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Hi my name is Andrea and I’m from Texas. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia a month ago my rheumatologist had originally diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis. So for 2 1/2 yrs I endured wkly injections and lots of meds. Now I’m on lyrica & cymbalta daily and flexoril & tramadol as needed(so daily) but due to my profession I only take my as needed meds at night. My sister and daughter also have fibro. Thank God my daughter has episodes of pain that are few and far between.
I have 3 grown children. My daughter is 24 and just graduated from dental hygiene school. My 21 yr old son is in the Army, he’s married and is expecting his 1st child in Sept which will be my 1st grandbaby. We all are super excited. And I have a 19 yr old son. I am the oldest of 4 children and my mom is a little forgetful and she lives with my 23 yr old sister whom just got paid off so I watch over them. My 39 yr old sister is currently in the hospital so I just finished visiting her & making sure her family was ok. They live 7 hrs away. My husband is a disabled vet and he has back problems, major depressive disorder, anxiety, PTSD & borderline personality disorder. So if taking care of ALL my family isn’t stressful enough…
I am a nurse and I work Monday thru Friday and rarely call in for myself unless the pain is excruciating. I absolutely love my job but have noticed that my brain fog is affecting my day to day work. Nothing that would jeopardize patient safety or information. But things that I do to keep my clinic and doctor running smoothly; things that I normally could do with my eyes closed I am now getting confused or forgetting altogether. And it makes me feel very dumb and I get upset with myself. Any who…that’s me in a nutshell 
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Hi. I just turned 60 this year. I’m married, raising my oldest grandson who’s 14 with Autism and have a step-son who is 13 with ADHD. My husband was crushed in between two vehicles and suffered a spinal cord injury. I have always had a stressful life as I’m sure most people do. I have one daughter, 32, who also has a 7 year old and twin 4 year olds. My 7 year old grandson had Neurofibromatosis 1 and is losing his eyesight. The twins seem to be doing well. I’m glad to be here in the forum.
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Hi,
My name is Sheila. I live in Arizona.I am 67yrs old. I was first diagnosed with CFIDS.
Years later diagnosed with fibro. Also osteoarthritis. I have a positive ANA and an
extremely high anti-centromere count. I also have small fiber neuropathy, not diabetic yet, but thinking Im heading that way. I cant get enough sweets, Im an emotional eater and cant seem to stop. Ive been on almost every SSRI out there along with lyrica, Neurontin etc and cant tolerate any of them. I am depressed, frustrated, fed up and angry.
The only thing that has really helped in the past is exercise. But I wasn’t able to work and exercise, it was to much.
I feel useless, worthless and hopeless. now because of back issues, hip replacement coming up and serious exhaustion I still cant exercise. The fibro fog
is my constant companion, I feel like an idiot most of the time.
I have a wonderful husband who is patient, kind and is always willing to do what he can to help, I am blessed in that way.
I have been checked for everything under the sun that might cause the symptoms that we all share and they are always negative which of course is good but frustrating too.
Ive been searching for a site and found this one, it does help to know youre not alone (not that I wish this on anyone) and maybe fine a new idea to help.
Again so far all ive found that helps is exercise.
Sorry for the whining, I could type all day and never get it all out. Thank you reading this, hopefully someone will reach out.
My thanks,
sheila
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Hello everyone I am newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but have had chronic pain almost 29 years. I have been to pain clinics, stays in hospital, physio, baggage therapy, acupuncture and was put on morphine and later changed to fentanyl for the last 13 years. On July 23 I was seen by a new doctor who had just graduated from school as our newer doctor of 2 years was on maternity leave. He asked me if anyone had told me that I had fibromyalgia. I said no but would not be surprised as my two sisters and cousin had been diagnosed. The reason he asked was because his mother has it and I sounded a lot like her. I was taken off fentanyl right away ( it was not easy) and put on Cymbalta, sleeping pills a daily regiment of extra strength Tylenol and Naproxen as needed. I am rollerblading what this all means. My main question is how do you explain to family and friends that this is real and not made up. And does anyone have troubleshooting first thing in the am. And does anyone have RSL at night . Help! Thanks
Hi my name is Kristen and i have Fibromyalgia, RA, reynoids disease without gangreen, complex regional pain syndrome diagnosed back in 2012. I recently had a epidural shot for buldging discs in back. Two days after the epidural my nerves were on fire from my head to my waist. I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this. I have been taking celobrex and percocet for pain, ice and epsom salt baths, has gotten a little better but im concerned this is because of epidural shot.
