I’m curious to hear your thoughts on things that might have triggered your fibro - such as medicine, illness, physical or other abuse, PTSD, hard hitting tragedy, etc
I seem to remember the pain starting in my arms when I began taking cholesterol medications. The pain started in Sept 2010 and in three months I had intense pain all over my body when I finally collapsed in January 2011.
The other unusual thing which happened is I got shingles 3 times and had a lot of nerve damage during the 7 years before I was diagnosed. The shingles still causes nerve pain and sensitivity on the right side of my body.
Please share your experiences - I’m wondering if anyone else has had this reaction to statins or gotten fibro after shingles…
I have a sibling who was diagnosed with fibro before I came down with it. He did not take statins or have shingles. He got a parasite traveling overseas and became very ill. I often wonder if this triggered his fibro. ?
This is an interesting question and one I've often wondered about as well. I don't know a lot about FM, I am newly diagnosed so I'm still learning but....I honestly believe, for my own self anyhow, that a very traumatic childhood played a huge part in this. I say that because I've experienced the symptoms which I now know to be FM since I was quite young. Emotional distress will cause flare-ups for me, even now that is the only precipitating event that I see as having a correlation to the all-over body pain I begin to feel. I get stressed out or have conflict and suddenly, my body feels as though it's on fire. I was 5 when my mama died of breast cancer. A very confusing time as I did not understand what death meant but it was only made worse by my father's repeated suicide attempts, one of which I was present for (he had swallowed an entire bottle of something and was unresponsive). The memories I have of my childhood are terribly painful and I've never "gotten through" them. My brothers and I were taken care of by nannies, distant relatives, family friends, etc...while my father sunk into a black depression he's never recovered from. When I was 15, one of those brothers, my younger sibling by one year, died in a freak accident. The pain started shortly thereafter. The Dr. who diagnosed me, my PCP, said to me that many FM patients have emotional issues, issues which have not been dealt with and the effects of those are not only emotional but physical as well. And I can see, with myself, that my emotional pain often manifests as physical pain. Aches and soreness are excacerbated, amplified. She suggested that in addition to the meds she was starting me on that I find some counseling to deal with these grief issues if I ever had any hope of healing.
I'll be quite interested to see what responses are posted here by ya'll, what a great question!
It is interesting that you mention shingles. My symptoms developed after having chicken pox at 17 years old. Those who had chicken pox can develop shingles at a later date. I woke up one morning and I could not stand. My legs were in so much pain.Then I had achey joints all over my body. The doctor said I had tendonitis but it did seem weird- the whole body? I was tired all the time. It did not matter if i slept until 11 am. I was tired every waking moment. That year was very stressful so I attribute it to Psychological stress. I was working a part time job, i was babysitting my 3 year old cousins, I was a Senior in high school and I believe I suffered from social phobia. My legs continued to hurt for years. Then when I was 21 years old I got into a terrible car accidents with whip lash and all the other symptoms developed shortly after. No one could diagnose me for 6 years.
i cant believe having a childhood like that. i am so sorry u had to go through all that. i hope the counseling u r recieving now will really help u. i see a counseler too.
my dr is not quite sure what triggured my fm. i was in too bad car accidents one at age 15 the other at 17. in both i was injured pretty bad. but i also had surgery in feb. 2009 and my two week recovery took 2 months. i didnt understand why my pain would not go away. the surgen kept telling me i was fine and all the pain was in my head. that really messed me up. my surgery was a laperscopic for endometrosis. after hearing it was all in my head for so long i sank into a deep depression and had major anixety. soon after the surgery i was refered to a psyc. dr and had counseling. it helped alot i dont know where i would b today with out it. i still see a counseler cause the emotional damage from the words of the surgeon. i still have not worked through it. my current counseler is tring a different approch to helping me over come what happened.
while i was trying to recover i got different opinions and every dr told me that they could see the pain was real but had no idea what was causing it. i was on narcotics for two months but only given to me bythe drs who couldnt figure out my pain. finally after 2 months of pain it went away. i was put on antiderpressonts as well as zanax during my time with the phyc dr.
Wow! I wonder if post herpetic neuralgia can develop from chicken pox? I’m curious if you were tested for mono? I got that in college and never recovered. I slept on the sofa for 3 months and my mom took care of me. I had car accident at 17 which started my back problems. I was in several minor car crashes in my 20’s. Makes me upset because my parents never took me to the hospital when I had the first car wreck.
I'm having psychotherapy atm, and part of what i'm trying to figure out is kind of 'what went wrong'.
I've started to realise that i was bullied from a very young age, both in and out of school. Also i was very unhappy at home. By aged 13 i developed an eating disorder, and by 14 i took a serious overdose. I wasn't diagnosed with fibro till i was in my 20's, but looking back it's clear it began in my early teens. I always had bad headaches, was frequently tearing ligaments and tendons, always had neck and shoulder pain, just general aches and pains etc. My doctor just never saw the signs, and i'd never heard of fibro, so i didn't know!
Anyway in answer to your question - for me, i think my fibro could have started due to the extreme stress and upset i was enduring day after day, year after year.
The other possibility for me, is that i suffered a traumatic birth having the umbilical cord wrapped numerous times round my neck, so tight i wasn't breathing. And also at a couple of months old i suffered a rare infection, where i had to be rushed to hospital and spent a week in an iced incubator with a temperature of 104 degrees.
I wonder about this question often, and long for the day we may all get our answer!
Actually, according to my Fibro dr, he states the biggest trigger are food allergies. I’ve heard it works to avoid the foods you are allergic to from several people, it just hasn’t for me
my fibro started after i had two surgeries. i had my gaulbladder removed and a cyst near my brain and eye removed. since then ive had issues with fibro and it just keeps getting worse
Growing up I was diagnosed with osgood schlatters. Which seemed like everything started to come from that. With it, the pain started in just my right knee and then grew from there. Also, in high school, there was a point where I was going through a depression stage. And about 2 years ago, I had to get my gall bladder out and it seems like after that, all my symptoms intensified.
Oh my gosh, my symptoms got worse after I got my gall bladder taken out. I thought I was just crazy for thinking that. Good to know I'm not the only that has noticed that.
