New symptoms, frustrated and kind of scared

Let me preface this by saying I am really frustrated and upset right now. Yesterday and today I'm completely exhausted, all of my joints (everything except my spine, basically) are extremely tender, my pressure points are flaring badly, my costo is acting up, my fingers and toes are swollen and my muscles hurt badly when exposed to the slightest cold. My usual tramadol/Tylenol combo is helping everything but my joints. I've had issues with my joints before but never this widespread, never with swelling like this and my pain meds have always helped. My joints also hurt a lot more when I use or stress them and it doesn't take much to cause pain. My wrists, elbows and shoulders ached after just holding my 12-pound niece for a few minutes yesterday. Is this part of fibro? Did overdoing it cause this? I had a very very busy week last week and forced myself to do everything scheduled because I never hit my usual "I need to lay low for a day" threshold. I usually use my level of tiredness and how much my pain meds help my pain as my indicator.

I'm kind of scared about this new development because I've felt feverish since yesterday morning and I'm worried that whatever else the rheumy thinks is going on besides the fibro is finally rearing its head. Either way, I really can't handle either a new diagnosis or simply a new fibro pain symptom to deal with that's not helped with just pain meds. I'm getting pretty far along in learning to manage my fibro and really don't want a wrench thrown into the works. I know I'm a little depressed about everything and I talked to my wife about it last night. I told her about my frustration and I got a lot of sympathy from her, which I realized I really didn't want. I also kind of regretted telling her afterward. I don't complain about my pain often, especially to her who is still struggling with her own chronic headache pain. All I really wanted was a hug and reassurance that it will get better but with the joint issues the hug hurts too much and the reassurance means nothing with as unpredictable as fibro is. I wanted to snuggle in bed with her yesterday evening for some quality time but I physically couldn't because it hurt too much. I know she's frustrated because she's finally feeling better but now I'm hurting and so our intimacy opportunities are being thwarted yet again.

I made an appointment to see my doctor but couldn't get in until next Thursday. I'm debating about asking him to do an ANA just to see if it's changed. Should I? What do I do in the meantime? My usual tricks aren't working. I was going to go to work today and see how it goes with my joints because I'm not at my usual "stop point" even now but I don't know if I should stay home from work to avoid the stress on my joints from standing. My mind is telling me to stay home from work, take a muscle relaxer and an extra dose of tramadol and go to sleep. I think my compromise is that if I'm worse tomorrow morning I probably won't go in tomorrow. *sigh* A little help, here?

It does sound like inflammation of some sort.  Maybe your body is fighting off something right now and you will feel better soon.  If you have true swelling in  your joints, that's not fibro.  We FEEL like things are swollen but they really aren't. 

 

Try to stop stressing over this.  Your appointment is only three days away and you should get some answers then.  Hopefully, you will be much better by then. 

 

Sherrine

Thanks all for the input. Sherrine, I hope you're right and I'm just fighting something off. It also occurred to me that my hormones might be way out of whack. I broke out in a cold sweat getting ready for work and got very very warm several times at work that may have been hot flushes. I'm not on any HRT but haven't really had a hot flash or flush in several months unless I didn't take my multivitamin in the morning. Work went okay tonight unless I was lifting something that weighed more than a pound but unfortunately I did plenty of that. Some parts of me feel better but now my shoulders, neck and back are absolutely killing me where my back and neck didn't hurt at all earlier. My appointment isn't until next Thursday the 22nd. I took a quick look online and saw that if my joints hurt and are swelling for more than three days then autoimmune causes should probably be considered. I'll probably ask him to do whatever tests would see if anything else is going on, inflammatory or autoimmune. In the meantime I suppose I could try some ibuprofen. Is that safe to take at the same time as acetaminophen, and do I just follow the dosing on the bottle? I also might have to make a bed buddy. Having one under my ankles at night sounds like heaven. Thanks so much again!