Having been diagnosed with FM by a neurologist I began reading about its symptoms. Although I believe I fall into the FM category, the pain I’m suffering in my joints seems to point to something more. I can hardly move in bed or get up in the morning with the pain in my hips, knees, ankles and wrists/hands. I’ve had two MRI scans and blood tests with nothing showing. I’ve been prescribed Gabapentin which isn’t helping.
Can anyone advise if these are normal symptoms. Thanks
Gabapentin will take at least three weeks to become effective. If you aren't there yet please be patient. Have you seen a rheumatologist? Maybe they can help identify causes of your joint pain with more specific blood tests. Stay optimistic and happy!
Are hypermobile, I am, it an cause pain in my joints without the signs of inflamation you'd get with arthritis?
MRI and bloods if they are all-encompassing seem to show that everything orthopedists and rheums can find has been ruled out to all normal extent. Stiffness, often with accompanying ache or pain, is of course a core symptom of FM, and not just "in the mornings" like is often asked. In my case it's every time I stay in one position for longer (10 mins.), especially lying down, but also sitting and standing. Which made me think it's more than FM, because I don't hear of it much from others. But no doc has found anything else, apart from a centre for rare diseases finding Hashimoto and probably a preform of Sjögren's. I do gentle short stints of exercises and try to keep moving at daytime. At night it increases the longer I sleep and the less breaks I have. I've got my sleep up to over 9h (net, avg.) now, with about 4-6 breaks, usually only 5', which is good for my energy and pain. So I've started doing my back exercises before sleeping (leaving out the jackknife), that helps at least my back pain. In the mornings I do them in bed, which gets the stiffness down faster. On bad days I need one or two minutes to rock myself into the jackknife, but the other ones are OK and I can get up more smoothly. (I've been doing these for 35 years now, long before fibro, so my body knows them well.) What has changed with fibro is how I get up, out of bed, out of chairs, from the floor - no jumping up, or putting legs up and throwing myself up from lying on my back in one energetic flip any more ;-D. Instead I roll over and turn-press myself up using all the body-levers/tricks I have. Same goes for chairs or steps, using my arms, not just legs, and turning movements. On a chair when I'm very stiff I may turn round and kneel on it first, before pressing up. I've got it down to a pretty fine art, but my wife sees thru me faking it, so I put on a show for her, with a "ta-daaaa!" at the end (to which she returns an ironic "like - yeah...")
Hi Ellie all the symptoms you have just mentioned describe me down to a tee. I totally empathise with what you are going through x
Hi Elly63, I took Gabapentin along with Tramadol for many months. My doctor prescribed many different combinations of pills to see which helped, i tried each different combination for about a month and finally found that the above 2 worked best alongside each other. After many months, i gradually came off the Tramadol and continued with the Gabapentin. You do need to take them for a few weeks before you might see and feel the benefits. The pains in your joints that you describe are very familiar to me. Everyone suffers differently with Fibro, in fact one doctor actually told me that my joint pain wasnt Fibro because "bones dont hurt", yeah!!!! One thing that really helped me was acupuncture. I had a month of it for upper body pain and it was like a miracle, i never had upper body pain for months and months after it. Good luck and gentle hugs. x
Thank you so much for taking time to reply. I will percivere and keepSpeaking to my GP. Take care
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