Fibro-wha? (Part 1, Coping with Fibromyalgia)
Besides my musings on cultural stuff, I want to talk a little bit about health on this blog as well. Especially women's health. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. This Syndrome affects 7-9 times as many women than men, and there are estimates that it affects around 8% of the population. What is it? Surprisingly there isn't even that much research on it and an exact cause for it hasn't been pinpointed. But basically its widespread pain and fatigue - all the time. Like if you had a bad case of the flu. Or some reports I've read have said it would take a normal person 3 days of being completely sleep deprived to feel some of the effects of what Fibromyalgia feels like. It sucks. It sucks big fat donkey balls.
In my case, I suspect it actually started around 5 years ago. For several years before that, I had a pretty aggressive career, and on top of that, a bi-polar boss who was boinking one of my coworkers who became jealous of my success and would stalk my home parking lot and report my comings & goings to our bi-polar boss. You can't make this stuff up; at one point I became really ill and it turned out I had a very diseased gall-bladder and the coworker would make comments that it was my own fault. When I was at the hospital doing my pre-screen for surgery, bi-polar boss called me and screamed at me because he forgot I would be coming in late that day after my appointment (even though I was so sick I could barely stand). So naturally, despite the surgeon & my doctor's warnings that it should take 2-4 weeks for recovery from surgery to remove my gall bladder, I insisted on going home from the hospital the very same day as my surgery and what did I do when I got home? I propped my laptop up on a pillow and worked from my bed. This still wasn't good enough for old bi-polar boss; he screamed at me for not being able to visit my customers during this time. When I went back to the office after 2 weeks still barely able to walk though, he was super remorseful and apologetic and helpful. Which of course only inflamed the jealous coworker even further.
Point is, I was constantly in fear. I felt pressure to always please everyone and avoid pissing anyone off. I worked non-stop and cared more about getting ahead in my career than taking care of my health. There were times when I went on back-to-back, multi-city business trips in short periods of time where I'd be working from my hotel all night and only catching up on sleep during the flights. By around 2010, after one of these whirlwind trips 3 weeks in a row with bronchitis, I never seemed to recover after that. The bronchitis went on for about 3 months. I started to feel such fatigue that I could barely handle my 20 minute commute to the office.
My doctor first tried a few blood tests to see if I had some vitamin deficiencies that were causing my fatigue; she did find that I was severely low on Vitamin D & B12. I took prescription strength doses of both of those, but my fatigue still wouldn't go away. Then I did a sleep test to determine if I had Sleep Apnea; that came out as a negative but the technician who did the test found some interesting things about my brain waves. He said I had a lot of alpha waves, which are normally the type of brain waves you have when you're awake. He said it looked as though I was constantly waking up and going back to sleep throughout the night, and I never really got past the REM sleep stage into a deep sleep. He said this was common in patients with Fibromyalgia, and that it might be something I should discuss with my regular doctor. At that point though, I didn't really have significant, noticeable pain. I just continued to pound caffeine and move forward with torturing my body with overworking.
I switched departments a couple of times at work, underwent another surgery, and then was laid off during a company restructuring. I was immediately hired by another department, which turned out to be a dream job. It was a completely newly created position, and the entire department was based out of Minneapolis while myself and the VP were here in San Diego. The VP was always traveling though, so he gave me free range to work wherever and however I wanted. I went to the office only when I had meetings or projects with other departments, and mostly worked from home. This allowed me to finally take control of my health - I would take breaks to do yoga, cook healthy lunches, take power naps when I needed, and basically balance out my life the way I sorely needed. And my quality of work only improved - I received so much recognition and praise from the highest people in the company, and I built such a great camaraderie with my project team mates that I finally felt I was right where I belonged.
Of course that all crashed and burned a year later when the company did another round of mass restructuring and my entire department got cut. That's when the widespread pain kicked in. They say stress can be a major factor in Fibromyalgia; boy do I ever believe it. My doctor did a quick check of 9 pairs of pressure points around my body - neck, shoulders, back, hips, chest, knees, elbows.... all of them sent pain shooting through my whole body. She also referred me to a Rheumatologist who did a few blood tests and confirmed that it was indeed Fibromyalgia, and not another underlying more serious condition. Lucky me! Fibromyalgia will not kill you but at times it really does make you wish you were dead.
There have only been a few drugs that have been approved for treatment of Fibromyalgia; my doctors put me on an anti-depressant called Cymbalta. Honestly? I don't think its working. But if you try to go off it, you get sick. You can't be on it when you're pregnant either, and since Stephen and I want to start a family after we're married, I can't wait to get off of this stuff. Other, more natural, approaches seem to work, at least temporarily, if you have the time and the money. Acupuncture, lymphatic drainage massage, Chinese reflexology massage, yoga, swimming & water aerobics in a heated pool, and light usage of medical marijuana have proven helpful for me; everyone is different when it comes to this illness though so what works for some might not work for everyone.
