I think I may have Fibromyalgia.
One of my close friends, R, has it and I was talking to her about how I'd been feeling lately (and over the past several years), and she said that all of my symptoms sounded a LOT like Fibromyalgyia.
This was not something I wanted to hear (and I absolutely value her advice/judgment/insight), so just shrugged it off for a long time.
It's just having a new baby...
It's just the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
It's just the Depression
It's just the Cerebral Palsy
It's just the Gall Bladder
It's just the Hernia
It's just the IBS
It's just....
But this isn't new...I haven't felt good or "normal" in 6-7 years.
Every day is tough, and it has gotten worse since I've had O.
Sickness/Infection/Stress just compounds it. (Me? Sick? Stressed? Why, that's so RARE.)
I've done all the things I'm supposed to do:
Exercise
Healthy Diet
No Alcohol/Drugs/Nicotine/Caffeine
Vitamins/Supplements
Still, I feel like varying degrees of SHIT on a daily basis.
There's never enough sleep.
I hurt all the time.
I feel like I'm in a fog all the time.
But I don't like announcing that daily, because who wants to hear that all the damn time? And regardless of how I feel, O still needs his Mommy and my Husband still needs his wife.
And really, (I started to think) maybe it IS all in my head. Maybe I'm just being a baby....
WTF? I'm no baby!!
This is legit. Whatever THIS is. But the symptoms/issues don't match up to only CP/CFS/IBS* there has to be another explanation...
Then a few days ago, I was praying for my friend, and all of the things that she has to deal with, and it dawned on me that almost ALL of the physical things that I pray on for her are the things that I struggle with myself.
I started thinking of all the times in the midst of a conversation the words "Me Too!" came out of my mouth...
So I did what we all do these days: Googled my heart out**.
And it wasn't pretty.
DING DING! We have a WINNER.
So I called R and told her about what I'd read and what I was experiencing...she told me that I should talk to my doctor right away. In the meantime though, an important marker to check were the pressure points.
In FM there are 18 points bilaterally on the body that are painful to the touch of firm pressure in people with the disorder. You must have at least 11 tender spots to be diagnosed.
I refused to look at the points myself. I wanted accuracy.
I waited til the Hubs got home, had him look at the list and then apply pressure to various points, using fake points as well so that I wouldn't subconsciously skew things one way or the other.
I had all of them. All Frikken 18.
DAMN IT.
But both R and my Hubs made the excellent point that maybe: THIS is the answer for what's been ailing me.
And if it is, there's medicine that will help control the symptoms and hopefully, improve my quality of life.
There's a novel idea.
I'll be heading to the Doc probably at he the 1st of the year. There's just no money for it right now.
I'll have to have a bunch of blood work done to rule out things like Lupus, MS, and Rheumatoid Arthritis, but if those all come back clean (FM is a negative diagnosis) then we've got an answer. Interestingly enough, I learned that that people with FM are more likely to also have CFS and IBS....go figure.
While I'm not excited about being even unhealthier, it would be a relief to know that I'm not crazy, that I am legitimately*** ill, and that there's actually something that can be done to help it.
We'll address how in the hell we'd afford the meds when we cross the prescribed bridge. I wanna end on a positive-ish note....
At least we can safely assume it's not Lupus. Because as Greg House has taught us all, it's
never Lupus.
Until it is, but ya know, whatever.
* So many acronyms, so little time...errr, health.
**How did we LIVE before Google? I just don't know!
***A lot of folks think Cerebal Palsy is only legit if you're in a wheel chair or pushing a walker and have crazy leg braces...all things which I've had/done before, but since I'm pretty self-ambulatory, I've been 86'd from the club as it were. And Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Most people just think I need to take more naps or just stop being lazy. Yes, people have REALLY said that to me. To my face, even. IBS? Don't even bother!
