December 2012 in review

A round up of my issues and Fibromyalgia related symptoms this month. What's typical, what's new, and what I'm doing about it. I'll be sharing this with my rheumy. I don't expect her to read my entire blog. lol

Dec 2:

Hip pain has been hurting a lot the last couple days.
A couple days ago I pulled a back muscle & had to take a Flexeril.
Since that improved, my hips got jealous for attention and now they hurt.

Dec 4:

I have mostly had the hip pain the last 3 days. Now it's moved to my shoulders and neck. I should make a cut out paper figure of myself and chart my pain using little sticker dots. lol!

Dec 7:

Felt oddly great, almost normal.

Dec 8:

Woke up with lots of back pain and really pain just about everywhere.I didn't take any medications before bed because I was feeling so good then.

The new thing was my hands were very stiff, like my skin was too tight to stretch when I made a fist.

Dec 14:

I tried the 37.5 mg dose of Effexor, which comes in tablet form. Within about 2 hours, I had nausea, diarrhea, headache, and what I can only describe as excess energy. My legs were crossed and the leg on top was frantically swinging back and forth. I had to lose the energy. My heart was racing and I was scared. My husband hugged me and I told him I felt like my heart was racing. He said he could feel it. I didn't like this panicky feeling...there wasn't anything to be panicky about. 

Will no longer take Effexor.

Dec 15:

Yesterday I had terrible face pain. It was behind my eyes, at my sinuses in both my forehead and cheeks, spread to my temples and jaw. No fever, but it felt awful. I had to lie down and put a cool washcloth on my head. The pain caused tightness and tension in my neck and shoulders.

I used to think I had chronic sinusitis. Now I am catching on to my pain in that area as being face pain from FMS and often not sinus problems at all. After all, with that level of pain, if it truly was a sinus infection, I could not wake up feeling all better...at least as far as my head is concerned. A true infection would have gotten worse and/or caused a fever.

Dec 19:

1) Woke up with both hands very asleep past the wrists. Nearly impossible to deal with morning alarm when you can't feel it to turn it off!  This happens fairly often. I was not sleeping on my arms.

2) Today after eating Bush's Grillin' Beans with a few pieces of hot dog in it as well as some sweet iced tea to drink, I was hit by painful indigestion and gas. So bad that I couldn't even zip up my jeans or stand up straight for awhile. I had also taken a Tramadol before the indigestion hit, as I could feel my general achiness picking up and I wanted to head it off. I had been medication free until that time, about 4:30 p.m.

3) I went to my bed with pillows to raise up my chest. Then my legs started hurting. Oh they hurt SO bad today. My knees had a real surge in pain...they burned and felt swollen. I wouldn't even want to try to stand up. Then the pain reached a peak and quickly dropped off.

Then later this evening it surged again, but more in the hips...the bursitis feeling. Got so bad I was in tears.

4) Urethra stinging/burning feeling. Feels like infection (I get this now and again these days)
My mother has Interstitial Cystitis and I've read it's a common co-condition with FMS. The feeling never worsens, it just comes and goes, so I don't think it's a real infection.


Dec 23:

My intolerance for milk and dairy is getting worse. If I have a bowl of cereal with milk on it, I end up with a headache and diarrhea. If I eat a handful of Cheez-Its, I get a terrible burning, stabbing pain in my stomach. Good old IBS or just dairy/lactose intolerant or both I do not know.

Dec 31:

Since the kids have been on Christmas break, I have been getting more sleep. Sometimes 10 hours per night. I think that since my sleep quality isn't good, the quantity isn't making much difference. Maybe 10 hours of sleep for me is really equivalent to 5 hours for other people. I still wake up stiff and I'm pain. At least last night I did dream, and that is a good sign, however my dreams were about pain. I was in pain so I incorporated it into my dream.