How Your Life Has Changed with Fibromyalgia
I am now 56 years old. I realize I lived with chronic pain and fatigue for over 15 years. In 2008 I finally found a new physician that worked with me to get a diagnosis and treatment. I was living with such pain and fatigue I could barely manage to get out of bed. I had two teenagers and was watching them through my bedroom...
View MoreDo you feel like fibromyalgia has changed you as a person?
I was always an extroverted person and felt confident in myself. Fibromyalgia is an isolating disease. It took my confidence and left me introverted. I taught elementary level students, and within two years, I was no longer able to process quickly and cognitively, and I was questioning my abilities everyday. Outside of work, I use to be the gal who kept the party going, and I became the gal who did not participate. I was an actively engaged mother of two young teens.
Fibromyalgia stole that ability away from me. I was a wife who enjoyed intimacy, and my husband and I became simply roommates sleeping in the same bed, losing a sense of my sexual self. While this all evolved, I thought I was one of the only people dealing with the constant pain and fatigue. I felt alone in the struggle for years. That was 12 years ago, Now I know I am one of over 200,000.
Has fibro limited your physical activities? How?
I have learned to live my life day-to-day. I was bedridden with intense pain and fatigue. I still miss cross-country skiing, power walking to clear my mind, biking with my children. Several times a month, I attempt to walk any length of time at a local public center. It has been a battle to get any physical activity. I experience thigh muscle tightening and spasms when attempting anything, some days, I wake with these and a stiffness through out my body. I tell my husband, "I feel like the tin man from Oz". My arms will ache as if I had moved bricks all night! My children have grown and I missed precious time with them before they left home. I could not prepare meals so dinner became a make it yourself affair. I could not stand to cook upright, the pain was too intense, the fatigue leaving me too tired to even eat at times.
Thankfully my husband is now our cook and grocery shopper as I am unable to get out and shop. It is a precarious balance of pacing and guessing what I feel that my body can do. Sometimes I guess correct, sometimes I do not. It is never a win, win situation. I am never able to perform all I wish.....my body simply will not let me. I have become an advocate for Fibromyalgia, and this can be done in my home at my able pace. I will not surrender. I am a warrior everyday.
