I'm 33 and was diagnosed 2 years ago.
I agree with Capefibro about trauma and fibro. In my late 50's I came down with a nasty auto-immune called PMR - Polymyalgia rheumatica. I ended up retiring early because of the pain and the drugs. I was told it only lasts 2 or 3 years. Well, it's 6 years later, and I'm still dealing with it.
Last year, just before I turned 63, my Rheumatologist said she felt the ongoing pain from the PMR had affected my whole nervous system, and she felt I might have developed Fibromyalgia. I am now on Cymbalta and Lyrica, and they help a lot.
I guess that blows the lid off the upper limits of 40 and 50 years old that I've seen in articles.
Just an aside on why fibro is diagnosed more now. Simple - they have drugs for it now (no comment on whether or how well they work).
Whenever a pharma company gets approval for a drug, they do two things:
1. They send their sales representatives to doctors' offices to explain about how to diagnose for the disease that their drug is for. They also hold tax-deductable conferences about it at resorts and on cruises.
2. They advertise on TV so those of us who recognize ourselves will go to our doctors and demand to be diagnosed.
In a way it sounds awful, but if the pharma companies don't create drugs for our conditions and don't educate the doctors who don't know about it, we all get the old "it's just in your mind" from doctors.
personal note - I'm not in the medical or pharma field, I'm a computer consultant, so this is just my observation.
AMEN
I partially agree with Silicone Valley about the meds but, nevertheless, it would seem that we have one of the increasingly common disorders. Certainly, meds drive psychiatric diagnoses, though, IMO.
I also agree with Rachel that the pain can be so astounding that you can only say, “wow, why is Superman crushing my calves again”. I won’t go into the rest of the symptoms, I’m sure you all have them.
As a note, my son has had Crohn’s disease for 17 years, a true autoimmune disorder. I know we get sent to rheumatologists but we really have a pain and sensory disorder that originates in the brain, not an autoimmune disorder, though our symptoms seem to mimic one. Also, fibro seems to occur with, or cause, multiple other disorders.
looking back now I think my fibro started at 14. I got diagnosed when I was 16 and now I just turned 18. I do feel like more and more people have it now. Lets get the word out there and have people be just as supportive of fibro as they are of cancer! <3
jacklyn Lynch
Couldn’t agree more. Let’s yell it from the roof tops.LOUD and clear. Barb
Wow, Rachel, I applaud you for your accomplishments! Talk about a woman of power, honey, you are 'IT'!
Thank you SK and Petunia for your comments. There is more to my story which you can read if you go to my page. There you will find a Blog I wrote titled My Story...........So Far.
Again,
Set up a free survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PYP2WXD Please respond in next 3 weeks and I'll post results.
you sound so much like me...as a kid i got a lot of pressure from my parents to have excellent grades. My mom's first husband had got polio and died in matter of less than week..she had two small kids, one a baby. This was in the fifties..and she herself had grown up without a father so having a 'man' in her life was extremely important.
So my mom married my father about 6 months after her first husband had died. Yes, how she realizes that she never even had time to mourn etc. But back to stress..my father's family did not like idea of him marrying a woman with two kids...and part Jewish at that. So since my older sister skipped 1st grade and both my older siblings did well in school they pushed me to make sure i got straight A's or almost all way through school so the relatives could not keep saying only reason they were smart was due to Jewish influence.
If you are on East coast i know this might sound very snotty...and it is. Where I grew up it, there just were not a lot of Jewish families. So i am one strange child in that i grew up experiencing both Catholic and Jewish religions...just depended on what grandparent's house i was at.
But i get stomach aches etc just like you before test no matter if it was music( i played violin) or scholastically. I agree...no more..now is time to relax and not worry so much...but i still find myself just doing it. I so much want all my family and friends etc to love one another and get along. In families , i guess it just does not happen that often though i do know some thankfully!!
But i hear you so well...on another site about fibro this woman gave link that showed how it was discovered back either in late 1800's or early 1900's. I had no idea that it was known that long and she said that it was called fibromyalgia even back which was very interesting to me plus all the history of it, was very interesting. If i can find it...i will pass on it you like it.
Mainly..i just hear how stressed you were growing up..and my brother sock me in the shoulder too and it hurt. But it also hurt all the neighbor girls and my friends...so who knows.