Hi, I’m Jenifer/Jenihuff21! I found livingwithfibro.org while searching for help with fibromyalgia and a support group for people with it after being diagnosed in March 2022. I believe I have suffered from fibro since I was a child but nobody ever really knew what it was, or it was diagnosed as other things, as with the IT Band diagnosis I got about my knee/hip/leg pain. I believe it was originally triggered by the trauma of my childhood, I was abused in every way I can think of that you can be abused, physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually abused, and neglected. A lot of issues healthwise I had going on wasn’t discovered in childhood because my parents did NOT like taking us kids to the doctor at all. Our health was neglected when I was growing up, for some reason my parents just didn’t want to deal with it. I would be accused of faking, I think this was a major part of it, it was like they couldn’t have sick kids so we had to be making it up. It didn’t make a lot of sense because mom got Medicaid for us so she didn’t have to pay anything to take us.
I know it was a hassle getting us there on the bus but that was my stepdad’s fault, he never wanted to drive us and often he DID have to work and couldn’t. He often believed we were faking and wouldn’t take us or let/help mom take us until things got severe and there was no way he could possibly say we were making it up. This means a lot of things were missed that could have been treated more easily if they were treated sooner, like strep throat. I ended up having it in my stomach because my stepdad refused to believe my throat really hurt and neither parent would take me for a simple throat swab.
I now realize I was having fibro flares and other of my chronic illness flares, like the IBS and nothing was being done about them because none of us knew what they were. I also had some injuries that caused further flares, some of them caused by my stepdad’s physical abuse like the major one I remember of him doing his version of spanking me (it was way worse than a spanking) and knocking me into the wall behind my bed because I wouldn’t stop trying to get off the bed and run away from the spanking. My back was hurt badly and the pain didn’t go away for like a week afterward. I then had what I know now was a very severe fibro flare, but at the time I think I thought it was the flu and that my back wasn’t better as much as I thought it was. I think that is really the one that kicked my fibro into overdrive.
As a teenager, I had an injury during basketball that made it worse also. I think I might have had a concussion that didn’t get discovered because I was once again not taken to a doctor. I got basically run over by a player on the other team that was literally 2 times my size, this girl was 5’9" in 9th grade and I was only 4’6". I hit my back and head on the hardwood basketball court broke my glasses and bruised my knee. It also made the slightly sprained ankle I was playing on fully sprained because it twisted under me. I got out of the game but later on, I went back in when I felt a little better and got my knee wrapped and ankle re-wrapped. I shouldn’t have done it. It made it worse.
I went into a really bad flare after that and my fibro was also worse after. As a young adult, I have fallen down the stairs several times which exacerbated everything. Well one of them wasn’t a fall, I was knocked down the stairs by someone that felt I was in their way at college. I had some traumas with dating at this time that sent me into what I know now were fibro flares. It was not good. I also had 2 knee surgeries when I was 24/25 that didn’t help at all and made all my issues worse, causing yet another very bad flare.
In my late 30s, I had my gallbladder removed and went into another bad flare. My asthma at this time got so mad I started needing to have a nebulizer machine at home because I was going to the er for breathing treatments so much. I then worked in my 40s at a factory job that I should never have done because it made me SO much worse, my life was pain. I was also living with my cousin and it was traumatic living there. There was abuse. I got to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore and just went to work and didn’t return home there, I went home with my friend from work. I lived with her until I moved to my current appointment with my boyfriend who I’d also met at the factory job.
I quit the factory job after living awhile with my boyfriend because I now realize I was in a massive massive fibro flare because of how hard that job was on my body, the standing bent over an assembly line for 8 and a half hours a day, 5 days a week was basically killing me. My body couldn’t handle it. I first took medical leave and then quit. I then started working at a grocery store and my current job. I quit the grocery store because it was hard on my body and they kept scheduling me there when I needed to be at my current job at the time. I then got a job at Subway that I worked along with the job I still have now. I was hit with a chair when a customer became irate and started throwing things including the 2 chairs, one of which hit me. This led to me finally getting my fibro diagnosis from one of the docs I was referred to see for my worker’s compensation claim.
The fibro diagnosis was just like, AHA! So that’s why this, that and those things are how they are! It just made total sense. So now I am learning all about what fibro is, how it can make me feel, and treatments I can use to help myself feel better from it. Sorry, the post is so long but that’s my journey.