Fibro Fatigue

So I saw my N.P. last Thursday and she has taken a fairly new tack. She used to favor alternative therapies, but after being reviewed by the state authorities, I think she's gotten gun-shy and is following the mainstream protocols. She wanted me to try one of the three "new" drugs now FDA-approved for fibromyalgia. All of them, from what I can tell, are not much different from what I've tried through the years. They are all called anti-depressants "but not prescribed to me for depression" (I've heard this before!). The older drugs were called SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). The new one I'm on, Sabella, is an SNRI (Serotonin and Norepinephrin Reuptake Inhibitor. This is based on the theory that FMS is caused by a chemical imbalance in the Central Nervous System, or brain. She said it increases dopamine in the brain. I am skeptical that it will help, but I'll give it a month. I have to titrate to the therapeutic level, and if I go

Book Review: Waiting For A Miracle by Jan Markell A few years back I read a book on pain that made me mad. It was written by a rheumatologist who claimed to be a Christian, and who proceeded to blame his incompetence at treating fibromyalgics on--you guessed it--his patients. Rheumatologists, in my experience, are notoriously ill-equipped to deal with non-inflammatory pain. This doctor assumed his FMS/CFS patients' pain was in their heads, and he had resorted to using pseudopsychological counseling sessions on them rather than admitting his failure and referring them to someone else. I pitied his poor patients! As for his Christianity, it was syncretistic at best. His most egregrious error was in claiming that pain was a subjective experience, which flies in the face of common-sense medical practice. I was incensed. I have been searching for a good book that would treat the spiritual side of chronic illness properly--without sinking into blame-shifting, self pity or ranting--eve

Boy has this been a difficult week. My back muscles have been very weak and spasming since Tuesday and I have spent most of the time in bed. Lying on the foam mattress causes its own sets of problems—my skin itches and burns until I don’t want anything touching me, etc. If I don’t keep my skin cool the redness breaks out into a rash. So I have spent several hours lying under the ceiling fan… I know it’s caused by yeast/fungal overgrowth.  It all started Tuesday when I reached up to hang a towel on the shower door. My back suddenly had a familiar twinge in my left side, and I headed for the bed. I felt frozen in pain. Within minutes I was shaking convulsively with a feeling of cold and needed a heat pack to stop. (Is that shock? It’s happened to me before; I think it may be an adrenalin reaction.) There I lay, face down on the mattress, unable to move. At least I had dried myself off. The Lord has been gracious to provide my husband within calling range two of the three times this h