Fibromyalgia

Well this is about to get very personal...

Fibromyalgia, also called fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), is a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body.

Symptoms include | Widespread pain (an ache, burning sensation, a sharp stabbing pain)
                                 Extreme sensitivity (Hyperalgesia, Allodynia)
                                 Stiffness
                                 Fatigue
                                 Poor sleep quality
                                 Cognitive problems (Fibro-fog)
                                 Headaches
                                 Irritable Bowel Syndrome
                                 Dizziness & clumsiness
                                 Feeling too hot or too cold (can't regulate your body temperature)
                                 Restless leg syndrome
                                 Tingling, numbness, prickling or burning sensations
                                 Painful periods
                                 Anxiety
                                 Depression

& many more weird and horrible things. 

I've been having symptoms for years now but had no idea what it was. I really didn't. I just thought my body was failing me. That's what it feels like for me. Like permanently having the flu. Some nasty little virus. I genuinely just thought my immune system was packing up and I was catching everything around me. I'd tell myself that it isn't possible for a person to always be ill. To always feel like your body is failing. Especially when my mobility and ability to get out of the house started to get effected. How was I catching these nasty little viruses constantly when I wasn't leaving the house. 

But in the last year things have hit a very sharp decline in my health. Not only was I feeling nauseous and lethargic and awful but the pain started. Its that horrible burning pain/ache you get the morning after a viscous work out but so much more intense and it would hit me all over. I've noticed that there are certain areas that get hit worse than others. My left leg, shoulders and arms, base of my skull and neck and across my chest so that I feel like I'm having a heart attack. My muscles are weak, some days just lifting a cup of tea to my mouth is a horrible struggle. And all the symptoms I listed above hit me in waves and its disabling. 

I used to love to walk, I would walk for miles and miles and it was bliss. Now i'm 24 and I struggle walking up the stairs in one go and have to take a break half way up as my muscles scream and wobble under me.

I would tell myself that well at least I have my mind but even that feels like it is slipping some days as the Fibro-fog descends. I struggle remembering even the most basic things and it terrifying. Last week me and my brother were talking films and half way through a conversation I forgot the name of the film we were talking about. I could not remember it. I kept guessing but I wasn't even close. It was that horrible feeling of trying to retrieve something but it wouldn't come. Like a name on the end of your tongue but more numbing. Even my brother started to look genuinely concerned when he realised I wasn't messing around. And I know its just a slip of the mind but its been happening more and more often and its scarier than any physical weakness. It comes and goes, some days I'm still quick and together but then the fog descends and I struggle to even string a sentence together or remember what usually simple words mean. I forget things I have to do, dates, names. Its unnerving.

But worse than all the mind cracking pain, the headaches the numb face that you fear is some imminent stroke or the brain fog. Worse than all these horrible things is the cruelness of this condition. The cruelness that some weeks you will feel good. The pain lifts and you get that hope back that it will lift permanently and you could get your life back. That little glimmer of a respite, of release. I should have learned. I've been burnt before but still as the pain and the fatigue lifts, as I feel that I'm getting my body back, I push it. Push it too far and it slams me back. Its like an abusive relationship. Just as it sees that your getting confident it slams you down and reminds you that its there. That it decides. 

I was feeling good for three weeks or there about's and I was starting for the first time in a long time to look forward. I felt my muscles building up again from there atrophy as I started walking again. I managed a 5 minute walk then 10, then a half hour walking and staying on my feet. I was hopeful and feeling strong. My sleep was deeper and shorter, I went from 10-15 hours sleep to 8 and actually felt awake when I woke. Then I lifted a wood beam for my parents. It was heavier than I expected but I told them I had it. It wasn't crippling but I felt my heart race at the exertion. Instantly I knew it was a mistake and I wished that it would be OK. That my body would manage. But by the next evening I was in pieces. My body screamed and my head pounded. The sickness hit me like a tsunami. Now its two weeks later and only four days ago I was able to cook for myself for the first time. The nausea and fatigue crippled me. And the muscles screamed with stabbing pain. I've lost 8 pounds of weight. I've just not been able to stomach more than a small thing at a time. And have spent most of the time sleeping or propped up with a mountain of pillows.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I think over time I've learnt that as much as you want to fight it, you can't. You think that if you push your body it will learn that you have control, that you will not be crippled. But you wont win. Not that way anyway. This is not one of those things that you can push through. As much as it will fill you with pain and grief you have to be respectful with it. But its something I need to learn to do. The moment I feel like there is even a sight chance I can do something I push myself just out of pure frustration of not being able to do what I was able to do. But it always leaves me back at square one and incapable of anything. 

This isn't something to push through, it's something that you live with and over time it will lift and I'll get my life back. I don't know how long it will take but I'm hopeful.