Hello from the newby

[SteveGill]

Hello. I was diagnosed just over thirty years ago after feeding extreme pain all over my body.

I have an injury in my leg caused by football, where a piece of my bone fractured and as I grew up, it grew out. I had an operation called an Exostosis Removal of the bone and just in time too as it was going into the final stage before I have my leg cut off.

Like all surgeries, there's a risk that something can go wrong, and it did. The Surgeon had to cut through the flesh and just nicked a branch of the nerve. You can't repair nerves all the time.

When that Fibromyalgia day came, I turned from being a reasonably fit 24 year old to a old man over night. I managed to get an emergency GP appointment but I don't recall if I had a blood test at the time. I managed to get to the chemists to get this newly prescribed medication called Tramadol. I was walking bent over with the pain and on crutches that I had still from the leg operation. It took weeks for the pain to subside but then I started a new chapter of my life of starting work and building myself back up again.

With the help of Tramadol and drinking litres of pineapple juice, I got through and did the job I wanted to do as a child.

I had to leave that job ( long story) and became a Care Worker. I lasted a mere ten weeks and resigned with immediate effect after the pain became too bad. I found that I had as many things wrong with me as the people who I was caring for.

Fortunately, I have a private pension and decided to take early retirement. I've now got to get this pain back under control and get on with life.

I'm looking forward to hearing some of your ways to reduce the pain.

Best wishes.

Steve.

[Hazel_Angelstar Administrator FMA UK Staff]

Hi Steve, and a warm welcome to our community

You can find general information about fibromyalgia in our main website fmauk.org, and our patient information booklet at fmauk.org/publications

[Kitten-whiskers]

Good afternoon Steve,

Welcome to the community - it's great to have you with us

For dealing with Fibro I followed Dr Leon Chaitow - he wrote a book called muscle pain and fibromyalgia - an amazing book which covers CFS and ME as well, It really did turn my life around. When I read the book, it just made be feel happy because it was clear that he had a superb understanding of the conditions and how miserable life was for us and how little help the GP was.

To try to put it in perspective - I was near to being housebound, I had adrenal fatique, Hashimotos Thyrioditus, fibro and a a number of other aliments but now I lead a normal life - I work full time, I can exercise, do weights, go out walking, on the treadmill etc when before lifting a cup of tea was exhausting.

Best wishes

Debbie