Living with Fibromyalgia

I’ll try not to ramble, I was diagnosed with FM in 1987,long before anyone knew much about it, after going back and forth between the 2 doctors I worked for as to what was wrong, i.e. migraine to bulging disc I finally went my insurance P.A, lucky for me, he had just attended a class on it and helped me a lot, I moved to antoher state in 1990 with a cooler climate ergo more flare-ups, I have found you need to keep moving I know it hurts but work thru it the more you move the better it gets, now

next I started getting severe neck pain , everytime I went to a doctor and he discovered I had FM it was the old brush off, “oh you have cronic pain nothing we can do blah blah, well my arm started going numb and it turned out I had a nerve being pinched in my neck from arthritic changes.after a few outpatient injections the pain was gone, then a few years later it was pain in my hips, same thing “chronic pain nothing we can do , live with it, well it wasn’t “chronic pain” it was progressive bursitis in both hips and there was something they could do, next it was my leg going numb ,and that turned out to be severe arthritis in my spine plus a a couple of other problems .

so…. the lessons I have learned are (1) keep moving no matter what, don’t give in to the pain and (2) if you get a new pain don’t let them brush you off make them check it out! Make them listen to you! I suffered needlessly for years because doctors just brushed my pain off, I was finally refered to a pain management clinic what a difference I will always have pain but now that all my different problems are being addressed and treated I feel so much better , the new medication Lyrica for FM they just approved does help, so do lidoderm patchs,(although they are expensive even w/ insurance) I am also on a maintance dose of pain meds which keeps my pain in check,