Do I have Fibromyalgia?
I have had muscle aces for about 10 yrs. It may have started 10 years ago. At the time my parents were elderly, lived 200 miles from me & I was stressed. I worked full time & traveled to help them on week-ends. I started to have sleep problems & took Ambion to help me sleep. I have continued to have problems sleeping. Muscle aces started about 7 years ago. My doctor said I had Fibro, gave me a NSAID'S prescription, sent me to a sleep clinic & a Fibro support group which taught relaxation. I started to have neck & shoulder pain. I had an x-ray which showed arthritis. The NSAID's medication almost stopped my other muscle aches. Then I lifted a heavy object & my back started to hurt & is stiff. My doctor retired & the new doctor has taken me off the NSAID medication because of the risks. Now I cannot hardly get out of bed in the morning. My neck, shoulders & back are very stiff. I shower & stretch & it is not to bad during the day. If I sit & try to get up, it comes back.
Public Comments
1. If you have fibromyalgia, it's not likely the pain would ease up during the day. Without medication the pain would attack at any time. Your symptoms sound like arthritis.2. Only your dr can tell you whether or not you have fibromyalgia. But, I will tell you that without medication, my pain was much worse at night & prevented me from sleeping & still does sometimes. While I do have osteoarthritis & it certainly doesn't help, my fibro pain will ease up some as I loosen up in the morning. Gentle exercise is supposed to help fibro & I would think that the same mechanism works in this case. You aren't moving at night & you are moving during the day. I cannot sit in one position for very long, even with medication, without pain increasing. This is not unusual according to what my friends on my online support group tell me. The shower is moist heat & it helps a lot of ppl, including me. Sometimes I wish I could live in the shower b/c the pain is so much less. Part of fibro is having pain in all 4 quadrants of the body at different times. I have fairly constant pain in my neck & shoulders. It is the degree of pain that changes. But sometimes my right leg hurts, sometimes my left. Same for upper extremities & hips. I have arthritis & peripheral neuropathies in my feet so that is fairly constant. The pain can ebb & flow during the day, season to season, according to the weather. And, all of these can be different patient to patient. Some of the same things can be said for arthritis EXCEPT that the pain & stiffness travels from area to area in all four quadrants. Also a dr can assess 18 trigger points. A diagnostic criteria is that pressure on 11 out 18 of these area elicits pain. Again, only a dr can tell you if you have fibro but these are some of the ways fibro has affected me.
