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Old Jul 22, 2018, 05:14 AM
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Blueberrybook Blueberrybook is offline
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Member Since: Oct 2017
Location: TX
Posts: 6,584
I definitely do.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia maybe a year after my daughter was born, around 9 years ago.

When I have a flare, it is the worst. Things like illness, seasonal allergens (we get a lot of them living in a warm climate where it rarely freezes), stress can cause a flare.
Sometimes the sensation of the shower water hitting my skin hurts me or even the air going past when I'm walking or on an elliptical trainer (back when I could afford a gym). The heat causes it to worsen as well.

I used to be on meds that helped more, but they turned out to have NSAIDs in them. I'm sure I found that out reading the info sheet when they were first prescribed and then just forgot the info or thought, big deal. But it was a big deal. There were periods I was taking the max dosage daily, along with maybe 2 doses of Excedrin or Motrin for sinus headaches, and that contributed to the perforated ulcer I got (combined with a bacterial infection, Heliobacter pylori, which contributes to most ulcers as well. I can't have NSAIDs for the rest of my life because of the risk of more ulcers. Especially since my ulcer gave me no symptoms other than such minor heartburn I didn't think it worth going to my primary care doctor or even using OTC medication, it is dangerous for me because I just didn't know I had an ulcer at all and thought it was just stress causing the heartburn.

Now, I just get Gabapentin (not sure if it does much) and a muscle relaxer (tizanidine). The tizanidine at least works for muscle relaxation though causes me some fatigue if I take more than 1 tablet at a time (I can take up to 4 a day, if needed). I wish we had the money to afford acupuncture. That actually helped me with pain (I got horrible pain in my sacroileac joint near the end of my pregnancy that didn't go away with birth or physical therapy) and did acupuncture because we could afford it then as hubby had a much better job, but you have to keep up with it, that's the problem. Same with massage. But I also had a sexual abuse incident in a massage parlor (a nice place, well advertised, in a good area of town, not shady at all), and that has put me off massages, especially when the DA refused to prosecute. (It was basically my word against his & it was unfortunately at a point of relapse with my eating disorder. Also, the DA was extremely sick at the time and soon passed away, so I'm sure it was some assistant DA in charge of the case, probably looking to get the coming opening for the DA job and wanting to have a higher solve rate with crimes and not try something iffy. They never even let me go to a grand jury with it.) I don't know. Maybe if I tried massage with a female masseuse it would be OK now, but on the other hand, I don't want to trigger panic attacks or PTSD (the atmosphere could definitely cause that), and I can't afford massage anyway right now.

The pain affects my BP and anxiety too.
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Bipolar 1, PTSD, anorexia, panic disorder, ADHD

Seroquel, Cymbalta, propanolol, buspirone, Trazodone, gabapentin, lamotrigine, hydroxyzine,

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