Posted on: Thu, Dec 17 2009 2:28 PM
Posted by: boomerabroad
Posts: 1
I am a Canadian woman of 57 currently living in Oregon, am houseless and hoping to move to Central America because I can afford to live there at a level higher than is impossible in North America. I am educated, a reader, a writer, have always been a traveler and am intellectually curious.
I was a paralegal for many years and was working with disability clients when I was diagnosed with FMS in '87. I had begun to see clients who had FMS and was pretty sure they were malingerers looking to get money for an imagined condition. That changed in a hurry when I began to have their symptoms myself: at least I had a good idea of what it was that was happening to me, so I got quickly diagnosed.
I came undone though: the inescapable pain, uncertainty about any sort of improvement, the whole new level of depression/anxieties/PTSD that occurred, my inability to continue working at my job, sleeplessness, the idea of actually being disabled all but unhinged me. As time went on I found myself feeling completely a victim, isolating, losing support on all fronts...the same old story as most of us have. I got little compassion from anyone, nor would that have helped much. I got online early on and joined FMS support groups, researched medical libraries and online, founded a local support group and tried to cope.
What changed everything for me was going to the Talbot Institute in Atlanta, the leading addictionology center in the States, because I'd been given all sorts of horrible medications, none of which had alleviated pain, to be assessed for pain medication. In my researching chronic pain, I'd found out that opiates rarely became other than physically dependant and not addictive to those in chronic pain, that this country is ridiculously narcophobic, and that my chances of being prescribed opiates was very slim.
Not one doctor had allowed me to be on pain meds, and I wasn't sure I could survive the unrelenting, high levels of pain much longer without completely losing my mind or my life. Within hours of being seen there, I was put on morphine. When I returned to Oregon, I finally found a doctor who would allow me to take enough meds to relieve me of much of the pain. My goal was to get out from under the pain enough to be able to explore what would help me with flare-ups, what worked best for me as far as lowering my pain levels, to re-learn how to sleep restfully, to stop being terrified of life and pain, to restore the positive aspects of my personality that I felt I'd lost since FMS, to learn how to deal with symptoms of anxiety, PTSD and depression that had grown uncontrollably.
I never abused the meds and, as symptoms subsided, I decreased the dosages until two years ago I was completely off of all opiates. I learned that, for me, staying aware of my condition was key: resting as needed, pacing myself, having reasonable goals and expectations, doing yoga, soft-tissue release, gentle stretching, movement, positive self-talk, decreasing stress where I could, acceptance and Watsu was what worked to allow me to be a pretty happy person who wasn't wracked with pain constantly, unable to think outside of a mantra of 'Ow, ow, ow."
The last couple of years have been, well, challenging. I lost my marriage, became extremely poor, am houseless, have become increasingly isolated...situational stuff. My symptoms racheted up, but were under fair control and improving until I found out I was up for redetermination for disability, which I posted about.
Although I am not doing as well right now as I was a couple of years ago, what I do know is that I will improve, that I am so much more than someone who is disabled, that I lived a fuller life with this (and other) conditions than I ever would have believed possible in the early years with FMS, and that I can and will regain my hard-won peace of mind and enjoy most of what happens in life.
