How did I get diagnosed?
While I was going through the work up for my other auto immune diseases I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia. They were able to run the tests they had for fibromyalgia and with my pain levels and ruling other things out I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
My experience with treatment
My treatment has been different with every disease. With fibromyalgia it ends up being more experimental that with the others. In a sense you need to trick your central nervous system into no longer feeling any pain. At the beginning I tried Low Dose Naltroxen (LDN), which is a treatment given to avid drug users that tricks your brain into thinking your taking pain killers when in reality you’re not. I also tried Amitriptyline, which is a medication that helps with nerve pain however, with me it had the opposite effect. Right now I’m on Duloxetine, which at a low dose can be used as an anti-depressant, however at higher doses it is used to treat nerve pain. I’ve been on it for a year and it has been working so far. Remember working is a relative term for a chronically ill patient.
How has it impacted my life?
All of my chronic illnesses have changed my life. I can’t sit here and say they haven’t. Being gaslighted by medical professionals constantly affects your mental state. No matter how much you vent about it, no matter how many complaints you make it doesn’t make it easier. It just helps that maybe the next person won’t have to deal with it. Chronic pain patients deal with things regular people will never deal with on a daily basis and it’s not talked about enough. Everything is on a broader scale for us, whether we act like it or not. A common cold can very easily get complicated and become bronchitis. Majority of people don’t understand how we can have excruciating pain that can last for days even months on end. That is why my main advice to people is to keep up with their pain management whatever it may be. My course of treatment or maintenance for my body I like to call it was medical treatment, acupuncture every 4 weeks, chiropractor visits ever week, and massages once a month. This course of maintenance kept the flares at bay majority of the time.
Support:
It’s very hard for family and friends to understand what you are going through. I have learned is keep educating yourself, educate them if you have to but eventually they’ll come around. You can’t blame them, it’s very rare for you to go from being “normal” to have your whole life fall apart. Depression runs very high in chronically ill patients especially those with excess inflammation, because of the excess inflammation of the brain. The things I’ve looked to for support is my immediate circle, I wasn’t as fair to mine and didn’t open up to them all. I’ve also found a lot of help in talk therapy; it’s helped me with managing my pain threshold and advocacy. I’ve joined several online support groups because honestly sometimes the pain is too much to show up anywhere in person. There are so many people around the world dealing with these same issues and they’re all willing to talk about it and help each other out. It really is a wonderful community.
