| Journal June 27, 2004 After more than a year of testing and hospital stays they tell me I have polymyalgia rheumatica. As if the FMS and arthritis weren't enough. It's quite discouraging but I'm beginnng to process it. At least once you know you can start the coping process. Nov. 5, 2004: Trying to do some short, gentle hikes this past summer. I am determined that I will not give in. After last hike first of Oct, I had an extremely bad FM attack and as usual took a couple of falls. Ankle acting up and I thought it was the polymyalgia rheumatica. Into emergency where I met up with one of the doctors who should be kept away from people with health problems. Because of the redness he gave me an antibiotic and a lot of attitude. Now a month later I'm facing the possibility of a break that needs to be reset. I am not amused. July 1, 2005: I don't write as much as I should. Life is a challenge with these two things. I refuse to give up doing things but I have to be so careful or I'm laid up unable to do anything at all. So I'm doing some gardening, some walking and a few hikes. In between I paint ,write, read and crochet . I guess that is the secret - to have more passive activities interspersed among the more active ones. And of course on the really, really bad days I lay on the sofa, listen to music and eat chocolate. I really try to follow my diet but on those bad days my body cries out for carbohydrates and chocolate seems to work. There's a new 100 calorie bar out, Hershey I think and I'm hoping it will work as well as a regular bar. Feb, 2006 Broke another bone this winter and just seem to be getting sicker and sicker. Oct31,2006 Great day to start writing again. It's been quite rough the last few years. The polymyalgia rheumatica turned out to be palindromic rheumatism (sounds like a grammar condition but feels worse). The arthritis became rheumatoid as well as orthopedic and the fibromyalgia was aggravated by the above. So I have been going through various treatments and now know that steroids and biologic drugs don't do well with fibromyalgia. They drove my immune system down and I was quite ill for a while. During all this we lost Vioxx and Bextra so the pain has been quite bad. So now I'm trying Hydroxychloroqine Sulfate (a quinine based drug) Celebrex(which I don't find very helpful) and my old stand- bys. Not sure if it's the FMS or my own peculiar body chemistry, but as the years have passed even though I use the demerol sparingly I find it makes me hyper now instead of sleepy. Still works to break the pain cycle but I can't sleep when I take it. Still if it's a really bad night I can stay awake because of pain or because of demerol, might as well be the demerol and then hopefully the pain will ease enough so I can rest the next day. still finding that watching my diet is one of the most important factors with FMS. As much as I crave chocolate, sugar really seems to have a negative effect so I stick with the dark chocolate and try to limit the amounts. |
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