Fibromyalgia

dowie · 14 Aug 2015 at 21:24

Heliospherez said:
Cut out wheat and all gluten pasta etc and i mean everything for 4 weeks at least - no bread, breadcrumbs pasta sausages pizza ....anything with grains. Cut out all junk food and especially sugar and soft drinks.

yeah going gluten free is trendy right now...

you should definitely do this for a condition you may or may not have that may or may not exist

AHarvey · 29 Oct 2015 at 09:39

Just to update this, I saw a specialist on Friday regarding the matter after my regular GP said he was stumped.

Although the symptoms fit Fibro with my father suffering with Psoriasis and despite me not have the skin condition (that we are aware of) he thinks it is Psoriatic Arthritis.

The pain is up and down, last week i was running up and down stairs, crawling under desks to fix PCs etc and only had very minor pain. This week i've had to have 2.5 days off work because I can't drive for more than 10 mins and the pain really has a negative effect on my personality and ability to focus.

It's costing me money and having just been back in touch with my GP my prescription still hasn't arrived from the specialist and even when it does, it takes 2 working days to process. Looks like more pain and discomfort for me, and it's my daughters 4th birthday on Saturday

krooton · 29 Oct 2015 at 09:55

My gf suffered from it pretty badly a few years ago, and it was dietary changes that sorted it out for her. Massively reducing her gluten and dairy intake (the dairy was around the protein rather than the lactose) helped, and if she falls off that wagon, symptoms pop up again.

Sounds like a horrible thing as normal painkillers do sod all to help.

Werewolf · 29 Oct 2015 at 11:08

Vix said:
I have had the diagnosis for a couple of years and symptoms for about 5 years. After the diagnosis I developed serious depression because I realised the fact I wasn't going to get better. I wasn't prepared for the diagnosis and had never heard of it before so it was a bit of a shock.

It a total nightmare and as I have to work full time, I can't take any medication as it makes me ultra sleepy.

From what I understand part of the reason that a lot of medical professionals thought ME etc were purely mental health issues, is probably down to the fact that by the time a lot of people with it got seen by specialists going back a few years, they'd been ill for a long time, often having been fit previously, and were starting to think there was nothing to help them.
Under which circumstances virtually anyone would start to feel down and depressed, let alone when they've got an illness half the medical profession didn't believe in, and the other half were unable to do much more than treat the symptoms of (whilst some were doing things that actively made it worse).

Buddy · 29 Oct 2015 at 11:20

Werewolf said:
From what I understand part of the reason that a lot of medical professionals thought ME etc were purely mental health issues, is probably down to the fact that by the time a lot of people with it got seen by specialists going back a few years, they'd been ill for a long time, often having been fit previously, and were starting to think there was nothing to help them.
Under which circumstances virtually anyone would start to feel down and depressed, let alone when they've got an illness half the medical profession didn't believe in, and the other half were unable to do much more than treat the symptoms of (whilst some were doing things that actively made it worse).

No
Its because no physical cause of the symptoms are found - blood tests, scans, examination all normal.

Whereas with fibromyalgia there are tender points found on examination.

There are a number of theories surrounding both conditions. The incidence of mood disorders in these conditions is higher before/after. And some of the therapy is cbt based.

Vix · 1 Nov 2015 at 17:46

Werewolf said:
From what I understand part of the reason that a lot of medical professionals thought ME etc were purely mental health issues, is probably down to the fact that by the time a lot of people with it got seen by specialists going back a few years, they'd been ill for a long time, often having been fit previously, and were starting to think there was nothing to help them.
Under which circumstances virtually anyone would start to feel down and depressed, let alone when they've got an illness half the medical profession didn't believe in, and the other half were unable to do much more than treat the symptoms of (whilst some were doing things that actively made it worse).

Definitely agree with the second paragraph there! And I still don't know if it's the fibro causing depression as a symptom, or I'm depressed because I have fibro. I can definitely see why people say to me that I am 'just depressed' and I would feel less pain if I 'snapped out of it'. Well let's just find out how to snap out of it and it will all be golden won't it :/

OP, I am pleased your GP is exploring other diagnoses, hope it's something more manageable than fibro. Whilst I would wish people could feel what I feel sometimes, I would not wish the illness on anyone.

encephalopathy · 1 Nov 2015 at 20:43

fibromyalgia - the only psychological condition diagnosed by rheumatologists