mscrowbar said...
I have also lost most of my sense of smell. sometimes I never even notice unless some one says " wow that smell good" or "I think the baby p**ped." I never read anywhere that a loss of smell was a symptom of fibro, only read that some senses were heightened.
I also have blurry vision. Some days not too bad, other days so bad I cannot make out eye color of someone standing right in front of me.
And hearing is off too. I cannot function if there is too much noise. If someone is talking to me and the tv is on and the boys are whooping and hollering I cannot make out everything the person is telling me. Its like I cannot hear some tones and all the confusion makes me anxious.
So, what I am trying to say is that all my senses seem to be going down hill not heightened like the fibro symptoms say??
I am going to an ear, nose, throat specialist Friday because of the smell issue along with the constant ear ache and sinus like headaches. I am told by the gp that there is no infection but since I am constantly in to see him over it he is sending me to the specialist. (p.s. we already tried the allergist and although I do have a mild allergy I should not have these severe of symptoms and surely not ALL the time.
i used to get really awful ear and sinus infections all the time, to the point where i was starting to think of antibiotics as a food group
i do remember that during those times i'd lose a lot of my sense of taste and smell, as well as reduced hearing. i don't seem to get those often any more (knock on wood), and the loss of smell and problems hearing specific words feels quite different. i hope that the ENT can get those problems sorted out for you, even somewhat.
btw, have you seen a registered massage therapist who specializes in Fibro? reason i ask is that about
15 years ago i was going to a MT who worked on some really small muscles and actually relieved apprx 90% of my ear pain. sad to say, she's moved away, but i did learn about
a few trigger points which when i gently rub or press on them can make a lot of that pain go away. that kind of therapy is a bit pricey unless a person has insurance, which is part of why i haven't been hunting too hard for someone as good as that person was, but i'm really glad i was able to see her for as long as i did because i learned so much. unfortunately, i haven't found anything that explains the twitches (etc) in my face or how to stop it, but at least i can manage some of the ear pain.
i remember reading or hearing about
heightened senses in FM as well, but thinking about
it now, i wonder if they were referring to how we're super-sensitive to pain and things that cause pain. i know i'm definitely more sensitive to things like sound ... i find it hard enough to concentrate on what one person's saying, but if there's background noise or i'm trying to do anything else (even stuff that doesn't need a lot of thinking to do) i get a feeling like my senses are on overload. household sounds that most people don't notice can drive me crazy. ordinary sounds like the hum of my fridge plus something like a fan or my computer can set me to climbing the walls. i mentioned this to someone once and they said something about
how we can't process multiple stimuli or something like that. that seemed likely to me because if i'm exposed to that kind of thing for more than a few minutes it's like all my senses just shut down. people who notice sometimes wonder if i'm bored or ticked off about
something, so i think my face ends up going kind of blank or my eyes aren't focusing.
my eyes often don't focus very well. i'm supposed to wear glasses, but in spite of being very near-sighted, when i wear my glasses it's like i'm seeing too much and then my vision goes all wonky. except for distance stuff, i'm better off without the specs. i have been getting blurred vision more and more often. some days it's like looking through fogged up glass or something.
i guess there's no end to the fun and games this disease can create for us. it makes it harder to know when there's something else going on that's not related to it, but at least knowing that much, it's the first place i look when anything new crops up.
ugh! speaking of too many sounds at once, i think i need to shut my computer off for a while; the hum is starting to make me feel really jittery.
never a dull moment
bless
sami
