My Life - My Fibro

This week has been quite a week for me and an anxious one.  Since the pandemic and the lockdowns, my anxiety seems to have moved up a level, especially when I meet people or have to attend an appointment and it has a huge affect on my IBS. I always carry Imodium capsules with me in case of emergency, but they don’t always work and the side effects of taking them are not pleasant, so I do try to avoid them and they aren’t recommended for regular use for people with IBS. Anyway, to get to the point of my story, I had an appointment with a solicitor yesterday and wanted to attend, but my body had other ideas and I spent many hours in the bathroom; felt nauseous,  breathless and quite anxious about going - but why!!!  I feel as if my body has taken over and it has decided when I should be afraid. It’s when I feel like this, or when I have bruises on my body that will not heal, or when I become breathless when out walking, or when I wake up with headaches, or when my skin hurt...

The first thing I want to say is that I am not mad and I am not a hypochondriac. But you all know that, I hope. I only wish that my family and my doctor did! I still find it hard to understand why I can go to the doctor and tell him that I have migraine, or backache, and he will believe me, but when I describe the many strange symptoms I have, that belong to the fibro, he just puts me down as a neurotic woman. No, I am not!  The pain I feel is there! The burning, soreness and itching on my body is real! The pain that can be agony one day, might have moved to a different part of my body by the next day! Or a new pain may have joined it the next day! Or that my teeth and gums can be constantly sore and can be covered in ulcers one day and are gone a few days later. that I bruise for no reason and it can take months to heal, as does any injury that I have. Dare I even mention the number of times it feels as if something is crawling up my leg, but when I look there's nothing there....