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Mild Fibro and Nutritional Approaches

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Fibromyalgia
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Posted 6/17/2012 8:19 PM (GMT 0)
Hi All,
I'm new to this forum. Was diagnosed with a "mild case" of FM by a Rheumatologist about 6 years ago (when I was 35). I've never really believed I had it because I do not have the chronic diffuse muscular pain it seems most people have. I'm able to exercise, even intensely, and even for extended periods of time, and I might be a bit more fatigued but my muscles only experience normal "lactic acid" pain from use. BUT, what I do have is most of the trigger points are tender. Hell, I'm tender almost all over from just mild pressure, massages have to be fairly light in many places on my body, and I bruise really easily. I also have IBS. What brought me to the Rheumatologist in the first place was that I have a lot of painful flare ups in joint areas of the body (not necessarily my actual joints... more like the tendons). Almost every joint in my body at some point has felt like it was injured at some point, with a nagging annoying pain that comes out of nowhere, could last for weeks or months or even almost a year, nothing makes it better, nothing makes it worse, and then it suddenly disappears within a short period of time just the way it came on. Right now it's my right knee. My left collarbone has finally mostly healed from what I'll call a "strain" that lasted a few months. It's annoying, and at times I do have to stop doing certain activities due to the pain, but it's far from incapacitating.

What finally made me believe that it's possible I do have some mild form of FM (still not 100% convinced) was when I went to a sleep lab about 18 months ago. I've always had bad sleep, I am so restless, I look most mornings like I've been in a wind storm. My bedhead pictures are fun for a good laugh. I've always had this sense that it's as if someone has been flipping a light switch on and immediately off again, all night long. Not keeping it on long enough to consciously wake me up, but enough that it's disturbing my sleep. The sleep lab confirmed that that is more or less what is happening and having done more research I now understand this as the alpha/delta interruption pattern. So I rarely wake up feeling rested and now that I'm a bit older, it's really starting to impact me. I don't have the energy to do a lot of things I used to, including socializing. Sometimes it's all I can do to just watch some tv. It's often more of a mental fatigue; my body might be a bit tired, but mentally I just can't concentrate anymore after a long day. And I wake up in the morning most days with my right side aching (especially if I flipped onto my right side during the night), and with my neck very stiff, often also my upper back. I do grind my teeth as well (wear a nightguard as I've cracked many teeth!), and have night sweats, so this all contributes to poor sleep on top of the alpha interruptions (plus my cat doesn't help! LOL).

I've been searching for some ways to improve my sleep, and have tried various herbal supplements, as well as 5-htp, with minimal (or maybe no) results. Recently I have started to wonder if the nervous system might be irritated by food sensitivities. I wondered if anyone here has ever had any improvement in their sleep or other symptoms with nutritional approaches? Right now I'm experimenting with abstaining from wheat, gluten, and most sugar. I already cut out alcohol, my post-dinner dark chocolate, and processed foods (at least at night), and I don't use artificial sweeteners either as they are "excito-toxins" that overstimulate the nervous system. I have only been doing this for a few days so far, and don't' think I've had enough time to really see results yet.

Has anyone else had success with nutritional approaches?
Audrey
Posted 6/18/2012 9:05 PM (GMT 0)
Nothing I've tried to cut out of my diet has helped me sleep better. I do take a benedryl every night and sometimes I add an advil PM or ..... dang, the name just left my poor fogged out brain... Tramadol. lol. anyway, the benedryl helps me sleep. But if the pain is very bad, I will wake up after sleeping about 4 hours and have to take another tramadol or advil, soak in a warm tub. I'm heading to the store in a little bit to pick up some malic acid & magnesium (w/ some calcium) that I hope will help w/ the pain - I read this on the fibro 101. I hope you are able to find something that works for you.
Meg
Posted 6/18/2012 10:19 PM (GMT 0)
I am new at this forum too, but I just read your post and a I thought I'd leave a reply which I hope will useful to you. I too was diagnosed with F.M (pretty new at it a little over 4months). My doctor suggested an elimnation diet, which I went through for 40 days, and then added the food back into my diet little by little. You can find the diet on this website http://www.drcranton.com/elimination_kiet.htm. I have to admit that ever since I started the diet, I felt a lot better although, the pain is not totally gone, but definetly getting a lot better. I do have a question about your bruising, did you have your platlets count checked. Mine were low (100.000) normal range is 150.000. My doc told me that usually we can still do  just fine with this amount but to watch for bruises. Hope this helped.

Souad.

