Sarah says:
I get your frustration Heidi and understand your struggle! I really feel for you!
My mom arrived yesterday and there above you can see her with Heidi and me. It's good to have her here. My daughter is happy when she's around. Our house is relaxed. It's nice to be cooked for too! I'm looking forward to vacation for a week starting next Monday!
Heidi says:
I went back to the doctor yesterday. We talked for an hour. He told me I might have Fibromyalgie. He pushed a flyer in my hands and I read it thoroughly. He might be completely right. Fibromyalgie has a lot to do with tension. The causes aren't known, but people with fibromyalgie have a lot of pain in muscles and joints, on certain points, mostly in the area of the neck, shoulder back and arms and legs. They also have a bad bowel transit or system. They often suffer from chronic stress or angst. And when they wake up in the morning, they are tired.
When I read all this, it scared me because I recognised myself totally in this.
I went over it lightly, like I usually do when I am at the doctor because I want to seem strong and not weak, but the doctor said I shouldn't go over it lightly, because if I don't work on it and change my life, I can get chronically tired and that is not something you wanna get.
So what do I need to do now?
The doctor says: Change your life. Take time for yourself. Rest. Sleep. Relax.
How do you change your life when you're me? I am a nervous type of person. When I was 6 years old, I was in a dancegroup and we had to perform. Right before we had to get dressed and to get ready, I started to cry. The danceteacher let my mother come, and I told my mom I had a bellyache. At the age of 13, I had bellyached every single day of the year. I staid in the hospital for 3 days and got examined completely. I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The bellyaches never stopped anymore since then. I don't suffer from them all the time, but I can just get a bellyache that lasts for three or four days and there is nothing I can do about it.
When I was 27, and six months pregnant, the gyneacologist told me I had to stay in bed for 10 weeks, because my uterus was too sensitive. Yesterday, I got diagnosed with fibromyalgie.
My personality is this: I am a nervous person. I like thing to be the way I like them to be. I don't like to sit still. I like to be active. I need a lot of sleep (since I was a tiny baby).
When I get a moment to myself, I can't just sit at home and be relaxed. I always need to do something. It is time to change that. I think it is time to learn the art of relaxation. I have a very long way to go and it scares me a bit. I don't know if I am capable. The good thing about this is: I am healthy in a way (I do feel the pain and the tension, but it's nothing that can be located and so there is no operation needed. Everything looks perfect in my neck and bones and nerves). And it's almost new year. New year means resolutions. For the first time, I can have real resolutions.
I HAVE TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS AND I HAVE TO GO FOR THEM.
So what can I think about and what can I do?
- yoga
- sleep more
- rest more
- keep a book about what I feel every day (fysically and psychologically)
- take the pills the doc prescribed me to relax
- go to a osteopath
- change my life, which is the hardest part. What do I keep on doing and what not?
I have a lot to think about.
I went back to the doctor yesterday. We talked for an hour. He told me I might have Fibromyalgie. He pushed a flyer in my hands and I read it thoroughly. He might be completely right. Fibromyalgie has a lot to do with tension. The causes aren't known, but people with fibromyalgie have a lot of pain in muscles and joints, on certain points, mostly in the area of the neck, shoulder back and arms and legs. They also have a bad bowel transit or system. They often suffer from chronic stress or angst. And when they wake up in the morning, they are tired.
When I read all this, it scared me because I recognised myself totally in this.
I went over it lightly, like I usually do when I am at the doctor because I want to seem strong and not weak, but the doctor said I shouldn't go over it lightly, because if I don't work on it and change my life, I can get chronically tired and that is not something you wanna get.
So what do I need to do now?
The doctor says: Change your life. Take time for yourself. Rest. Sleep. Relax.
