Fibromyalgia folks--about the pain.

[Lyric]

I've tried to describe it to other people, but it's hard. The best description I've been able to come up with is this:

It feels like I'm horribly, horribly bruised (as in, I've been beaten, or was in a car wreck) and also sunburned at the same time. The deep tissues are agony if you press on them, and the surface skin is over-sensitive--even brushing the hairs hurts, kind of like when you have the flu and it hurts to brush your hair.

What about you?

[lizziegrace]

1. Same here

constant, persistent headache and even my skin hurts to touch. And the exhaustion. I haven't slept all night in over 10 years. :(

[Lyric]

2. Same here. I have five of those egg-crate mattress pads

on my bed. Without those, I don't think I'd be able to sleep at all. I can't tolerate the pressure of laying down on the Hurting Places. :(

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I have a pillow-top mattress. I call it my "cloud bed" and it is lovely to lie down on *happy sigh*

Much better than my old bed which was too hard and had poky springs and pressure point issues for me.

[Redstone]

3. You absolutely CANNOT describe chronic pain to anyone who has not lived with it.

There are no words.

Except, maybe to try to explain the difference between chronic pain and acute pain.

With acute pain, there is hope. When you break your leg, you get the cast put on, and six to eight weeks later, the cast comes off, and your leg doesn't hurt anymore.

With chronic paine, there's no hope. The pain is not going to go away, ever.

Oh, Christ, I don't want to get into this subject tonight. But I hope the above helps.

Redstone

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Oh, the hair thing! Yeah. I've experienced that. Not sure if I have fibromyalgia but I do

have pain that shows up fairly often in my chest and legs (esp thighs). Just aches so horribly!!

I was on Cymbalta a few years ago and I felt so much better, but then it destabilized my bipolar condition and I had to quit it. I cried every night, I hurt so much from the withdrawal. Weirdly, it radiated upward from my hands and feet.

[Madrone]

6. The sunburn part is a nice touch ... I've never even tried to relate that. Nice description.

The bruise analogy is one I often use, except I tell people to imagine that someone is taking their knuckle and grinding it into the bruise - and THAT'S how it feels.

Honestly, though ... I'd gladly take the pain if I could just feel like a live person again. I feel like a zombie in a fog almost 100% of the time. No energy, no motivation, and never fully awake. I HATE that. x(

[cprompt]

7. its a rarity

but heres a topic i can speak to. my mother, whom I am extremely close to suffers from fibro and diabetes. She was a nurse for almost 30 years and to hear her speak of "modern medicine" the way she does now is enlightening. i personally saw her suffer. she went from this bouncing off the walls, no one is a stranger in my house type of woman to being sidelined for days at a time just to get the strength to see her grandson. she did all sorts of physical, water, muscle, etc therapy to no avail.

she swapped her diet to straight vegan (im on a bbq cooking team...irony) and moved to holistic practices (acupuncture/trans meditation) and my goodness has it made a difference. Now instead of 25 days per month down, its 25 days up and going like she used to.

the pain she suffered was unbearable i know. I think EXTREMELY high of my mother. She was the 8th child of 15 in a house where the father died early and the mother raised them all. Poor southern girl that stitched her own clothes, picked cotton, and made her only toy (a rag doll) that she still owns to this day. She was never weak, so for me to see her go through it for years, I can only imagine how bad it must hurt. My condolences to those with fibro and my best wishes.

[noonwitch]

8. There are a group of women who swim at the comm center pool who have it

They swear by swimming as a treatment, or a supplement to treatment. If you have access to a community center pool, especially one that has a jacuzzi you can soak in after exercising in the pool, you can check and see if they also have an "arthritis class", an exercise class geared for people with painful motion.

[ThomCat]

9. My hands and feet feel like I slammed them in a door.

They throb and feel swollen and stiff even though they look okay.

I periodically get sharp horrible pains in random locations that feel like someone stabbed me with a knife. I've been known to double over suddenly for no visible reason because of sudden pain.

And I get joint pains that feel like arthritis. (that doctors mistook for arthritis for over a year.)

[Lyric]

11. Do you get the abdominal symptoms, too?

I get the sharp stabbing pains mostly in my upper back and shoulders, sometimes in my thighs. But I get them pretty much every day in my abdomen, and I've had so many CT scans that I should be glowing in the dark; with oral contrast, with IV contrast, it doesn't matter, there's nothing there to be seen.

The headaches are awful, too. And my hands and wrists, although I think (hope) that's the psoriatic arthritis and not the fibro.

[yellowdogintexas]

10. mine is not as severe as most of yours but I do get flares. I am in one

right now. I feel like I did a couple cave trips back to back or a really hard workout. I have never had the sunburn symptom but I have the hot spots that if I bump them or touch them they really hurt, and the underlying normal bone and joint arthritis due to my age is aggravated by the soft tissue pain.

Massage has helped me a lot. Deep tissue massage. My massage lady gave me a bath formula which is helpful:

1/4 cup each: sea salt, epsom salts and baking soda
dissolve in the hottest bath water you can stand
soak 20 minutes.

Makes you feel much better.

Water bed is good too.

Another thing I found, don't let yourself get cold at night. Mine really flares up if I get a deep chill or if I get cold at night. Ironically, my breathing is much better if I sleep in a cold room, so even in summer I wear long sleeved shirt and lightweight sweat pants if I am having a flare. Four cats are an asset, there. I have a small electric blankie that I snuggle in on the sofa when watching TV

[malta blue]

12. I was trying to explain to my mom why I wear baggy clothes

all the time.

I told her that sometimes the surface pain is so bad that the waist on my jeans bothers me.

She doesn't really understand (having never had chronic pain) but she is very understanding....

:hug: to you.....