What is like to have fibromyalgia?
Whenever I start thinking about how to explain the pain you feel with fibromyalgia, I think about that feeling you have in your muscles after going to the gym, or a pilates class, or swimming lessons, or whichever exercise that once you're done with it, you feel tired and a bit sore because of the work you just did, and when the night comes, the only thing you're looking forward to is to lie on your bed until the next day and rest the body. And you know about that pain you feel the very next day after having exercised? (people who do it often may no longer have that feeling), that pain that makes your muscles ache with just moving them? When walking might bother a bit because your legs still hurt because of how you worked them the previous day, or picking up things becomes a bit annoying, but it's nothing to worry about, because as the days go by, the pain will start to go away, and another good night's sleep will help to make the pain disappear.
Good; imagine now that that day you worked out, once the night comes, as tired as you are, you don't manage to sleep properly, which logically in turn, will have you the next day not only with sore muscles, but also will make you feel tired throughout the whole day. That night, you make it even more tired and sore, and convinced that this time you are going to sleep and rest properly, because, how not to? Your body is exhausted and now, it's not only the muscles that need to get that repairing sleep, your mind needs it as well. But once more, you don't manage to sleep as both you and your body need; the sleep is not deep and might even get shorter as well.
You wake up the next day once again feeling extremely tired; with two nights in a row of poor sleep you might start feeling a bit of fatigue, but also, as you start getting up, you notice that the pain in your body for having exercised that should have decreased already, it didn't one bit, and the combination becomes a little heavy burden to carry around. Your performance might not be the best that day, of course depending on what your daily routine consists of, but in spite of the discomfort, you have to keep on going; you have a job to do, a family to take care of, or maybe you have the chance of dedicating time to yourself, but since you're so tired and sore, it's not such an easy thing to do, and most likely and without realizing it, you'll start to get stressed over the situation.
Let's keep on going; another night comes and you think "I'm definitely going to sleep like a log tonight, I'm exhausted", but nope, another night comes and that feeling you should have of having had rest, it's not there, on the contrary, now you're accumulating exhaustion, and curse your bad luck; you get up and you're still in pain all over your body, just as if you had never rested ever since you worked out! Surely you won't feel like getting out of bed, and you'll want to stay in it until you finally feel rested, but you can't; you have to get up and keep on taking care of that job, of that family, of your responsibilities, of whatever it is that keeps you busy every day. But all of that now becomes much more difficult, because the nights began to slowly bring insomnia, and your mind's performance begins to diminish; you can't think clearly because of the exhaustion, as if you had fog in your head, and the weariness and physical pain are making it hard for you to even sit straight, and most surely, your mood starts to get affected and changing because of the combination of lack of rest, pain and stress that begins to grow further. And as if that weren't enough, the days begin to bring other kind of discomfort; the body starts to get rigid, migraines show up, maybe dizziness, stomach ache... the list of symptoms that can appear is more than long.
Imagine going through all of that over and over again for the rest of your life... how do you see yourself? Pretty fucked up I'd say, but it doesn't end there. You suddenly realize that the pain you've been having has nothing to do with the fact that you've been previously exercising, or making too big of an effort; you start thinking that there must be something wrong with your body, so you go to the doctor. But the doctor runs all kinds of tests, to end up telling you that you don't have a thing, and that it's all in your head, but you know it's not like that - unless you're lucky enough to run across a doctor that has a bit of a notion of what fibromyalgia is, and is able to associate you grievances to the condition, putting you in the right track, instead of sending you to psychologists and psychiatrists that will want to hook you up with psychotropic drugs that will only harm your body even more in the long run - Frustrating, isn't it?
Were you able to picture it? Were you able to put yourself in the situation? If your answer is yes, then you were able to begin to understand a little bit what's the daily basis of a person with fibromyalgia like.
But the story doesn't end here, because even though it is very hard, it's not impossible to learn how to get along with all of these issues, and be YOU the one who takes control over the condition and not the other way around; be YOU who writes the rest of the story and not the fibromyalgia C:
