I was 22 years old and fresh out of college. My back, neck, and shoulders always were so tight and sore. I would pull a muscle by doing simple things like sneezing or blowing my nose. I had injured my back and was in physical therapy. My physical therapist evaluated me and told me I had fibromyalgia. I drove home laughing and thought, "How could a fit, active 22-year-old have something like fibromyalgia?"
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One morning, I woke up to pain in my hands, arms, feet, and legs. My hands were very stiff. My veins were popping out as well. I was feeling very tired, almost lethargic. Trying to move was extremely difficult; it felt like I was being stabbed by a thousand needles all at once. It lasted for a couple of hours, then disappeared. A couple of days later, the same exact pain came back in all areas of my body. Unlike the last time, the pain…
I began by searching the symptoms I was experiencing online. I then came across other people experiencing similar symptoms and was almost positive that I knew what I was suffering from. The excruciating pain continued, so I found myself in the emergency room many times all to be disappointed because I left the same way I came in, without any answers. All the tests came back negative. This went on for months, until one of the doctors told me I was suffering from fibromyalgia. At…
After 15 years of chronic depression, bipolar depression, and chronic pain illnesses, my primary doctor finally discovered that I was suffering from fibromyalgia. I suffered many migraines and low back and muscle pain most of my life. My life was full of miserable appointments with many specialists, and not one ever had a solution but only said, "it's all in your head!" That's when I knew to seek another opinion. My family doctor did not give up on me and it was the best decision…
Fifteen years ago I was a single parent of a young son and I had the energy to go from zero to 60 in a second with no issues at all. I was like the Energizer bunny and found myself working as much as 90 hours in a week in my corporate career. It didn't take long for that to come to a screeching halt. I developed a migraine that simply would not go away! I had suffered with migraines, some level of fatigue, irritable…
I was reading incessantly, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. When I found a scholarly medical journal about fibromyalgia, I was astonished, 100 pages in, I had EVERY symptom in the book! Literally. I thought maybe I was being biased, so I decided to scroll through to a random page, and if I had the symptom on that page, then I'd believe it. I ended up on a page about Morton’s toe, which a pedicurist had told me earlier that week that…
I was diagnosed almost 40 years ago. I don't really remember a lot, but there were a lot of appointments. My mom found an article about fibromyalgia, so I took it took it to my doctor. I was lucky to have found a doctor who believed, because at the time fibromyalgia was still being thought of as a hysterical illness. I have had to let my husband do most of the housework, especially vacuuming and dishes. I watch that I don't overdo anything and have…
When I was a baby I was diagnosed with roseola, an infection that causes a fever and rash. During my childhood I had many other illnesses, too, I caught chicken pox multiple times. I was always catching something. At age 24 I had my first child and during my pregnancy I started getting severe pain in my sciatica and hip, but my doctors chalked it up to being pregnant. Two years after my daughter’s birth I was in a minor accident that gave me whiplash…
I worked as a nurse at a nursing home for about 10 years. Unfortunately I rarely had help lifting sometimes very large patients. I suppose this continuous type of work finally weakened my back. One evening I was rolling a rather heavy patient toward me when something in my lower lumbar region popped. I felt it and heard my back crack. I didn’t think I needed to go to the hospital but the head nurse sent me home with ice. However as the evening progressed,…
About 14 years ago when I described my symptoms to my primary physician he suggested I stop complaining. After all, I wasn't getting any younger and he said the discomfort I was describing was attributed to aging – so I should grin and bear it. I did just that for several years, until I found a rheumatologist who ran all sorts of tests and concluded that I had fibromyalgia. I was hoping that my retirement might bring me some relief but instead in some ways…
Thirty years ago, when I was 30 years old I woke up one morning completely numb from head to toe. My husband did not believe me. Two years later in 1987 I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia by a rheumatologist. I now also have cerebellar atrophy, diabetes, high blood pressure, COPD, cirrhosis (not from alcohol – from 20 years of 22 or more medications), arthritis, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, Raynaud's syndrome, heart PVCs (44,000 too many per day), basel cell carcinoma, melanoma, etc., etc.
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