Hi Pained One,
I am a retired /disabled physical therapist (disabled from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and fibromyalgia, who also has chronic back pain. My MDD keeps me from doing much exercise, but I’ve started walking (in my safe neighborhood) and I know from my training that that will help with the back pain eventually. I used to do a warm pool gentle exercise class (there are “therapeutically warm pools” around, if interested you can google that phrase and your county or city name to see if there is one near you; they are intended for use by arthritis patients, and they are super for fibromyalgia and back pain patients, since they feel so good to be in because they are much warmer than a typical pool, and thus it is easier to move in them). I did recently stop the warm pool class due to my depression and it being pretty far away, but I may go back, and it certainly was helping the fibro pain, my back pain, and my mood.
The bigger reason I decided to reply to your post is that I am also on a lot of prescription drugs, and I do highly recommend trying a couple, and cbd capsules or oil. I personally don’t worry too much about being on prescription meds for depression and pain (and a couple of other medical conditions), as I know they help me. If I went off my antidepressant and meds for fibromyalgia, I know I’d be in big trouble. Anyway, the drugs I recommend you try are: 1. lyrica, for the fibromyalgia pain; 2. low dose naltrexone, usually prescribed at 4.5 mg for fibro and chronic pain; 3. tylenol (which is an innocuous drug for pain but really helps me); 4. cbd capsules (or oil). With the lyrica, tylenol, low dose naltrexone and cbd capsules, I was able to get off opiates for the fibro pain. I might recommend you try the naltrexone and cbd and tylenol first, as the lyrica does not work for all and takes a while to get to the therapeutic dose. The low dose naltrexone has helped me hugely, it is a relatively new med and your rheumatologist should hopefully know about it if she treats fibromyalgia. CBD is legal in every state, and I buy it off the internet now; let me know if you would like any recommendations on the brand and dose. Both the low dose naltrexone and CBD oil have helped me greatly with my depression, anxiety and sleep as well as my chronic pain; I can’t say enough about both of these meds (of course the CBD is not a prescription drug).
I wish you the best of luck! Oh, I went to pain specialists at Stanford University who said that back pain is extremely common in fibromyalgia patients (I think almost all with fibro have it, and that it is usually the worst symptom). They also told me about Cymbalta, which is an antidepressant which also helps with pain, so that I ended up switching my antidepressant from something else (I’ve tried so many) to Cymbalta. It’s hard for me to say if the Cymbalta ended up helping with the pain, since I was also using lyrica and opiates at the time, but that’s what they said. They also said that depression is very common in fibro patients. I really feel for those of us living with both MDD and fibromyalgia , since both are so difficult to experience, and of course can influence one another. Take care; I hope these ideas may help you!
Jean