Living with Fibromyalgia

I have had pain for as far back as 5th grade, and I am 34 now. As a child I just thought this is how everyone feels and I must be a wimp. It did not help that no one listened and when the did I was not taken seriously, I was made to feel like I was faking it and being lazy. I remeber lt as if it happend yesterday, My 5th grade teacher said to me in the most snotty way ” whats gonna happen when you get old, if this is the way you complain this way now”. I dont know about you but thinking back on it, if a child came to me with frequent complaints of pain, I would have called a parent, school counsler, or the nurse.

As I got older I learned to keep it to myself cause I figured it was normal and I should just suck it up. when I reached my mid twenties, everything go worse, I was becoming non functional from the pain and swelling. I finally went and asked my doc. to test me for lyme disease when the results came back they said it was negative. so I just went on with my life and then I had another bad flare up a few years later and I asked to be tested again this time it came possitive. When I went to see a doctor who treated mainly patients with lyme she requested my tests and found that infact my first test was a false neg and that the lab said that there were bands associated with lyme on the first test but not enough to me considered possitive by the cdc and that even one band means possitive dispite the cdc guidlines. so I underwent every possible antibiotic regiment, oral, intermuscular injections, IV antibiotics, about 4 years later I tested neg, but I still had pain. what was wrong with me???

Well my doctor always diagnosed me with FMS and Lyme but I was so focused on getting rid of the lyme I never grasped the implication of FMS and never investigated what it was. so after looking into it I realized that from having the lyme since childhood, my immune system became comprimised from battling the illness that I developed fibromyalgia from the stress. Now I am just exaughsted from always being in pain, worried that the pain is gonna come back, when will it happen and what will hurt next, how bad is gonna be this time. Most of the time I can just take advil but sometimes nothing helps. sometimes soma helps, or skalaxin, or flexoril. sometimes nothing helps, then you pray for it to stop forever or at least just long enough to sleep for a few hours.

When you have fibromyalgia, you need good support from your loved ones. sometimes you need help turning a door nob, even switching the light switch on it a chore. It must be so hard sometimes for family to cope with flare ups, I know its hard to have to ask for help all the time. My only advise it, listen to your body. If you know you feel worse after eating certain things like sugar or acid foods, or wearing certain shoes or over exerting yourself, or putting your self in stressful situations,,,DON”T DO IT!! yes its easier said than done but you have to learn to whey your options, eat the candy and have pain later. How good is that candy really? sometimes its worth eating the candy but sometimes its NOT. you never know. I hope this at least helped someone, know they are not alone, not a whimp or lazy and most of all not crazy!