Hello All, Recently Diagnosed

[Gearhead4Life]

Hi everyone, I'm a young man who was just recently diagnosed. I'll be 28 on Thursday, and to put it simply i did not react well to the diagnosis. The past few months have been very stressful, i have arthritis that has put me temporarily out of work, and just this previous Friday i was diagnosed with Fibro. I have been researching the heck out of the illness since the news, normal OTC medications don't exactly work for the pain, and i have been to the hospital more times then i would've liked since last summer. What started it was a numbness type feeling on the left side of my face, traveling down my arm and pain on both hips. The pain/symptoms are often random, and i don't recall injuring myself. I usually do not sleep well due to the pain. It was suggested that i join some sort of support group, so i figure I'll just start here. I have had all sorts of testing done from CAT scans to MRIs, things have not been fun.

[tojo]

Howdy and welcome to MWF Gear Head,

Sad to say your story sounds quite familiar to many here on our site. Take your time and go through past posts and articles that we have here and you will learn many things about your disease. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Your new brother in Fibro
Tojo

[Gearhead4Life]

Thank you, one of my main questions and concerns is both medication, as well as managing the chronic fatigue that comes with Fibro. I am frequently running on energy drinks such as Monster/Rockstar/Red Bull, and whatever crazy variations i can find. I have tried for years to kick that stuff, but never been successful at it, and now i know why. The other day i joked with the doctor "can you give me a straight up injection of caffeine" lol.

As you can probably tell i love cars, and i want to do Skip Barbers Racing School someday. I have never been on track yet but i am determined not to let this stop me from giving racing a shot. When I'm behind the wheel of a car i often forget about the pain this brings, even if it is just for a little while. My outlet right now is gaming, but i can't play games for long hours like i used to.

[Robby]

[Gearhead4Life]

lmao those are great!

[ronr]

Welcome Gearhead !

You picked the best support group going for guys that have FiBro. 

Do you take anything other than OTC meds?

We learn to live with this and call it a greatly modified form of existence.  It does not kill you but it certainly does change the way you do things.  Pacing your activities will help but that is hard for each and every one of us because we have all been the type A overachievers.

Stress makes it worse as you will find out also.  You are in it for the long haul so no point in worrying about the small stuff.

Start low and go slow whether that be with an exercise program, a new med, or whatever.

More later after a couple of those innoculattes.

[Barberian]

First off, Welcome to our little community. This is a wonderful condition we have, isn't it? 

I strongly suggest you take it easy on the energy drinks. Enjoy a caffeine drink or two, but over use can lead to other problems. Some of them can be quite severe. Fibro causes enough as it is. One of the toughest things to deal with is the chronic fatigue often associated with fibro. Learn to live with what you can do "naturally". This will change day to day, and even hour to hour. If you push yourself with energy drinks, you can easily cause "Fibro Flares" which can be absolutely miserable to say the least. Flares, if you haven't had many, can be days, to weeks, to months long. You will want to avoid them, if you can, at all costs.

Other problems can be an exhaustion or depletion of your endocrine system (adrenaline fatigue). This too can lead to other health problems. I wish I had some good news to write out, but this is a challenging condition on a good day.

Feel free to drop in often, read, write (the good and the bad). You will find lots of understanding here.

[tojo]

One note on flares if you do not know already they can be quite debilitating. Been known to put a grown man flat on his back for days even weeks and months. We all have the tendency to over do it when we feel good and then suffer afterward. Saying the whole time I will never do that again and then poof good day and...

I woul dcut out the man made stuff as well and get some coffee transfusions.

[foxgrove]

Welcome to the family GearHead!! 

You've come to the right spot brother!!  This is exactly where you need to be.. sad that you need to be here... that part sucks.  No worries.. you're among family here so kick off the boots and make yourself at home. 

Fox

[Gearhead4Life]

First off, Welcome to our little community. This is a wonderful condition we have, isn't it? 

I strongly suggest you take it easy on the energy drinks. Enjoy a caffeine drink or two, but over use can lead to other problems. Some of them can be quite severe. Fibro causes enough as it is. One of the toughest things to deal with is the chronic fatigue often associated with fibro. Learn to live with what you can do "naturally". This will change day to day, and even hour to hour. If you push yourself with energy drinks, you can easily cause "Fibro Flares" which can be absolutely miserable to say the least. Flares, if you haven't had many, can be days, to weeks, to months long. You will want to avoid them, if you can, at all costs.

Other problems can be an exhaustion or depletion of your endocrine system (adrenaline fatigue). This too can lead to other health problems. I wish I had some good news to write out, but this is a challenging condition on a good day.

Feel free to drop in often, read, write (the good and the bad). You will find lots of understanding here.

Thank you guys, the big problem i have been dealing with is not just the chronic fatigue, but the frequency of the flares. I get them everyday, and tonight in particular i was out with a group of my friends it got really bad, became hard to walk and i found myself leaning against a wall for support. I'm to be scheduled for yet another MRI and i hate being inside that chamber. I am hoping to be able to return to my job soon with light duty in mind. The pain levels can range from a 3 to a 7, worse on a bad day. I'm monitoring everything from what I'm doing to weather patterns to try and get a rhythm going. It really isn't easy.

[foxgrove]

The biggest thing that I found to be helpful was learning to pace myself... sadly, I'm a very slow learner so I'm still in the midst of learning it after almost a decade.  Well... I guess it's one thing to learn it, it's quite another to be willing to listen to that little voice telling you to sit down before that little voice turns into a screaming lunatic with a knife!!

It takes time to learn to stop before you're tired... to be willing to stop and walk away from something before you get overwhelmed... to learn to say no when every ounce of you wants to go but your body is telling you that it's not possible.  Hard things to learn but very necessary.  Pacing, moving at a tempo that's not our natural one, is a hard thing to do.  Chopping up a project into little manageable parts seems easy enough to do until you are staring at an unfinished project because you've been stuck in a flare for two months.  Often, being willing to seriously alter our expectations of ourselves is the hardest part.  Take your time... it'll be easier as time goes on.