Fibro Life

#TeamFibro

I really believe that I've had fibromyalgia 4 many, many years before I was actually diagnosed with it at 38 years old. I can remember in my late teens early 20s, constantly not feeling well and constantly being tired and being achy and sore. At first I would contribute it to my obesity and then when my daughter was a little over a year old I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes , so from that point on I contributed how I felt on a daily basis to my unmanaged diabetes.

It really is a strange disease, as you can't really tell just by looking at somebody that they have it. When somebody tells you that they have a broken arm, there is physical evidence such as a cast on the broken arm . You can sympathize with that person a lot easier because you can actually see the pain that they say that they have . When you have fibromyalgia, it's very hard to get people to even believe that you're feeling the way that you say because there is usually no physical evidence . I am in constant pain, even if I don’t say it.

It doesn't matter how much sleep I got the night before, I wake up every morning feeling the same way. I feel stiff and tight and in a lot of pain. It can take me at least a couple of hours after waking up to feel like I can physically function. Walking around, stretching, and drinking water first thing in the morning will help start the process of getting my body ready for the day. I really can't wake up and just start doing all the things I need to do because of how much pain I am in and how much of a fog I am in when first waking up. I know this is hard for my boyfriend to understand , as he is able to get up and use the bathroom and just get ready for his work day or on the weekends he can get up use the bathroom and then just chill or whatever he wants to do. There isn't much preparation for him that is needed because he does not have fibromyalgia.

I have a very hard time falling asleep at night, my mind will not stop going and it is extremely hard to find a comfortable position. I toss and turn even before I go to sleep and I'm pretty sure that I toss and turn while I am sleeping because I never wake up in the same position that I fall asleep in. I will usually get up at least one time during the night to use the bathroom or because I'm in extreme pain and need to do actual stretching or something for a few minutes before I can find comfort again to fall back asleep. I've gotten pretty used to this regime , and it feels like Christmas whenever I look at my Clock and it's only maybe 2:00 o'clock in the morning. Plenty of times though I'll wake up with only a few minutes until my alarm is set to go off. Mornings like that make me feel like I'm not going to have a very good day , because I didn't rest well anyway throughout the night.

There are days that I call fibro days, where I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I feel like I'm coming down with something like a cold or the flu. My throat will hurt, I will feel internally on fire as if I have a fever but when I take my temperature it's completely normal. I'm sore and achy and I can't get comfortable if I lay down or sit down , I feel the need to be mobile when all I really want to do is sleep but I know that laying down is going to make me feel worse. Taking naps is a horrible experience for me, whether it's a quick catnap for 1/2 hour or for a few hours. I don't know how long it exactly takes me to fall asleep, but I know damn well that it takes me too long to really take a nap and unless I plan on being in bed all day I need to just be up no matter how much sleep I got the night before .

Then I'll have days where I feel perfectly fine and honestly feel like I am walking on air. Days like that I feel like I could actually go for a jog. Non fibro days are just as hectic as fibro days because on the days that I feel really good inside and out, I want to try and get as much done as I can because I'm not sure if the next day or even later on that same day I will crash. I overdo it every time , and by the next day I feel like all I did was workout the day before.

It's hard to get people to understand what it's like to have fibromyalgia. Some people may think it's just an excuse, but believe me I would rather feel good every day then use fibromyalgia as an excuse to get out of things. For years I had to decline going to family outings or out with friends because I just did not feel well enough to go. Plenty of times I had to decline helping somebody with something because I knew that my body wasn't going to be able to handle it. One of my sisters told me that she thought I was making up excuses all these years , but after she did some research on fibromyalgia she now realizes that I wasn't joking when I would say that I didn't feel good all the time.

I kind of associated with having a mental illness, sometimes you cannot tell just by looking at somebody that they have a mental illness because it is internal and there is no physical evidence. And in fact, having fibromyalgia is almost like also having a mental illness not just a physical one. Feeling horrible all the time can be a real downer, all you want to do is wake up in the morning ready to start your day and feel refreshed and re energized . Nobody wants to wake up feeling bad or in pain.

Some people have asked if I have kept a log of what I ate for the day and how it made me feel, or my activity level and how it made me feel by the end of the day to see if maybe I need to make changes in either of those areas of my life. I can tell you right now that I already know that I need to make severe lifestyle changes, not only because of the fibromyalgia but because of my obesity and my diabetes. Do I think that a severe lifestyle change is going to cure my fibromyalgia? No, I don't really think it's going to do anything about it. There are people who are perfectly healthy their entire life and then one day they wake up and they don't feel so well. It doesn't really evolve to anything but the feeling of generally feeling unwell persists. eventually they find out that they have fibromyalgia , an they could be of ideal body weight and eat all the right foods and get plenty of exercise on a daily basis and still have this disease.

Honestly I believe that about the only thing I can do is try to manage the symptoms of fibromyalgia. There is no specific medicine , some people are given pain medication to deal with the pain but other than that there has not been any kind of cure or specific regimen to deal with this disease. Lucky for me the level of pain that I do have is not that bad . I don't feel that I need to be prescribed heavy pain medication in order to function day-to-day. Plus I don't want to get addicted to any kind of pain medication , which is pretty common.

For now, I'm going to continue to do my own investigation in terms of what sort of things make my fibromyalgia flare up and things that I can do to make myself feel better even if it's just temporarily. I'm going to start slowly making lifestyle changes , and even though I know it's not going to make my fibromyalgia go away, I am hoping that it will help manage it better. I'm only 39 years old , and age is just a number.