# New to board



## Guest (Oct 29, 1999)

I have recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia after almost two years of pain that my doctor couldn't figure out. Started as pain in one shoulder that I associated as work related and dr said was stress. The pain gradually has affected most of my major joints and wasn't diagnosed until I was sent to a pain management clinic when my hip went out, childbirth pain was easier than the pain I had in my hip. The pain still is not completely gone, gets a little better and then gets bad again. Most mornings I wake up and feel like I have been beat up in my sleep. I haven't slept all night in over a year, I wake up 3-4 times a night after taking forever to fall asleep. What has been driving me crazy has been the inability to concentrate and remember almost anything. My husband swears he tells me something and I just don't remember it. All of this is affecting my work and I am interested in how any of you deal with high pressure jobs that require a lot of physical stress as well as mental concentration. I work as a surgical assistant and most days have 6-8 hours of procedures that require a great deal of leaning. My boss has been great so far but I don't know for how long. I have only missed about a week when my hip was real bad. The thing I hate most is feeling like I am complaining all the time. I take Celebrex and Ultram for pain and both are killing my stomach. I take Flexeril and Ambien at bedtime. There has to be an easier way than taking all these pills. I try to walk on a treadmill but it makes me hurt so bad I give up even though I know excercise would help. Thankfully, I have been doing physical therapy for about 6 weeks and on the days I have it I feel quite a bit better but I only have a week of treatment left. Well, I guess I just needed to vent. I is nice to know there is a place where there are others with this syndrome. It doesn't make me feel so alone.------------------deb


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## geomv (Aug 9, 1999)

Hi djr, welcome to the board. That's unfortunate that you have fibro. You should feel welcome here on this board, all of us usually have one or more symptom of fibro most of the time. Speaking for myself, I seldom have a time when I don't have something going on. Right now I have the pain in my left shoulder; I've had it since May. I wish it would go away, but then the pain would just creep up somewhere else. You can vent here any time you need to, that's why we're here. I just found this board a couple of weeks ago myself. Georgia


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