they never warn you about the addictive nature of psychotropic drugs. they hand them out like candy. many of these drugs have not been tested on a varied enough group of people or for long enough. these drugs change the chemistry of your brain!!! it should never be taken or prescribed lightly. of course opiates change your brain chemistry as well, but they work on your already built in pain killing system, and act as our natural endorphins would.
i lived out in san francisco for awhile when i was studying bio-psych. i saw on craigslist all the ads for drug companies looking to pay people to test out new drugs. people lie to get into paid studies. haha. people addicted to drugs! they lie and even sometimes don't even take the meds and then make up the results. drug companies make so much money off of anti-depressants. think about the cost of these "new" anti-depressants compared to the cost of one months worth of methadone or one months worth of persoset. 25-40 dollars right? then think of how much it costs without insurance for one months worth of an anti-depressant. hundreds of dollars. a drug must be on the market for 25 years before the company loses the patent and then there can be the generic version.
some people really do need the anti-depressants. depression is a terrible thing to go through. i also had anxiety and panic disorder that caused me a great deal of depression, from 15 years old till now. i believe in the power of cognitive therapy. anti-depressants should be a last resort, not a given. sometimes it is only the circumstances in a person's life that causes a depression. like say, having a chronic illness that causes a lot of pain that is impossible to "test" for and is even thought of as "being all in your head" by some people. websites like this one do more good for a lot of people then a pill ever could. sorry for the length of this response, but i just get so frustrated when doctors warn you against the dangers of addiction and don't give you the pain killers you need, while giving you, God only knows what, type of new anti-depressant that just came off the shelf. always research everything yourself before you take it. i have found that ex junkies like me usually know more about drugs than the doctors! some might call me a junkie now because i take pain meds. screw them! my life now is a hell of a lot more productive and peaceful than when i was using off of the street! i use my medication, i don't abuse it or myself by taking everything some "doctor" hands me.
oh yeah, one last thing. doctors are given free samples of new drugs. often drug companies will also give docs package deals like trips to the bahamas and other "perks" for writing so many scripts for a certain drug. maybe its an urban legend, but when it comes to some doctors and all drug companies, i wouldn't be suprised by anything unethical.

you rock by the way. stay strong and proud. hold that head up high because you have earned it!

love to all of you and please excuse any spelling errors.
kris