Oh, the joys of Fibromyalgia....

This post may contain TMI for the squeamish, so you are forewarned if you don't want to read medical stuff and whining.

Let me start with a positive statement: I am glad to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, since it explains the variety of weird things that happen to my body. I am grateful that it is not a degenerative or deadly disease.

However....it still sucks. Along with the debilitating fatigue and overall pain, there are a bunch of other syndromes that often come along with fibromyalgia. I found out that I wasn't just catching a frequent stomach virus - I have irritable bowel syndrome. OK, I am learning to deal with that.

I also learned that it is not normal for a person's legs to feel electrified when the lay in bed at night and it is not a usual thing to keep your legs moving all the time, and wake up with your legs jumping. Say hello to restless legs syndrome, which contributes to the sleep and fatigue problems of FM. There are meds that can help, thank goodness.

Now, I am finding out that the weird things that show up periodically in my urinalysis and have no other explanation (after undertaking fun tests like IVP) are probably symptoms of interstitial cystitis. Oh joy!

I'll probably have to have an invasive test to rule out bladder cancer or other problems for certain. But this looks like another auto-immune disorder that commonly affects FM people, and I probably have it.

My family doctor asked me, do you have pain? My first reaction is to always answer, No! I realize that I have been living with pain for such a long time, and just thinking it was to be expected and ignoring it, that I'm not a very good judge. I'm in pain (of varying degrees) all the time, in different places. I just keep going until a sharp pain takes my breath away or makes me cry. I've cut off the connection to my body so efficiently over the years that I'm not a very good judge of my own pain levels.

Now, I'm not looking for pain. I just want to be able to listen to my body and hear what it's telling me. I'm starting to get better about it. And I'm getting better at recognizing true physical hunger vs emotional hunger. As I make this connection, I'm beginning to lose a little weight which is a good thing.

This journey isn't easy. But nothing worthwhile ever is. I know I will grow from all these experiences -- but I still reserve the right to whine a little bit along the way.