PTSD & Fibromyalgia

[Tipnatee N]

It took me a very long time before I could even think about mentioning it. But one of the truth that I believe is that PTSD is a starter of many illnesses including fibro.

Most people thinking about PTSD they think about war veterinarians , or people that lost their mind do to traumatic shocked, and only adult who can experience such higher degree of post tramatic stress disorder while children ptsd can easily be fix. And it' all in the head and just memory triggering behaviors.

I don't believe that.

I think our brains are much more complicated beyond our logics. And it doesn't have rules on what most people considering traumas. I also believe that fibro is a physical manifestation form of ptsd it self. And that's why it attacking us invisibly. It has reprograming most of our senses and our immune systems to be constantly on an auto threatening survival mode. Our body shut down to conserving energy like someone who fallen off the cliff in the mid of nowhere and got stuck between the rocks without any help nearby. While we see normal daily life our bodies are seeing the worse case scenarios.

The mind constantly alert for the look out , then our body forcing us to stop moving cause it think that something might be hunting us. It lower our consumption of oxygen to conserving it believing that we stuck in confine lower oxygen environment. And shuting down our regular digestive system , sending us wrong mix signal dictating on which food we should or should not eat. It felt like we are trying to stay alive even when we're sleeping or not sleeping. Constant unknowingly stress can lose the nerves literally .. as far as the nerves dying theory goes.

Most recognizable ptsd symptoms are usually periodic attacks , but for fibro it's all the time. It's the natural animal instinct, instinct that constantly trying to save it self.

I could be wrong, I hope that I am. but on that note I think I can understand why I can't go against my own diet. Or having to retraining my own brain along with my body in the way that my very hard to please brain and body can accepting it and finally give me a good day again.

Can it be done permanently I wonder.

......

 

[vickythecat]

I could not agree with you more. What you wrote makes so so so much sense to me. I also have been living in a fight or flight mode for the last 4 years - since my official diagnosis. (when it got so bad that I had to go to the doctor)

I am not a war veteran or a survivor of sexual abuse, but what I went through at my last job .... well, it took me years to realize and accept it, but after some research, I know it is PTSD.

Again, I know this is a sensitive subject. I mean many will say what could've happened at work that you can classify as traumatic? Or how can you compare anything you went through to things a soldier goes through in a war situation. But it is so unfair to compare any situation without really knowing the full story and the intricate details, the background, the personality of the person etc. There is so very much to a story. Especially a traumatic one.

And I can't agree with you more on how the brain is completely messed up about it. That traumatic event (in my case it lasted for 4 years, with the final year being the worst) messed up our brain. We were in it and we could not escape. Then our minds would and will not allow us to escape, bringing us back to that situation, right in the middle of it, by just an image, a memory, a horrible nightmare, and the 'fight' starts over. But how long can a brain fight for? Not so very long, so yes, it shuts down. This could definitely be the reason why fatigue hits us (literally) at the most unexpected times.

Or how a bad nightmare can also manifest itself in physical pain the next day.

I was already convinced fibro is a brain-related disorder/illness. This PTSD theory fits in there perfectly. But like we all know, it could actually be any kind of trauma. A bad fall, a car accident, losing a loved one and not giving yourself time/space to grief, our own personalities that create our own little trauma's and them adding up. Our brains cannot handle it, so it starts to send off all kinds of weird signals to our body. Pain, stomach cramps, indigestion, sensitivity to the weirdest things and this endless fatigue.

But do you think you can heal from PTSD? Or at least improve it? how much would that help our bodies or are bodies' wiring is so messed up there is no going back? I don't know the answers to these questions.....

 

[Tipnatee N]

Isn't it?

I often believe in the wrong moment in time even a paper cut can be so traumatic for young children if it was following by a shocking treatment by another being or the situation after then it'll become ptsd . The body accidentally registering imprint of the pains and suffering as something to react each time it comes close to the similar situation even if we don't even remembering it being a big of a deal, our body does remember it. And just as the first time that ptsd started, if it hit hard enough it can also easily created another ptsd just from having one. Then after many loop of ptsd I could easily imagining it being similar to living in the war zone all the time . To evolving to something like fibro does made a lot of sense. Stress from having prolong severe fibro it self can also creating more ptsd and so on.

Endless nightmares or vivid imaginations, are only just our brain interpretation attemping to explain why it's behaving these ways. Of course it's gonna be violently crazy. Of couse it's only natural to feel a whole loads of unexplain pains even if it was from just a dream or thinking it , our body so confuse it couldn't tell the differents.

However most people ( and doctors) are often brush off PTSD as a basket case of a human being . Which explain alot when fibro came along and proven otherwise , I believe that's why most doctors are still refuse to believe fibro exist. The controversial is bigger than just fibro it self.

Who knows I might just imagining it , but it's not easy to deny the idea it self when it made so much sense.

 

[diamond]

I couldn't agree more with you both..we 3 have an understanding its not the actual event its our own emotional experience of that event or series of events governed by our own personalities and values.

Like our own personal achilles heel of what wounds our particular brain...it doesn't need to be a war in the literal sense ...its a war going on in our own brains and trying to resolve the problem and heal /protect ourselves while trapped in the war at the same time.

PTSD type of mind injury is more likely to develop if people treat us badly on top of what we are experiencing and if we are trapped in the situation that keeps our fight or flight activated for months or years.

What affects one person many not affect another the same way ...it's the depth of the emotional damage that is done that counts.

I think there is possibility of healing up to a point...then i think maybe with fibro to deal with too the stress of that can make healing soooo much harder .

I almost healed my PTSD responses and feelings even with fibro but the person i had confided the most personal details to suddenly withdrew and turned everything i had confided against me ...shamed and humiliated me about it all.

Sadly that event finished me off and actually not only intensified my original PTSD but created even more complex and far reaching version and my fibro rapidly spiralled as a consequence too...so more trauma going from active fibro to house bound as i battled for months to save my emotional and physical health which became one big blur of the two.

 

[Tipnatee N]

Diamond and Vicky , you two inspired me to write it.

Cause I've been carrying this thought for so long , but so afraid to write it since my experinced of how I was treated when it comes to dealing with PTSD or mentioning it . I don't want to over stepping my bound cause most people and most doctors both sides hates to deal with PTSD interms of treatments drugs use since for so long it was deem as the number one sort of drugs abuse type of disorder. Thus for the attitude towards it under the surface is not a very good one. It's like there's a sympathy but not if you ask for help.

I was so sure that I had completely cured my first ptsd , but some new one seems to have pulling it back like how it manage to undo the deleted programs on my computer. I try to upgrade my system, sometime I have to reset over and over just to get it moving. I only wish I could get a new computer . But I guess that's what my fibro fog is trying to do. :neutral: