A Brief PSA About Fibromyalgia
Oct. 29th, 2008 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreI'm commonly asked three questions about fibromyalgia, so I thought I'd offer them here.
1) What is it?
2) How long have you had it?
3) What can you do about it?
Since there's more medical insight into this than there has been, I thought I'd answer both.
What is it?
In short: things that shouldn't hurt, do.
Longer answer: it's, among other things, a change in the perception of pain. Touch that shouldn't hurt does (allodynia), and the whole body hurts. It's kind of like having that ache you get with the flu -- only all day, every day.
One hypothesis is that it's due to side effects of phosphate and calcium ions knocking about and interfering with the ATP process. Another is that it's a response to a virus. Or some gastrointestinal thing. I suspect, when the information is all figured out -- there will in fact be two or more diseases that have an overlapping set of symptoms much like there are three different forms of diabetes.
For many, it's also a sleep disorder, meaning the person doesn't get restorative sleep. Fixing this part will affect the pain levels. It's done miracles for me.
There's more than one would need to know on the wikipedia page.
How long have you had it?
Interesting question. I believe I had it as a child. Many people who have FM were children who said "I don't want to" and "I hurt" a lot. Many didn't. I was one of the former.
Like so many children who go on to develop FM, I was told my not feeling well was "just growing pains." Well guess what? It wasn't. I'm hoping that by mentioning this, I will spare at least one other kid from having a real condition that gets missed.
Despite that, I have led an active life and covered for it, but there's a cost. I remember other people chatting and talking in between ice dance sets. All I could do is cry in pain.
A lot of the times people think I'm aloof I'm not really trying to be. I'm just being reserved because I hurt and I'm not in a very good mood.
What can you do about it?
Fibromyalgia isn't curable, but it is manageable for most people.
Here's my list of things that help me.
1) What is it?
2) How long have you had it?
3) What can you do about it?
Since there's more medical insight into this than there has been, I thought I'd answer both.
What is it?
In short: things that shouldn't hurt, do.
Longer answer: it's, among other things, a change in the perception of pain. Touch that shouldn't hurt does (allodynia), and the whole body hurts. It's kind of like having that ache you get with the flu -- only all day, every day.
One hypothesis is that it's due to side effects of phosphate and calcium ions knocking about and interfering with the ATP process. Another is that it's a response to a virus. Or some gastrointestinal thing. I suspect, when the information is all figured out -- there will in fact be two or more diseases that have an overlapping set of symptoms much like there are three different forms of diabetes.
For many, it's also a sleep disorder, meaning the person doesn't get restorative sleep. Fixing this part will affect the pain levels. It's done miracles for me.
There's more than one would need to know on the wikipedia page.
How long have you had it?
Interesting question. I believe I had it as a child. Many people who have FM were children who said "I don't want to" and "I hurt" a lot. Many didn't. I was one of the former.
Like so many children who go on to develop FM, I was told my not feeling well was "just growing pains." Well guess what? It wasn't. I'm hoping that by mentioning this, I will spare at least one other kid from having a real condition that gets missed.
Despite that, I have led an active life and covered for it, but there's a cost. I remember other people chatting and talking in between ice dance sets. All I could do is cry in pain.
A lot of the times people think I'm aloof I'm not really trying to be. I'm just being reserved because I hurt and I'm not in a very good mood.
What can you do about it?
Fibromyalgia isn't curable, but it is manageable for most people.
Here's my list of things that help me.