How do we begin to tell our family or anyone that the world we live in personally is a daily torture? Some may be able to express the pain we go through but how about the ones that go through so much pain and are able to really hide it and make others think we're doing ok? And we know theres times we just want to crawl in a hole somewhere and die just to make it go away.
We know we're in our bodies but we wonder what happend to us. It makes you feel like someone stole your use-to-be good body and left you with a worn out one. We may have a fairly decent day when we think we can do something productive in our lives and we take advantage of that feeling and see what we can accomplish. Then when we do it, no matter if its just putting in a good day of cleaning the house, and we pay dearly for it. Some sites describe it well. Its like first getting a bad case of the flu when everything in you aches. We wonder what happened to the body that use to be able to work all day without tiring.
I have sites I'm going to be adding to this that will help others understand what this is doing to so many people. In time I'm hoping something can be done to help people with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I'm not sure if anyone can really comprehend what this is really like unless you have experienced what it really feels like but we can hope with widespread knowledge of this it will at least give them an idea of whats it like for so many.
I'm working on some pages to connect to each other so it will be easy to get to for you. All you have to do is click on to the next page. I realize some are not working as of yet and I will be adding more links to this site. So please be patient with me. I hope this site will enlighten a lot of people on this disease and help those family and friends that have no idea of what is going on with those that have to endure this on a daily basis.
============================================Proof of Fibromyalgia
In people with chronic pain, the spinal cord becomes overloaded with input, leading it to become hypersensitive to the messages sent its way. It in turn abnormally amplifies the response so patients feel pain from contact that should have no effect. (ABCNEWS.com) By Jenifer Joseph
ABCNEWS.com April 8 — Jan Murphy committed suicide last summer because she could no longer live with a disease that many doctors still don't believe exists. She had fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition that made a cool breeze on her skin feel like fire and caused every part of her body to ache. After CT scans and MRIs showed no medical reason for her pain, Murphy turned to Dr. Jack Kevorkian for a final solution.
"When you start hearing there is no hope, no treatment, and no cure, over and over, you lose your will to fight," Murphy wrote in a eulogy that was read at her funeral. "What most people saw of me was a shell of what was going on inside."
What exactly was going on with Murphy and other fibromyalgia patients has long been a controversial matter in the medical profession. Many doctors thought that fibromyalgia was a mental health problem, with no physical cause.
Until five years ago, grassroots fibromyalgia groups were virtually chased out of medical conferences when they tried to spread the word about the syndrome.
Now, researchers at the University of Alabama have uncovered proof that what patients like Murphy experience isn't a psychological disorder, but rather is caused by abnormalities in the brain and central nervous system.
Sensory Alarms Stuck
The researchers found that fibromyalgia patients have significantly less blood flow to the parts of their brains that deal with pain.
(ABCNEWS.com) And compared to healthy people, they also have twice the level of a brain chemical called Substance P, which helps nervous system cells communicate with each other about painful stimuli. Elevated P levels may actually produce the higher levels of pain throughout the body .
Dr. Laurence Bradley, a pain management specialist who led the research, presented his findings at a National Institutes of Health conference on pain and gender today. About 90 percent of fibromyalgia sufferers are women, though researchers don't know why.
"It's like a burglar alarm which normally goes off in the body in response to certain kinds of signals," Bradley explains. "But in patients with fibromyalgia, benign signals are making them go off as well."
Bradley, who estimates that 8 percent of all women suffer from fibromyalgia, says his research is comforting to those who thought their symptoms meant they were "crazy."
"It was easy for doctors to attribute the pain to psychological disorders," says Bradley, who is also a psychiatrist. "That perception is beginning to change now that we can show distinctly different brain function that is not evident in patients with depression."
Treatments Elusive
Now that the cause of fibromyalgia seems clearer, scientists are searching for better ways to treat the symptoms. One research team is investigating whether antidepressant drugs increase cerebral blood flow. Another is looking at injecting toxins into precise places in the spine to block debilitating pain without causing the numbing side effects of narcotic drugs.
Meanwhile, grassroots groups like the Fibromyalgia Network will continue to pursue funding for more research into the condition.
"It feels like being run over by a Mack truck," says network manager Steve Thorson, whose wife has fibromyalgia. "It's a terrible thing to live with. It doesn't go away."
Jan Murphy, for one, wasn't willing to wait. "Please do not think of this as suicide," she wrote, "but as a self-deliverance from a life that became too unbearable to live."
Site of Information:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/fibromyalgia980408.html