I'll end this entry here and do a part 2 to talk more about how to cope and include some details for different natural, dietary remedies I have come across. Point of this entry being - take care of yourself!! Don't abuse yourself the way I did and let work take priority over your health, because the long term effects that I am currently dealing with.... I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy!
In my case, I suspect it actually started around 5 years ago. For several years before that, I had a pretty aggressive career, and on top of that, a bi-polar boss who was boinking one of my coworkers who became jealous of my success and would stalk my home parking lot and report my comings & goings to our bi-polar boss. You can't make this stuff up; at one point I became really ill and it turned out I had a very diseased gall-bladder and the coworker would make comments that it was my own fault. When I was at the hospital doing my pre-screen for surgery, bi-polar boss called me and screamed at me because he forgot I would be coming in late that day after my appointment (even though I was so sick I could barely stand). So naturally, despite the surgeon & my doctor's warnings that it should take 2-4 weeks for recovery from surgery to remove my gall bladder, I insisted on going home from the hospital the very same day as my surgery and what did I do when I got home? I propped my laptop up on a pillow and worked from my bed. This still wasn't good enough for old bi-polar boss; he screamed at me for not being able to visit my customers during this time. When I went back to the office after 2 weeks still barely able to walk though, he was super remorseful and apologetic and helpful. Which of course only inflamed the jealous coworker even further.
Point is, I was constantly in fear. I felt pressure to always please everyone and avoid pissing anyone off. I worked non-stop and cared more about getting ahead in my career than taking care of my health. There were times when I went on back-to-back, multi-city business trips in short periods of time where I'd be working from my hotel all night and only catching up on sleep during the flights. By around 2010, after one of these whirlwind trips 3 weeks in a row with bronchitis, I never seemed to recover after that. The bronchitis went on for about 3 months. I started to feel such fatigue that I could barely handle my 20 minute commute to the office.
My doctor first tried a few blood tests to see if I had some vitamin deficiencies that were causing my fatigue; she did find that I was severely low on Vitamin D & B12. I took prescription strength doses of both of those, but my fatigue still wouldn't go away. Then I did a sleep test to determine if I had Sleep Apnea; that came out as a negative but the technician who did the test found some interesting things about my brain waves. He said I had a lot of alpha waves, which are normally the type of brain waves you have when you're awake. He said it looked as though I was constantly waking up and going back to sleep throughout the night, and I never really got past the REM sleep stage into a deep sleep. He said this was common in patients with Fibromyalgia, and that it might be something I should discuss with my regular doctor. At that point though, I didn't really have significant, noticeable pain. I just continued to pound caffeine and move forward with torturing my body with overworking.
I switched departments a couple of times at work, underwent another surgery, and then was laid off during a company restructuring. I was immediately hired by another department, which turned out to be a dream job. It was a completely newly created position, and the entire department was based out of Minneapolis while myself and the VP were here in San Diego. The VP was always traveling though, so he gave me free range to work wherever and however I wanted. I went to the office only when I had meetings or projects with other departments, and mostly worked from home. This allowed me to finally take control of my health - I would take breaks to do yoga, cook healthy lunches, take power naps when I needed, and basically balance out my life the way I sorely needed. And my quality of work only improved - I received so much recognition and praise from the highest people in the company, and I built such a great camaraderie with my project team mates that I finally felt I was right where I belonged.
Of course that all crashed and burned a year later when the company did another round of mass restructuring and my entire department got cut. That's when the widespread pain kicked in. They say stress can be a major factor in Fibromyalgia; boy do I ever believe it. My doctor did a quick check of 9 pairs of pressure points around my body - neck, shoulders, back, hips, chest, knees, elbows.... all of them sent pain shooting through my whole body. She also referred me to a Rheumatologist who did a few blood tests and confirmed that it was indeed Fibromyalgia, and not another underlying more serious condition. Lucky me! Fibromyalgia will not kill you but at times it really does make you wish you were dead.
There have only been a few drugs that have been approved for treatment of Fibromyalgia; my doctors put me on an anti-depressant called Cymbalta. Honestly? I don't think its working. But if you try to go off it, you get sick. You can't be on it when you're pregnant either, and since Stephen and I want to start a family after we're married, I can't wait to get off of this stuff. Other, more natural, approaches seem to work, at least temporarily, if you have the time and the money. Acupuncture, lymphatic drainage massage, Chinese reflexology massage, yoga, swimming & water aerobics in a heated pool, and light usage of medical marijuana have proven helpful for me; everyone is different when it comes to this illness though so what works for some might not work for everyone.
I'll end this entry here and do a part 2 to talk more about how to cope and include some details for different natural, dietary remedies I have come across. Point of this entry being - take care of yourself!! Don't abuse yourself the way I did and let work take priority over your health, because the long term effects that I am currently dealing with.... I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy!
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