Living with Fibromyalgia

I started having a lot of pain in my wrists and shoulders back in November of 2007. I’m 21 years old, so I tried to disregard it, hoping it had something to do with some stressful events in my life at that time and that it would go away soon. By Februaury that pain had traveled to my knees, feet, ankles, and jaw. I decided that it was finally time to see a doctor. He took a lot of blood work, exrays of both hands and wrists, and then sent me to a rheumatoid specialist. The new doctor took yet more blood and decided to put me on Vicodin, anti-inflamatories, and plaquenil. He called it “rupus”. Basically, he wasn’t sure if it was Rheumatoid Arthritis or Lupus My body was making too many antibodies, but all of my other blood work and DNA was fine. My exrays and rheumatoid tests were all fine too.

By April 2008, the pain had intensified. I could barely open or close my hands in the morning. I couldn’t even raise my arms up and wash my hair in the morning. I could barely even walk because of my feet and knees. I had days where I couldn’t get out of bed and missed work because of it. I was constantly having headaches and I would be exhausted during the day, but when I’d lay down to sleep I couldn’t. Finally he prescribed the prednisone which seemed to take the edge off for the majority of the day and trazadone to help me sleep at night.

For the last month he still couldn’t give me any answers. I brought up fibromyalgia twice and both times he shot them down like he was insulted I even brought it up. Last week he prescribed methotrexate, which is a drug used to treat some cancers and Rheumatoid Arthritis I started that yesterday and was sicker than a dog, so to speak. I came down with a migraine and was stuck in bed all day feeling like I was about to throw up. yuck!

So yesterday, I finally got the call that there was an opening with a new doctor I had been on the wait list for. If course I said I would go and had my appointment this morning. The doctor spent almost 2 hours actually listening to me, going over my blood tests, and expaining everything to me! It was amazing! He believes that I still have an auto-immune disease, but it’s going to turn out just to be a thyroid problem. Which makes sense since my thyroid has tested low in some tests and then regular with others. Every single tender spot for Fibromyalgia was there. I told my previous doctor I didn’t think the pain was in my joints, the new doctor actually listened to me and said I was right. There are more tests to go through over the next three weeks, but finally I can pretty much rule out the Lupus and the Rheumatoid arthritis according to this new doctor. It feels really good to start getting some answers!

To all of you who have doctors that think your crazy, get a second opinion!It never hurts!