I wonder if like Lupus if anyone has done a study about how many women were sexually abused? most if not all SLE patients it was found to have been part of women's past or lives. That was very interesting...i can remember it was dr bernie segal..that surgeon who was so popular in 80's he had it in one of his books. He was very interesting read...about why some kids would survive cancer and others not. I still would strongly suggest reading his books or just even 1 or 2.
You were so lucky even though you worked yourself to illness for sure...that you had children and had fulfilling life! To see the positive in such a hard life is true gift in itself!
Hi
I think that you are onto something there, certainly I can attune to working hard and taking on everything available. Type A personality I guess is the old fashioned way of saying it. The pressure was not put on me by others but by myself. Also I believe Charles Darwin and loerence Nightingale had undiagnosed similar conditions. certainly child abuse doesn’t help the development of this condition but I believe from what I read that there isn’t a direct link but a history of child abuse makes the comdition more severe. I am thankful that this condition is diagnosed nothing is worse than feeling so I’ll and ot having a diagnosis. Take Care Barb
Hello there, I started showing symptoms at the age of 14 and was finally diagnosed 3 years later at the age of 17 when my mom told me she has fibro- so I know it’s hereditary. I haven’t met anyone yet that was diagnosed so young or started showing symptoms so young. I’m just curious why I started showing symptoms at that age when my mom didn’t until she was in her late 30’s…?
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Hi there Saddict and nice to see you here, welcome!
Wow, that was early, but I spose good to have the “answer” and be in the know early on rather than like some people it taking ages!
I spose it’s not fully proven hereditary even in your case, might just be chance, altho I have heard in some families where there are even more than two.
But maybe doesn’t make much difference either way, unless a bit if someone wants to have kids.
(Nice brain foggy: I wrote “once” instead of “wants” in that last sentence! 
)
Maybe your question is also related to the assumption that it is hereditary, so you’d expect your type of fibro to come up similarly.
Instead I’d be thinking along the lines that your physical and perhaps psychological constitution is similar, so the fibro is triggered by similar things in your case. But you got it earlier cos you had different things. Praps even something as simple as living longer in more modern faster stressful circumstances, plus having had a mother who already suffered from it, which she praps didn’t have…. Or many other possibilities of additional or just other triggers.
Questions I’d ask, which might also help you find things to help you, is how similar your forms of fibro are. Cos I believe there are quite a lot of subgroups leading to similar symptoms and that these may have different causes.
Notably, quite a few fibro people have things like hyperalgesia and allodynia, so might have a CSS-form. Central sensitisation syndrome, with “nociplastic pain”, that’s pain by itself, without injury to tissue or nerves. And those can likely be helped with a TENS unit. I don’t have this and the description and feeling doesn’t fit, I have a type which feels as if there are cellular / mitochondrial injuries or broken mechanisms. Others may fit more in an autoimmune-form. All guessing of course.
Is that any help?
I’d be intrigued how similar your forms of fibro are, same or different symptoms, same or different treatments help…?
Thank you for responding!
I’d say we have pretty similar symptoms. I have a lot of rib pain, chest pain, head aches, weakness, fatigue, and the list can go on and on. My mother is fortunate enough to have successful treatment with Cymbalta and Lunesta. I myself have tried Cymbalta with no luck, but I do take Lunesta for sleep and it helps me fall asleep, but not stay asleep. We both have brain fog (almost typed frog haha) and deal with sensitivity to touch. I struggle with more sensitivity to light and sounds as well.
She was diagnosed in her late 30’s as opposed to me being diagnosed when I was 17 and I am 28 now. I haven’t had much help with treatment options but have tried a ton of different things. The flare ups come and go, but we both do seem to have the same triggers for flare ups like: stress, over exertion, not sleeping well, things like that. My fibro symptoms began showing up when I hurt myself on an obstacle course at a youth camp and fell on my ribs. Then it progressed with migraines, chest pain, weakness and fatigue, brain fog, and all those things as the years went on. I went to a rheumatologist at 17 and finally got diagnosed with fibro.
I’m not sure if that is helpful or what you were wondering about but I hope so! Thanks!
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Brain frog is brilliant! It’s performative: Demonstrates itself by saying it (like “I promise”).
Thanks - yeah, so I guess it’s not clear either way.
Your mother diagnosed late 30s, but in your first post you wrote developed symptoms then: Or praps she just didn’t realise she already had it?
But I guess you getting it earlier is just another kind of “we’re all different” - “even” you two.
I can’t remember having heard it coming at the same age as others in the family.
BTW I was wondering if I’ve said “brain frog” before and found a thread called this without anyone pointing out or laughing about it… 