New to forum and need advice

Welcome HotM! I hope you get the help you need.

Honestly, you are going to need to get diagnosed. This means getting over the past, and trying to make the present and thus the future bearable. Therefore, tell the doctor and then tell your family. Will concurrent therapy be an option to reassure family? If someone is managing your emotional health, that may reassure them.

Also, in terms of medications, you could insist on a pain contract. I have signed one, and was happy to do so. This may also help doctor/family with the idea.

Many people cannot take the traditional fibro meds. Some go all-natural; there are supplement takers; Others manage through a variety of OTCs; Still more take medication.

Tramadol is a non-narcotic that helps many. Personally, I found that a muscle relaxer was the most effective addition to my arsenal.

Finally, don't sit still. Keep moving. Many people think that because you feel tired and you hurt, you ought to rest. This actually is not true. You feel more stiff and achy when you don't include gentle exercise.

Hope you find help, soon. it's not fun to try to live in pain, and, frankly, you do not have to do it.

Welcome hotness 89 to the forum! Wow, your story is very similiar to mine. I am glad you found us because I believe we can help direct you in the right path.

The first thing I would do is make a appointment with a board certified rheumatologist. Make sure they work with fibromyalgia patients. There are a few Dr's out there that struggle with belief that it exist. It's not uncommon to hear that a person gets fibro after an injury. Fibro can be tricky sometimes to diagnose. Fibromyalgia has many symptoms similiar to many other diagnoses as lupus ,MS or etc. There are people that do have both. Most rheumatologist will order lots of blood work and perform an exam on you. This way you can get a proper diagnoses. Many of us have had other specialist diagnoses us, but the best would be a rheumatologist.

Try not to be discourage about wondering what your going to do about the chronic pain. As I was saying your story is similiar as mine. I was injured and became very dependent on narcotics too. I finally went to rehab just like you. Then I came down with fibro. I was worried and my family had great concern what I was going to do about pain control. My family went through a lot with me during my dependecy so I could understand their concerns.

You have a few opitions you can explore. Years ago Dr's gave more narcotics for fibro patients. Now they are finding out that narcotics are not the best way to treat fibro. There are so many things you can do to help control your pain. I found out the more natural opitions seem to do very well for fibro. Exercising, yoga, swimming, heat, hot tub, meditating, massages and I could go on and on.

Magnesium malate, vitamin D, and calcium really help my pain too. Many here use homeopathic meds. Then you do have non narcotic prescription meds that were made for fibro patients. Meds such as savella, lyrica, neurontin, antidepressents.

I would give it your all in trying these opitions before trying what I am taking. I had a spinal cord injury so my pain just wasn't fibro pain. So my pain continued and I wasn't wanting to go back to Percocet due to the dependency issues. So my Dr's introduced me to subutex or buprenorphine. You might of heard or taken suboxen in rehab. It's similiar without one part of the drug. More Dr's are using it for pain control. Yes, it's considered a narcotic but works completely different in the brain. It's less addictive and works well for pain. You still have to be careful with them. It's the best thing I have done. You would have to have insurance because they are costly. You would have to see pain management for these. A regular Dr. Will not prescribed them.

I hope I didn't get to detailed, but I wanted to let you know there is a way to control your pain due to your issue. I came to this forum at the bottom of my barrel. Today I have great joy in my life. I have learned a great treatment plan for my fibro. I hope you will stay around and let us support you. Please let us know how your appointments go because we care.

Post Edited (ak angel) : 9/10/2014 3:00:13 PM (GMT-6)

I would add that, just as medications vary, so do people's circumstances. My point of view has always been that I need to decide what's important, and that is what I need to keep possible.

When you are in pain, it is hard to have anything else be important.

Would you want your family hiding something like this from you?

Hello Hot Mess! (Love the name) I don't know how to help. But I do completely sympathize with you and what your going thru. I understand your concern and worry with narcotic pain meds. You don't want to get in a position where they are pushing pills on you and it just snow balls. With all that being said the good news is, those kind of pain meds do NOT work for fibro pain. Or at least they have not helped me one bit. Cymbalta and lyrica usually work well for. Few months, but then your back to searching for yet another medicine to help woth fibro pain.
So TODAY I said I am fet up and stopping all this medication that isn't making big difference on how I feel. I'm on 16 different meds daily and I'm just really over it. I'm going to try to control fibro pain with exercise like yoga, and water aerobics. That can't hurt my and it may just make me feel better!! Give it a try?...

Thank all of you so much for your wonderful responses. I am going to move forward with going to my GP and get the necessary tests done to figure out what is going on with me. Today I am miserable and I just don't think I can continue on like this. I will keep you all posted and let you know how it is going.

Thank you again!!!