Hello Again...

I know it has been months since my last post. I did not realize how time consuming a blog could be. Not that, that's a bad thing, but I just have not had the time lately. Since my last post I had to quit my job, which I am very heartbroken about. I loved my work and miss it every day. Sadly I can not work right now. My job is basically taking care of me! I help out at my Dad's Real Estate office as much as I can, but it's not much. I am pretty much unemployed at the moment, not by choice. Most days I can't even get out of bed, so you can imagine how that would make getting to work difficult lol. The thought process behind quitting my job at the Bridal Salon was to focus on myself and getting healthy. I had NO idea it was going to be so tough! My health has spiraled out of control since September. I have a new doctor that I found who is trying to help me find some non-addictive medications to help with the pain and fatigue. Which have both gotten worse by 150%! And let me just say, I have avoided this for 10 years! I did not want to take meds, but I have tried everything else over the past decade and not one thing has worked! I have no other choice, and it was a struggle for me to come to this decision. I see a new chiropractor now who is helping with the upper body pain tremendously. I also get regular massages, about every 2 weeks cause if I don't I can barely walk or move at all. I hope to get back into acupuncture after the new year, but my plate is pretty full right now with health care professionals that I don't really have the energy or time and unfortunately acupuncture has taken a back seat. But not for long hopefully. I have also completely changed my diet, and although I have lost 10 pounds, it seems to have done very little to help the Fibro. All of these new changes are very time consuming and so far have helped a little but not enough. I feel lost. I don't know what else to do. I am scared that if things continue to be this bad for much longer I will end up not working forever and confined to my bed, or worse, in the hospital. As usual this is all made so much harder by people who don't understand. The infamous comments..."but you look fine" and "you had a good day today"....1st of all just cause someone is sick doesn't mean it shows on the outside! I don't have lepresy! 2nd just cause I have FM I am supposed to let myself go and look like the walking dead? That's how I feel but I don't want to look that way 24/7. Believe me I do at home, but if I am out in public or meeting up with someone which rarely happens anymore, but when I do it takes me hours just to appear half way decent and get out of the house! And 3rd...yes I did have a good day, one of maybe 3 that I have all year long!!! Lucky you that you caught me on one of those days! Okay, venting done! Haha, anyways to sum this all up...a lot has happened in the last months, I have changed everything about my health and lifestyle with very little good results and frankly....that sucks! I will try try to post more. Happy Holidays everyone! Until next time...

SLEEP!!!

Since my 1st night of no sleep this week, I have had little sleep this week at all! The 1st night was 2am, 2nd night the night of my last post at 3am, I didn't sleep at all until 6:30am! The 3rd night was 3am. And finally last night I got 12 hours of sleep! Thank goodness, I was about to go insane. Its amazing the effects that no sleep can do to your mind and body. In my last post I mentioned that I would go in to more info. about Fibro. This illness is a daily struggle for me, some days are better than others, but just to be clear there is never a day that I do not feel the effects of Fibro. Here are a list of my many symptoms:

Insomnia: As I mentioned before it very hard for me to get to sleep, and stay asleep. Also with fibro, most people do not get the important REM sleep. So whether you have slept for 2 hours or 12 hours you can wake up not feeling like you slept at all because all night you are in a constant state of half asleep/half awake.

Fatigue: Pretty self explanatory, if you don't sleep you are tired. Although, fatigue is much more than just being tired. It is an extreme tiredness! You feel as though someone pulled your energy plug. You feel like you are so exhausted you cant move an inch. It would be like someone to out the batteries of the energizer bunny. It is hard to explain how much more tired someone with fibro is than the average healthy human being.

Pain/soreness: Every single one of my muscles and joints hurt everyday! There is not a day for the last 11 years that I have not felt pain. Some days are better than others but no matter what I feel pain. Also, some areas hurt worse like my knees, neck and back are the worst, but every inch of my body is sore 24/7. And not sleeping makes it 10 times worse.

Fibro Fog: It is hard to focus sometimes and I lose my train of thought quite often. I know this happens to other people who don't have fibro too, although it seems to be more frequent with fibro. When I feel like I'm in the fog its sort of equivalent to the fog you feel when your hungover. The fog and fatigue are sort of hand-in-hand. The fog is worse the more fatigued I am.

