brownehn
New member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2015
- Messages
- 1
- Reason
- Relative
- Diagnosis
- 11/2014
- Country
- US
- State
- CA
Hello,
I may be unique in that I am here on behalf of the victim, my Mom, who I believe suffers from fibromyalgia. I can offer the point of view of an outside observer and from what I've read so far her symptoms are close to many of yours.
She also has cardiomyopathy and swelling in her feet which can get rather bothersome. However after checking her 'numbers'--blood SpO2 and pulse and a blood panel--and several visits from home care workers and a full-fledged cardiologist,as well as some observations of others with cardiomyopathy, I conclude that hers is too mild to account for the misery she is going through.
Her symptoms include inadequate sleep, 'fogginess' that ebbs and flows,tiredness,feeling cold,and pain particularly in the back between the shoulder blades which is triggered by using muscles. She has suffered from depression her whole life and I strongly suspect her personality is a part of this disorder. Severity normally goes up and down almost randomly. Her sleep strikes me as key: there is something disturbed,truly unnatural about her sleep; it's almost as if her body is confused about when to be asleep and when to be awake, which seems to account for the fogginess. On those few occasions she reports getting decent sleep she seems to do better for a while.
She has always been a very high-stress person with an unusually negative orientation about life--e.g. looking for flaws rather than doting on successes or strengths. As mentioned,like other family members,she is prone to depression. I suspect she has been abnormally stressed during the period leading up to her disorder, which I'd say has been running at least six months by now. She takes her condition very hard, trying to fight it but then giving up and falling into a pall.
The most important things we can share here are THINGS THAT HELP. If you try something, e.g. exercise, let us know how it goes. Right now I have not been able to convince Mom to try anything--a common problem with fibro sufferers I'm sure--but the only thing I can report is that she actually enjoys DRIVING A CAR because,she says,it seems to comfort her back.
One tough thing about disorders like this is that most others can't see what's wrong, and think the victim is faking or whatever. . . adding to the burden.
Good Luck to us all
I may be unique in that I am here on behalf of the victim, my Mom, who I believe suffers from fibromyalgia. I can offer the point of view of an outside observer and from what I've read so far her symptoms are close to many of yours.
She also has cardiomyopathy and swelling in her feet which can get rather bothersome. However after checking her 'numbers'--blood SpO2 and pulse and a blood panel--and several visits from home care workers and a full-fledged cardiologist,as well as some observations of others with cardiomyopathy, I conclude that hers is too mild to account for the misery she is going through.
Her symptoms include inadequate sleep, 'fogginess' that ebbs and flows,tiredness,feeling cold,and pain particularly in the back between the shoulder blades which is triggered by using muscles. She has suffered from depression her whole life and I strongly suspect her personality is a part of this disorder. Severity normally goes up and down almost randomly. Her sleep strikes me as key: there is something disturbed,truly unnatural about her sleep; it's almost as if her body is confused about when to be asleep and when to be awake, which seems to account for the fogginess. On those few occasions she reports getting decent sleep she seems to do better for a while.
She has always been a very high-stress person with an unusually negative orientation about life--e.g. looking for flaws rather than doting on successes or strengths. As mentioned,like other family members,she is prone to depression. I suspect she has been abnormally stressed during the period leading up to her disorder, which I'd say has been running at least six months by now. She takes her condition very hard, trying to fight it but then giving up and falling into a pall.
The most important things we can share here are THINGS THAT HELP. If you try something, e.g. exercise, let us know how it goes. Right now I have not been able to convince Mom to try anything--a common problem with fibro sufferers I'm sure--but the only thing I can report is that she actually enjoys DRIVING A CAR because,she says,it seems to comfort her back.
One tough thing about disorders like this is that most others can't see what's wrong, and think the victim is faking or whatever. . . adding to the burden.
Good Luck to us all
