Little tidbits of my life

Fibromyalgia and my cat Charlie

Okay, I am not sure how many folks on here have fibromyalgia, but I decided to share my FM experiences in hopes I can be of some help to others who suffer from this.  I take Lyrica now to help.  It is the only prescription drug approved for FM pain...the Lyrica helped alot at first, but I think my body builds up an intolerance to it...my dr has increased the dosage twice and each time, I have relief for a couple weeks, then it hits me again.  Well this past week of almost NO pain for 7 days straight was a TRUE BLESSING.  It's the first time I've had this much relief w/o  an increase in lyrica being the cause.  I felt so good that I had really forgotten what a flare up is like until last night...

Well last night, the pain started coming back.  First, it felt like I had spranged my ankle even though I knew I hadn't...then the pain was also in my knee of same leg...I was limping and could hardly move my ankle...I propped it up, but it was just throbbing, just worse by the minute...I took pain med (1st time in 7 days! woohoo), but within an hour, the pain just swept over me in waves, all over, back, shoulders, arms, legs, feet...and even my face...I realized (duh) I was in a fibromyalgia flare up...I just could not get relief...my hubby came in at about 4:30 am (night shift) and I was propped up on the couch just not knowing what to do.  He rubbed my arms for me, which I must say this was very out of the ordinary for him to do this b/c he does NOT give massages, absolutely hates to...but he did it b/c I was so bad.  I was so greatful for his attention to me.  It made me feel good inside.  I told him I guess there was going to be a major storm b/c my storm detector had just started its warning signal...he said it was lightning the whole drive home...Sure enough on the Weather Channel, the barometric pressure was dropping...that seems to be my BIGGEST trigger.  My hubby got my "Bio-Freeze" for me...it is good for sore muscles...you can buy it at any physical therapy office...mostly menthol, so very good product and not damaging in any way.  It is available in a roll-on which I LOVE b/c I can reach areas on my back w/o straining or getting someone else to do it for me...well I was still in awful pain.  I can take up to 2 pain pills, but I already had severe heartburn from the first one I had taken, so I really didnt want to take a 2nd one...so then I remembered I hadnt taken a muscle relaxer in awhile b/c I hadnt been in pain for a week...so I took one of those.  Finally about an hour later I fell asleep and didnt wake up till about 6 pm this evening.  

I had mentioned in earlier blog that my orange tabby cat Charlie is a "cat healer", he senses where the pain is and lays over the worst places...WELL when I woke up, I was on my side and he was stretched out to his full length laying against my entire back!  He is such an amazing cat.  He knew my back hurt!!!  It's almost uncanny, though...LOL.  I know God paved the way for this cat to be in our household b/c He knew I'd need him!

This video is a clip of Charlie not looking too wise!  LOL...DOUBLE CLICK it to view (it is through photobucket.com)...be sure to have your sound on as I added music to it!

RELIEF...the pain has subsided. 

THANKS TO THE LORD!!!!