The joy of having a disease that no one believes!

For the past ten years I have had a chronic pain problem. How did it all start? Well I am super smooth, talented, graceful whichever word you wish to use and in my sophomore year in high school I managed to fall down a set of bleachers --- and this is the best part --- this was at a homecoming football game and everyone was there. Well when I fell I landed on my back and slammed the lower back onto the metal bleachers. So I went to the doctor and got lots of x-rays only to find out that my lower vertebra are opened slightly (much like people with spina bifida but not as severe) so when I hit my back basically I hit the nerve column directly. The doctors could not figure out why I was in so much pain all the time since there were no fractures of the spine. Well eventually (after seriously 100's of x-rays, tons of different blood work, bone scans, cat scans and MRIs) they diagnosed me with Fibromyasia - kinda. Ok so how do you kinda diagnose something? Easy enough actually! Fibromyasia can be triggered by traumatic events to your body and it is kinda the catch all disease that if they can't figure out what is wrong you get labeled with it. Well ten-ish years later (today actually) I ask well are we pretty certain that I still have Fibromyalsia? And the answer, Yeah we are pretty certain that you have it due to the constant problems you have.

So what is Fibromyalsia? It is a chronic pain disorder that basically means that everyday some part of my body is in pain. It varies in intensity from day to day and also varies on the location of the pain. I honestly can't remember the last time I had an entire day of being pain free. I know there have only been a few over the last ten years. Over the counter meds like Advil or Tylenol don't really do anything to stop the pain, and in order for them to work I have to take a minimum of 6 pills (which I dislike because of the damage that does to your liver) and so most days I try to ignore the pain and focus on other things. Some days it is relatively easy to ignore the pain because either it is minimal or I am so busy I don't have time to think about it. Other days it gets harder.

Well today we decided to try two new drugs to help with the pain and the sleeplessness due to pain. Get this most drugs that are used to treat Fibromyalsia are not actually for it but usually for diseases like epilepsy, depression, antipsychotics and other fun brain related things. I have run the gambit on the meds to treat it and today I can add two more to the list an antidepressant and an antipsychotic medicine. Joy! There is only one medicine that the FDA has approved for the treatment of Fibromyalsia and my insurance company has it in it's "head" that it is not a real problem and therefore will not pay for the approved medicine. Oh well lets hope that these two new drugs will give me some relief. But just in case I start puffing out my cheeks, biting air, or have other involuntary muscle spasms call my doctor because it is a bad side effect from the anti-psychotic. No wonder mental patients look crazy they are on medicines that make them involuntarily jumpy and weird.