Posted 6/19/2012 2:07 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks Meg and Souad and Deepwell for your comments and ideas, I appreciate your suggestions and sharing. :-) I think the Magnesium is a good idea, I may give that a try too. I don't think I'm ready for a full on elimination diet, hard-core style. It's been 5 days now avoiding wheat and gluten, and most sugar. I admit I did drink some alcohol on the weekend though. But last night, although I had a hard time falling asleep (which is unusual for me actually, but I had something on my mind keeping me up), once I did fall asleep, I actually felt like I slept a lot better than I have in ages. I woke up feeling a bit more rested, and felt more alert a couple of times in the day today! So even though it was a shorter sleep of 6 hours, I think it was better quality sleep than my usual 8 to 9 hours filled with alpha intrusions. I hope this isn't just a fluke and maybe this will help in the long term. If it does, even though I kind of miss some of the treats and bread I was used to eating, it is worth giving it up to get my sleep and energy back... and hey, maybe if I sleep better, maybe some of my joint issues will resolve better too. We'll see... I'll post again later in the week and let you know if it's continuing to help.

Oh and no I haven't checked my platelets, never thought to ask that and my doc never suggested it. I will consider it at my next check up!

Stay well all,
Audrey
Posted 6/19/2012 2:09 AM (GMT 0)
Oh and Deepwell, thanks for letting me know that you too were not incapacitated... it helps to know there's others like me who experience FM differently than the usual symptoms... always good to know you're not alone!
Posted 6/19/2012 4:57 PM (GMT 0)
I tried Melatonin once and while it helped me sleep it also made me suicidal. However I suffer from major depression and melatonin is not recommended for people with depression.

Pretty much the only thing that helps me sleep is Flexeril.

I've read good things about Vervain but I've never tried it.
Posted 6/19/2012 10:18 PM (GMT 0)
The only thing that has ever helped me with sleep is acupuncture. It took some time for me to respond but it was worth it. I actually have dreams now. I also sleep at least 8 or more hours each night.

Larissa
Posted 6/19/2012 11:34 PM (GMT 0)
Deepwell I am talking from personal experience. After I figured out what was going on, I read the label on the melatonin. It said that if you suffer from depression not to take it. It taught me to read labels.
your question made me do a search and I came up with this page http://blog.drlark.com/blog/nutrition-for-women/does-melatonin-increase-or-cause-depression reading through that page, I guess it's not just me who had the effect of added depression.
Posted 6/20/2012 1:27 AM (GMT 0)
I'd imagine losing a divorce case didn't help much. Stop taking the Melatonin and see what happens is all I can suggest. It did really horrible things to my mind, but everyone is different.
Posted 6/20/2012 3:25 AM (GMT 0)
For the ones very depressed and having trouble sleeping, I found a great drug for me. It's called remron or mirtazapine. It helps you sleep and not addictive. It's an antidepressent. I have used it for many years. The disintegrating tablets work the best. One of it's bad side effects is that it gives you hungar pains for short awhile. In other wards you want to eat at bed time. I try to tell myself they are false pains and go to bed. Not so easy sometimes. Lol
Posted 6/23/2012 12:34 PM (GMT 0)
Hello

I was severely fatigued, not sleeping well and suffering pain and digestive problems. I saw a GP who's also a Naturopath and she immediately took me off dairy and sugar and also had me do the Liver Cleansing Diet.  I picked up within the week and continued to improve to the point that I finished my degree and began work within 7 months of feeling better.

I was alos put on Melatonin to regulate and improve my sleep, magnesium powder and other herbal supplements.  I highly recommend going with a very natural diet and in particular, eliminating sugar.  I have since gone back on the sugar and dairy and all my symptoms (pain, fatigue, digestive troubles) have come back.  I will be getting off the sugar asap so I can become more well again.

I wish you all the very best with your wellness journey   :-)

Posted 6/23/2012 12:46 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Mealmaker, thanks for your note, it's encouraging to hear that you had some improvement with dietary changes. I did cut out most dairy from my diet years ago as I realized it was causing bad constipation. I have now eliminated most sugar (I still put a tsp in my coffee in the morning, and a bit of cream... yes! I'm drinking coffee! LOL Seems like a no brainer to remove that from a person who is having sleep issues but it is only 1 cup in the morning, I doubt it's affecting me by the time I go to sleep). But I have removed most other sources of processed sugar now. It's been about 9 days that I've removed gluten and wheat and I will say this past week I did feel like I slept better. Not perfect, but waaaaaaaay better. Sadly, I'm still tired. By mid to late afternoon, I crash. I'm hoping it's my body still trying to adjust to the change (the "healing crisis" they call it), and that my energy will perk up if I keep at it. At the very least it's nice to wake up in the morning not feeling like I was tense all night. And I'm finding I'm dreaming more "coherent" dreams too (before my dreams were just tiny snips of nonsense because I kept waking up).

I really believe whether dietary changes can cure us or not, they definitely can help, and if you have food sensitivities, some of the main ways it can show up is in symptoms of nervous system aggravation, joint pain, and IBS... symptoms we all complain of a lot!
Posted 6/25/2012 5:55 PM (GMT 0)
I have had success with a few alternative therapies.

Malic acid-really good for muscle pain and recovery

Yoga- I find the stretching helps

Lactobacillus Gastri- this one is new, but has completely "cured" my ibs.

raspberry keytones- this helps with my energy level watch and look for the pure varieties rather than the ones with tons of caffeine added

hope this helps
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