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'm new here. I was diagnosed with RA 7 years after I started having symptoms in 2007. I started having relief but then I began to have pain again. My SED rates (inflammation) were perfect so my Rheumatologist started changing my meds. Nothing worked for 2 years.
One day a student working with my doctor (teaching facility) pressed on the fibro trigger points and it was wildly painful. My doctor didn't want to change my meds or try anything new so I changed doctors to someone I could work with better.
This new guy started to explain fibro to me and suggested I have been dealing with fibro flairs and not so much the RA. He said there are only 2 ways to treat fibro: more exercise and better sleep. I take 120mg of Cymbalta and 50mg trazadone. I've tried Lyrica and it worked for a few weeks and then stopped working all together.
I have a 14 month old who still wakes up once a night to eat. My husband and I trade weeks getting up with her but I still only get a few days of 6-hours solid sleep at a time. I can sometimes hear her wake eventhough my husband gets her.
I am pretty tired every day. I have lots of pain everyday. I am forced to take naps about 3 times a week from fatigue. And my memory!! I feel senile! I know this will get better once the baby sleeps through the night again but I don't know when that will be.
I am a shell of my former self.
What has worked for you? Help
One day a student working with my doctor (teaching facility) pressed on the fibro trigger points and it was wildly painful. My doctor didn't want to change my meds or try anything new so I changed doctors to someone I could work with better.
This new guy started to explain fibro to me and suggested I have been dealing with fibro flairs and not so much the RA. He said there are only 2 ways to treat fibro: more exercise and better sleep. I take 120mg of Cymbalta and 50mg trazadone. I've tried Lyrica and it worked for a few weeks and then stopped working all together.
I have a 14 month old who still wakes up once a night to eat. My husband and I trade weeks getting up with her but I still only get a few days of 6-hours solid sleep at a time. I can sometimes hear her wake eventhough my husband gets her.
I am pretty tired every day. I have lots of pain everyday. I am forced to take naps about 3 times a week from fatigue. And my memory!! I feel senile! I know this will get better once the baby sleeps through the night again but I don't know when that will be.
I am a shell of my former self.
What has worked for you? Help
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I'm alive, I'm sleeping like a rock, and for some reason I wanted cherry juice so that seems to be helping. (??? Weirdo that I am.)***Infamous therapies over history:1. The Attic. The madwoman in the attic is a motif in literature going waaaaaay back: the nutty female relative is locked in the attic. (See: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for a grotesquely racist version of it, and Charlotte Perkins...
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We're all troubled.WSo, to remind ourselves we're not at rock bottom (this is a reverse optimism thing I learned as a kid):We are not living on the island of Krakatoa when the volcano goes boom!Yeah, okay, that sucks.***Toay in 1942, Pierre Laval announced that the way to free France was for Germany to win WW2. Pierre did not win a lot of friends. When the war ended, quite quickly he was tried...
Welcome! This is such a difficult disease, especially with little ones. Our youngest of 5 was about 2 when I became very sick. It took 8 years to finally be diagnosed. I look back and I'm not sure how I made it. I've only been diagnosed for a year and a half now so I'm still learning how to cope. I feel like all I do is work to manage symptoms. Heating pad, massager, lotions, medicines, different foods, ear plugs when it's too noisy, closing the blinds when it's too bright..ahhhh!! It's ever changing.
I encourage you to follow the daily check in. There are wonderful supportive people on there with great advice and most importantly they understand! Take care and we are here for you.. blessings. .Mima
I've been dealign wtih this for 20 years, and it's changing all the time. Back then, it was "in my mind get a shrink". Now it's finally acknowledged as neuro-muscular! Yay!
I had about 8 years of "remission" along the way,a nd even my docs aren't sure why. I've successfully used and still use combinations of yoga, acupuncture, gentle exercise (no jogging or high impact on joints), heat, ice, NSAIDs, stress management seminar and techniques.
Best advice overall, however, is: healthy diet and nutrition. It helps the body with *anything*, including med side effects, fatigue, etc.
The go-to book for a lot of us is "FIbromyalgia for Dummies". It's good for us, our families, and sometimes our medical treatment people.
Oh, and if you have more than one issue going on? (I also have epilepsy and PTSD.) Please, do not assume something is "just" fibro. We've had people suffer pretty badly from not getting things checked out. Better safe than sorry.
Cheers,
Leo
It takes time and patience trying to find your "grove" with fibro. What meds work for you, what don't. How much activity is ok, and when to KNOW when to stop. How to pace yourself, etc. It is a game of trial and error. It definitely helps if you have some support. And good sleep. Maybe wear ear plugs on the nights it's your hubby's turn to watch the child? Or if you have a spare room where you can't hear them, perhaps sleep there on those nights. I have to wear earplugs almost every night because my husband snores, the rain wakes me up, the cats wake me, my neighbors, etc, etc, etc, etc. I feel like I need a padded coffin to sleep in like I'm some vampire of something. Geeee.
Oh yes the memory issue. And no, can't focus on a darn thing to save my life. I notice the more your sleep is disturbed the worse these symptoms are.
Take care of yourself and hope you around. Hugs
The author is a researcher and has fibro herself.