An in-depth guide on Fibromyalgia, covering its symptoms, causes, treatments, and tips for managing this chronic condition effectively.
If it means significant restrictions to your daily activities, then, according to medical and government guidelines, yes, you have a disability. This may challenge the ability stereotypes you might have absorbed from the media, where disability is usually linked to the need to use a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury or limb impairment. This might get you wondering about what exactly the definition of disability is, how do we usually understand it and…
I’m taking a disability studies class this term as part of my social work program. I study part-time, online. I thought I would post some of my reflections on reading articles for the class. People living with FM and CFS/ME don’t always think of themselves as ‘disabled’, but the way the world is organized and the way these conditions affect our bodies certainly mean we do live with a disability. Reflections on Eli Clare’s (2001) Stolen…
You’re sitting in the doctor’s office, being told you have an incurable illness. Maybe you have to leave your career, or pull back on your workload, with set accommodations. You can’t live up to being the involved wife, parent, sister, or daughter you planned on being. Travel becomes difficult, athletic ability falls off, and favorite hobbies or pastimes become more challenging. But mostly you just don’t feel like you. A period of grief ensues over…
Last week I found myself in the worst flare of my life. After a month of mounting stress, marital grumblings, and the sheer psychosis of living chronically ill I hit bottom. Bottom when you have Fibromyalgia really hurts. So I proceeded to walk around stooped over like a little old lady holding my lower back, wailing and crying and gnashing my teeth over how absolutely awful everything was. Then the anger I try so hard…
The world lost a woman yesterday.A boy lost his grandmother, three people lost their mother and a man lost his wife.This woman was a pistol, tough and strong and a force to be reckoned with.I grew up with her tales of adventure, living overseas while young and newly married, her husband in the military.I learned of a day in 1929 when this girl took a shoebox of money she was saving to the bank, to…
There is a book whose title I will not tell, written by an author that will remain unnamed, that everyone in the whole wide world made such a gigantic fuss about. Hollywood even made it into a movie! And all I heard from everyone I knew was to read this book. It is great! Empowered womanhood! You will love it! They all assured me. So I broke down and bought the darn thing in paperback…
Recently I posed a question in Fibromyalgia Support Group, our support site on Facebook. I am looking for more information about this Fibro-monster, but not what I can pull up in a quick Google search or another strange set of statistics gathered from who knows where. I want real honest to goodness patient-based information from the patients I interact with every day. The real people that have this illness. For there has got to be…
A thought just suddenly popped in my head, seemingly from nowhere, and I am finally able to put my finger on exactly what the stigma of Fibromyalgia brings to the table. See it’s not that we don’t want to get better or are lazy or are working the disability system or are crazy, drug-seeking or just feeling the normal aches and pains of age. That is what the ignorant must believe for some odd reason…
I had an extremely eye-opening and revealing thing happen to me this weekend. Whilst I was dealing with some minor family upset, I Fibro–crashed. All my energy had been spent and exhaustion socked me square in the jaw. I became stiff and inflamed all over my body. I hurt and no position made me comfortable, sitting, standing, lying down, it all just ached. I became foggy and hazy in my brain and the slightest bit…
As I have been opening my mouth more and more about Fibromyalgia, The Crusade, awareness, and the general passion of my life to anyone and everyone that will listen I keep having positive experiences! Where I used to get glazed over expressions of distracted disinterest I am now finding myself bombarded with questions of genuine curiosity. I don’t know if the difference is me or Fibro. No longer mopey and sad-faced as I mumble that…