When I was thirty five I was finally dx with fibro. I'm now forty eight, but looking back on the fear and frustration of being told there is nothing wrong with you, it is all in your head, I'm sending you to yet another specialist, it still boils my potato. When I finally went to the doctor at age thirty four I had suffered for many years (beginning in high school), so I had already questioned myself about
this all being in my head, or hypochondria, etc. So you finally go to the doctors office, feeling foolish, depressed, scared, and angry at your body, so that the doctor can look at you and say you look fine to me, but lets do some tests. I went to a cardiologist, and he found an irregular heart beat, which I already had, and he said I had to have a heart cath. an echo, a stress test and I was probably fine, that he would most likely see me in ten years. My cath was great, my echo fine, but I failed the stress test at forty seconds. I had palpitations, and angina, they didn't put me on anything. Then I was sent to the gut man, for a poke and a lovely tube up my you know what, it awas inconclusive, they took biopsies (I was borderline), had irritable bowl of a severe nature(now I have ulcerative colitis), and I had difficulties swallowing so a stomach scoping, they enlarged my esophagus twice, and I had bad reflux, put on meds. It didn't explain the extreme pain, the inability to work as before, the muscle wasting, exhaustion, and the rest, finally I went to a rheum. and tadah, they say it's fibro, it took an entire year, thousands of years, and several docs telling me it was in my head and giving me that look, you know the one, yeah right, like you really have anything wrong with you, and at the end they all ask if you have seen a shrink yet. Man they stink. I imagine most of you have a similar story to mine. but when I was finally diagnosed they did not have the comercials for Lyrica, and other pills, and more than half of the docs told me it was a fake diagnosis, my family didn't believe me, friends, etc...
I know I am ranting, but I also know I'm preaching to the choir, and it feels good to say it!
Now I have found out that I am autoimmune girl, that my body is pac manning it's way through my parts, I am being effected all over. But I feel the best revenge to fibro (and my other stuff), is to keep going, do the max. of what I can, never stop dreaming, don't let it get me defeated, don't give it that much power. I believe in God, and I know I can get from this day to the next, and he is holding my hand, and stretching it out to help me up too.