Frustrated venting: I'm almost a bloody text book case and in the almost four years since I've shown definitive symptoms of Fibromyalgia, not ONE doctor will do anything for me. Put me on Nortriptyline, a mild anti-depressant used as a pain modulator, made me suicidal for the three months I was on it. The best I've gotten is muscle relaxants and those are doing f-k all. I've been accused of lying about being in pain, about the trigger points (16 out of 18... hmmm), been told it's all in my head, told I need to suck it up... I'm not fucking diagnosing myself because it was my family doctor that first said that it was a possibility. All my blood work came back normal and "Oh, probably just drug induced lupus, don't take Advil or Marvelon, you'll be fine."
I don't know what it's going to take for me to be able to convince a doctor that this is not all in my head. It took me sobbing, unable to get off the floor because I was in so much pain I couldn't move, to get a muscle relaxant that quite frankly barely does anything when I'm having a really bad flare-up. I was popping Tylenol 1's like candy so I could work and those did nothing. I could hardly walk up stairs when I lived in a house, there's days I can't get out of bed because the pain is so bad I can't walk, I've lost feeling and movement throughout my entire body... I don't know what it's going to take for them to get it. I'm losing my patience with dealing with this because I'm running out of resources. My social life is practically non existent. I can sleep for 20+ hours and still be exhausted because my quality of sleep is horrible. I don't know what else to do. Being not even twenty years old and not being able to do things I want to, sometimes not being able to even do simple things... the look on my three year old cousin's face when I couldn't pick her up and give her a hug almost killed me.
I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Fibromyalgia is no longer stigmatized by doctors and cast off as being psychosomatic or just laziness. It is unimaginable hell being told time after time that there's nothing wrong. I will do everything in my power to make sure other people don't have to go through the years of frustration and helplessness that I have. It kills me to see my mom's face when I'm in too much pain to move; her knowing there's nothing she can do to make it go away. Knowing there's no cure and I will live the rest of my life with this is bad enough but I am going to fight until I get proper treatment. My quality of life can be insurmountably better with the proper treatment. I need to do something. I can't sit here and know other people are suffering the way I am and not doing anything about it. I just need to figure out how...
-C.