Q: What Other Fibromyalgia Symptoms do you have besides the Pain?

Reminder :  I am a patient, not a doctor. What I am sharing comes largely from what my doctors taught me and some of what is discovered in my own research.
The purpose of this series is to inform. I pray you will be informed enough to support friends with this syndrome or possibly acquire informed questions for your doctor. Please talk with your doctor or visit the Mayo Clinic website for official information, diagnosis, and treatment.

There are so many fibromyalgia symptoms and they can come and go. Look for these and others, especially when they come in multiples.

According to Patient Education Booklet from Mayo Clinic ” Fibromyalgia: The Road to Wellness”, symptoms of fibromyalgia include:

• Widespread pain
• Fatigue
• Sleep difficulties
• Mood Disorders
• Difficulty with memory, concentration, or thought organization (sometimes called “Fibro Fog“)
• Headaches, facial pain
• Chest wall pain
• Heightened sensitivity to odors, noises, bright lights and touch.
• Stiffness
• Numbness or tingling in the arms and legs
• Dizziness

One may or may not experience all these symptoms. And some may come and go, even the pain. This makes it difficult to diagnose, along with the fact that there is no blood test or x-ray that can be done to find the problem. When these tests are done, everything comes back normal which is why many doctors are baffled or believe that it is psychosomatic.

Conditions that may accompany fibromyalgia

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qUESTION – iS fIBROMYALGIA rEALLY FOR rEAL?

Dear Friend OF A fIBRO wARRIOR;

Unimaginable to me, but there are people who can’t relate to dealing with pain. There are folks out there that have never had as much as a headache in their life. This is unimaginable to me.

I’m NOT one of them.

I have dealt with pain from a very early age. In the 5th grade, I started having chest pains, severe pains, like having a heart attack pains. But by the time I got to a doctor or the ER, the pain was gone or they couldn’t find the source of it. They said it was “growing pains“. Funny, I never got taller than 5’2”. Sure had a lot of pain to end up so short. Continue reading →

Dear friends;

If you been around since my diagnosis of fibromyalgia, I’m sure you realize that I am not the same as I used to be. I’m guessing you have noticed that I am no longer the go-getter I used to be and no longer deeply involved with the children at church, as a matter of fact, I’m not even at church every time the doors open. I walk with a cane and tire very easily. At home, I have to leave a lot of the daily chores to my husband. This is all much to my disappointment but it just cannot be helped.

Simple Things I No Longer Do

Today, though, I thought I might share about some of the simple things you may not realize that I can no longer do since my diagnosis. Here are some of those simple things that most of us take quite for granted.

Wear a hat or pretty barrettes in my hair.

Anything that might pull my hair or put pressure on my head causes a lot of pain for me now. Have you ever put your hair in a tight ponytail and then later when you took it down you scalp hurt? This is me all the time. Some days are not as bad as others, but for the most part, anything in my hair or on my head is a no-no.

Open a bottle of water or coke.

“Can you open this, please?

Those little ridges on the bottle cap are little needles poking into my hand when I try to open a bottle, especially the first time breaking the seal.

Walk across the floor in my bare feet.

Walking in my bare feet, at times is like walking on a bed of nails. Or worse, little a bed of needles. Can’t wear the socks with slip grids on them either. Each grid causes great pressure or pain on my feet. Lately even the fuzzy socks have been an issue. They feel like walking on a dirty kitchen floor in your bare feet. I had a pair of sandals once with ridges inside the soles. Oh, my, It was just impossible to walk in them.

Don’t mean to overwhelm you. Just trying to help you understand why I no longer do things I used to do. I hate it really cause my brain says, “Hey, let’s do this” but my body says, “NO!” My mind knows these are simple things to do, but no longer for me.

Thanks for listening and understanding,

 

I’m a Member of Fibro Bloggers Directory

This week’s guest is Sarah from the blog, The Last Days of Pompeii. She’ll be sharing about physical therapy and exercise. She just started her own blog to help awareness of Fibromyalgia, MCS, and Rheumatoid Arthritis. She has found like many of us with a chronic illness that the chronic illness blogging community is so uplifting and encouraging. That is how we recently met, through Chronic Illness bloggers

She lives in Northern Indiana and works online because of Fibromyalgia and MCS. She has suffered from Fibromyalgia all of her life and with MCS and Rheumatoid Arthritis for the last 10 years or so.

Before becoming ill, she was a university professor teaching several courses online, but can no longer concentrate well enough to continue. She has no regrets – just moving her talents into other channels, like blogging.

Continue on to read her letter to explain how physical therapy and exercise are a part of her fibro life. Continue reading →

Just beyond the pain of fibromyalgia, fatigue is probably the biggest deterrent to life for the fibro warrior. This is not a good tired such as, after a hard day of working in the garden or boating at the lake. This tired stays with you. It’s there almost every morning when you rise, whether or not you slept during the night. It really doesn’t seem to matter how much you rest, this fatigue keeps you feeling zapped with no energy. It sticks around for afternoon tea and evening prayers.

This week, Winslow Dixon is writing to you about fatigue. 

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