Explore effective treatments for Fibromyalgia, including medication, therapy, lifestyle changes, and holistic approaches to manage symptoms.
Yes, I was diagnosed in 2001. In 1999, I suffered a back injury at work. Even though I followed my treating physician’s advice, including physical therapy and home exercises, the pain in my back just wouldn’t ease up. Within a year, I had widespread pain that felt like I’d overtaxed my muscles. (To this day, the area of my injury is extremely sensitive to the touch, as if someone kicked me in the sacrum.) My…
Bless your heart! I would say to you to get a notebook dedicated to writing down everything you eat and how you are feeling every day. Write down your pain levels and fatigue levels and how your food affects you. If any foods cause you to have abdominal pain eliminate them from your diet. Additionally, stop all sugar except in the form of fresh whole organic fruit. This is because I believe that fibromyalgia is…
My case is not particularly bad compared to many, so I try hard to be grateful it isn’t worse. Fibromyalgia evolves with life, usually constantly piling on and adding to the list of symptoms. Once in a great while, a problem might scale back or go into remission. I had bad migraines consistently approximately 3 days per week for 30 years, but those have since tapered off and now are only a few per year.…
The pain of fibromyalgia is real and the patients need help. The most frustrating element for fibromyalgia patients is that some healthcare providers think it is a “fad disease” and that erodes the doctor-patient trust that is so essential in treating patients with painful conditions. I will highlight a few points about fibromyalgia in plain English without any medical terms so that patients and families with no medical background can understand it. Click here to…
People with fibromyalgia often describe their symptoms as a flu-like infection that doesn’t go away. It leaves you exhausted and unable to think or find the right words (symptoms of fibro fog). Many people with Fibromyalgia are exhausted to the point of collapse. No amount of sleep is refreshing or restful, and often the muscle pain keeps the person from getting any sleep at all. Symptoms can be debilitating and often the patient feels as…
After 27 years of service, decorated U.S. Army Brigadier General Becky Halstead (Retired), the first female West Point graduate in U.S. history to command at the strategic level in Iraq and Afghanistan, decided to retire after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia – a medically unexplained syndrome affecting the muscles and connective tissues. Currently, the disease affects as many as 12 million Americans and has been reported two times as prevalent in deployed veterans. “Agonizing pain, debilitating…
The brief answer is that in 2002 I was 33 and I took up running again after a four-year absence due to a ruptured disk that needed surgery to fix. When I began to run it became a real joy in my life. It was a mind over matter hobby that helped me to discover how far I could push my body and learn to listen to it at the same time. During my running…
When people ask, I explain Fibromyalgia (“FMS”) as “experiencing pain where there’s no injury.” This is why it’s so difficult to treat. Based on my experience, and that of about 50 other people with a connection to FMS that I’ve questioned over the years, I have believed for many years now that it is caused by trauma – physical trauma, like a car accident, or emotional trauma, such as a bad divorce, because the physical…
About eight years ago, I went to my OB/GYN as I was experiencing some mild fatigue and joint pain. I had had a 20-year career as a dancer and had been diagnosed with osteoarthritis. I was having some anxiety about work and had been through a recent breakup, but we looked at physiological causes anyway and ruled out lupus, RA, and Lyme disease. When my anxiety about an impending merger at work became worse, we…
I’m not an expert with medical credentials but I can answer as a survivor who’s found her own peace with this crazy illness. It seems there’s a genetic factor in some people that some sort of trauma-physical, mental, or emotional-sets off or triggers fibromyalgia. My fibromyalgia came after a hysterectomy and the following emergency surgery to remove my infected hemorrhaging ovaries. I was on the mend when I started having severe stomach problems (IBS) that…