How do you change your life when you're me? I am a nervous type of person. When I was 6 years old, I was in a dancegroup and we had to perform. Right before we had to get dressed and to get ready, I started to cry. The danceteacher let my mother come, and I told my mom I had a bellyache. At the age of 13, I had bellyached every single day of the year. I staid in the hospital for 3 days and got examined completely. I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The bellyaches never stopped anymore since then. I don't suffer from them all the time, but I can just get a bellyache that lasts for three or four days and there is nothing I can do about it.
When I was 27, and six months pregnant, the gyneacologist told me I had to stay in bed for 10 weeks, because my uterus was too sensitive. Yesterday, I got diagnosed with fibromyalgie.
My personality is this: I am a nervous person. I like thing to be the way I like them to be. I don't like to sit still. I like to be active. I need a lot of sleep (since I was a tiny baby).
When I get a moment to myself, I can't just sit at home and be relaxed. I always need to do something. It is time to change that. I think it is time to learn the art of relaxation. I have a very long way to go and it scares me a bit. I don't know if I am capable. The good thing about this is: I am healthy in a way (I do feel the pain and the tension, but it's nothing that can be located and so there is no operation needed. Everything looks perfect in my neck and bones and nerves). And it's almost new year. New year means resolutions. For the first time, I can have real resolutions.
I HAVE TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS AND I HAVE TO GO FOR THEM.
So what can I think about and what can I do?
- yoga
- sleep more
- rest more
- keep a book about what I feel every day (fysically and psychologically)
- take the pills the doc prescribed me to relax
- go to a osteopath
- change my life, which is the hardest part. What do I keep on doing and what not?
I have a lot to think about.
6 comments:
I hate those diagnoses that find nothing wrong but tell you that you need more sleep, relaxation, etc. In my opinion, it means that medical science isn't good enough to know what's wrong with you, so the doctors make up some non-diagnosis diagnosis that makes them look like they know what they're talking about. They lump all the people they can't diagnose together and then make up a new diagnosis that makes it seem like the doctor has identified something specific. And the diagnosis always puts the responsibility on the patient to fix themselves, so that the doctor can't look bad for not offering a cure. In sum, the doctor offers a made-up, non-verifiable diagnosis and then tells the patient that they have to fix themselves. I've been there several times myself, with IBS and other things. All the doctor is doing is repeating your symptoms back to you--no wonder it sounds like they've nailed your symptoms--and telling you what they'd tell anybody with any diagnosis: you need to decrease stress and increase sleep and relaxation. Useless.
so, what do I do then? And who are you?
H
a. I can't tell you who I am. Suffice it to say I'm a high-level member of covert U.S. intelligence operations in Belgium.
b. I can't tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I've done, which isn't encouraging. I've accepted that medical science doesn't know everything, and the body is often a mystery. Some things, we just have to live with, as nobody can really tell us what's ailing us and how to fix it. Beyond that, you can try what the doctor told you and/or try seeing another doctor. Wish I could offer something more concrete, but there's not always an answer.
so what you are saying is that it's not the doctor his fault but nature's fault that there are unresolved problems in the human body?
I think he's right about me though. Tension has mostly been my problem. It runs in the family and with the kind of life I'm leading right now, it doens't come as a surprise that I got to this point.
time for a change?
H
The kinds of changes that you are proposing - slow down, don't try to control everything and everyone in your life, do what is important to you, have more fun and less judgement - are good for your health whether or not you have fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is not a disease that doctors know much about. The same could be said for asthma fifty to sixty years ago. People thought asthma was just a psychological problem because stress tended to bring on attacks. Stress can make you sick and we don't know much about how stress and chronic muscle pain are connected, but we do know that a few life changes can reduce both stress and pain. So hang in there with trying to find more peace in your life. It may just change the pain in your body.
I'm saying mostly the doctor has just described your symptoms and called it a diagnosis. And then he's essentially told you to get rid of your symptoms. For example, you have tension. Reduce tension! You don't sleep well. Get more sleep! I'd write more, but right now I need to reduce tension and get some sleep.
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