Stiffness: Muscle stiffness, which is worse in the morning when I wake up and right before bed. It takes me about an hour every morning to work out the stiffness in my muscles.

TMJ: I have had problems with my jaw for the last 6 or 7 years and have to wear a night guard to bed every night to avoid my jaw getting worse or possibly popping out of place.

Sensitivity: to light and noises. One of the reasons it is tough for me to fall asleep is because the room has to be pitch black and completely quite! I have to unplug everything in my room that has a light, and wear earplugs most of the time.

Anxiety/Depression: I am the most anxious person I know! I have had such a hard time with it since I was about 20 years old. It effects every aspect of my life and the stress that comes from it is only make the fibro worse for me. It is a vicious cycle. I am depressed alot lately because of the fibro and anxiety. It is so hard to wake up every day in a good mood and be happy when every morning you wake up you just want to curl up in a ball and stay there all day because you are soooooo exhausted, feel like you haven't slept in weeks, and your in so much pain it feels like a semi truck ran over you! With all of that day, after day, after day it is hard to be positive. What also causes the depression is in the last 11 years I have seen over 30 doctors for my various health issues and not ONE of them has been able to help me! There are not alot of options for fibro relief and believe me I have tried them all! They either did not help at all or the side affects were not worth the risk of taking the meds. It makes me feel like there's no hope for me every feeling even a little bit better, and I have given up on doctors completely. Its also hard the doctors, friends even some family do not truly understand how hard this illness is to deal with. Alot of people think fibro is all in our heads. Its not! Its real and it sucks!

That is a list of all the symptoms that I experience. For a full list of fibro symptoms click here: Fibromyalgia Symptoms

That is all I have to share for today, I'm off to have a fun, relaxing Sunday :) Hope every one has a great Memorial Day weekend!

May 25th, 2012

It is 3am, I am having the same sleep problem, or lack of sleep problem I had the other night. Only this time I am not stressing about work, I just CAN'T fall asleep. I have been trying since 11pm! One of the hardest things about Fibromyalgia is you can't sleep because you are in pain and have insomnia, but your fatigued and in pain cause you cant sleep. Its a never ending circle of tiredness and pain! I keep bringing up fibro, and for those who are not familar or do not know much about it, it is a chronic syndrome. There is no cure, and no decent medication in the medical field currently that helps at all, I know because I have tried EVERYTHING! I was diagnosed when I was 15, and it is something that over the last 11 years just keeps getting worse.

According to WebMd:
Fibromyalgia is widespread pain in the muscles and soft tissues. Fibromyalgia is a syndrome-a set of symptoms that happen together but do not have a known cause. In this syndrome, the nervous system (nerves, spinal cord, and brain) is not able to control what it feels, so ordinary feelings from your muscles, joints, and soft tissues are experienced as pain. People with fibromyalgia feel pain and/or tenderness even when there is no injury or inflammation.

This is what the most recent thoughts and ideas are about Fibro, yet doctors still do not know why or how it is caused. I will talk about it more in my next post. Until then, I pray I get some rest!

Insomnia

I only got two hours of sleep last night! Mostly because I was worrying about only getting two hours of sleep and how tired I was going to be at work the next day. Of course I woke up late and had to rush to get ready for work. I didn't have time for breakfast, felt exhausted and frazzled. After FINALLY getting ready I leave the house and rush out to my car only to find a parking ticket on it! The last thing I need at the moment. This obviously starts my day off on a negative note and just seems like one of those days where nothing is going to go right! This might sound like a day that you've had, many people have days like this. I know I am not alone. The problem is I feel like this day I had today is not just one day....it's everyday! I feel like Bill Murray in groundhog day, except instead of having bad things keep repeating, bad things just keep happening all the time. I feel like I am constantly waiting for things to get better, waiting for a good day to come. Sometimes it does, but they are VERY few and far between. This is just a glimpse into the vicious cycle of an Over Underachiever..... I want to take a moment to let everyone know I am not writing these things to be negative or a downer. I started this blog to try and find a voice. I feel like most people do not understand me. I hope that people read this and can relate and know that they are not alone. As I hope to gain the same in return. I very much encourage comments. I want to hear other's stories as well. I also hope to learn from others and hope that people can help me as well. That being said there will be ups and downs in this blog, just like most of our lives. Once again I encourage comments, but please try to keep them kind. I look forward to sharing more soon! Until then I just hope for a better sleep tonight :)