Chronic Illness Archives

30Mar 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Charlie’s Angels And My Chronic Illness

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research

It’s going to sound absurd, but Charlie’s Angels prepared me for life with multiple chronic illnesses. I may have been born in the late ’60s, but I am a child of the ’70s! One of my favorite television shows of the seventies was Charlie’s Angels. Not only did I never miss an episode, the following day I would make my friends act them out with me! For those of you who are not familiar with this show, Charlie had a private detective agency and he hired three sexy women that he called angels. The original angels were Farrah Fawcett as Jill Munroe, Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan, and Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett. They were badass women kicking butt and uncovering mysteries. I wanted to be an Angel, Jill in…

30Mar 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Does the waiting ever end in Chronic Life?

Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Tips

Living with one or multiple chronic illnesses involves a LOT of waiting. We wait for doctor appointments, test results, pain relief, cures, diagnoses, people to understand, and so much more. But does it ever end? There is no simple answer to this question. My chronic illnesses which include but are not limited to, fibromyalgia, psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, degenerative disc disease, abdominal adhesions (from endometriosis and surgical scarring), and coccydynia, have all forced waiting periods into my life when I would have rather not been sitting around waiting. The problem with all the waiting that has to be done is that waiting then becomes a way of life. However, as I discovered after the first 12 years after my first diagnosis, there are some things that we shouldn’t be waiting for,…

30Mar 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

HOW TO SPOT SOMEONE WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Symptoms

Do you know how to spot someone with a chronic illness? Grab your binoculars, looking glasses, and detective kits, because today I am going to share how to spot someone who has a chronic illness! Make sure you have a pen and notepad ready to take notes because what I am about to share will help you spot one of these mythical creatures with your own eyes!! Are you ready to begin your chronic illness manhunt? Then let’s get started. Just Kidding! If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am just yanking your chain. There is NO way to spot a person with a chronic illness without getting to know them. I am sure you have heard the phrase “You don’t look sick”. Those of us who ARE…

30Mar 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

5 Benefits of Walking Indoors with Fibromyalgia

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research

Before greatly reducing my daily chronic pain level, I worried about how far or long I could be away from home. The fears that my chronic illnesses created prevented me from getting on my feet and giving my body the exercise it needed. Then I learned the benefits of walking indoors! 1. Rest stop When walking outdoors, it is difficult and often impossible to find somewhere to rest. Sure you could sit on the curb, but depending on the weather the cement may be too hot, cold, wet, or dirty. Then there is the task of getting up and down from the curb….. When you walk indoors you are rarely far from a place to rest your feet. If you are walking on a treadmill or around a track at…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

100 Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Symptoms

There was a site that had this and I had linked to it on Tumblr but it is gone. So I had to hunt down someone who found my post and posted the whole thing in a forum. Anyway it is around but I’m posting it here so I will not have to hunt it down to reference it. Now we all know the major symptoms are the wide-spread pain, but our pain isn’t just muscle pain… it can be nerve types of pain as well, and the fatigue and the insomnia. And even among symptoms there are some far more frequent than others, but it should be said we have categories… like the cognitive dysfunction, which is a broad one that has more than one symptom and we often…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Can hypermobility increase pain in Juvenile Fibromyalgia syndrome?

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Symptoms

Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal, 2012, states Juvenile Fibromyalgia (JFM) is correlated with 40% of children and teenagers who also have benign hypermobility (HM). In fact, in adults hypermobility is an often seen comorbid condition. Pediatric Rheumatology, however, undertook an observational study to see if the hypermobility affects the pain experience of adolescents with juvenile fibromyalgia. It must be mentioned that juvenile fibromyalgia is a relatively new area. Often the reason it took people a decade or more to be diagnosed it because early symptoms were ignored, puzzled over and passed on leaving the patient to continually get worse and eventually get diagnosed in their twenties if they were lucky. So there has been a great deal of progress to see people acknowledging the syndrome presents far earlier than they had…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Camping adventures

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Tips

Squirrel!!! Sorry, this little guy amused the heck out of me. I took at least fifteen shots of him going up and down this tree to get little pieces of bread. I’m easily amused. Clearly, I’ve found a hobby for when I retire. So three days of Camping Adventures was about as much as my body could take But it was better than it could have been. Potentially it could have been quite painful because I knew those inflatable bed things can flare up every tender point on you in the nastiest of ways in one night. Tip #1: Thick inflatable mattress and one of those foamy things on top. It worked awesomely. I had some strange bruising after day three and I ached all over moderately but the most…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Fickle Fibromyalgia: my pain flare stories

Awareness, Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research

Venturing out of my abode got me thinking about fickle fibromyalgia pain. Recently I have been thinking about the variety of FM symptoms because some of them overlap with chronic migraine symptoms such that I don’t know which is the cause… such as vertigo; migraine-associated vertigo or FM related vertigo, or the balance problems and even the sensitivity to sound and light. Thing is FM came first and migraines later and then chronic migraines so no matter how much my neuro wants to label everything chronic migraines he is actually just saying things doctors had actually labelled everything fibromyalgia before. But my trip and any trip actually or any unexpected activity remind me of the fickle fibro pain. How it can hit like lightning in any muscle group or all…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

You are not your illness?

Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Symptoms

You are not your illness I always have a bit of a problem with these statements. On the one hand, yes, I don’t want to be defined by my illness and the pain is not all that I am by any means. I acknowledge the pain limits who I am… by that I mean a certain level of pain sort of muffles the personality. It does not let you to the surface and that is why a certain level of pain is difficult to mask from loved ones… because they can tell your personality has been dulled around the edges and you are simply not all there. But that is pain and by its nature that is the way it is. No one would be any different it just so…

25Feb 2021 by chronicwoman No Comments

Fibromyalgia and chronic pain in danger of being labeled a mental disorder

Chronic Illness, Fibromyalgia, Research, Symptoms

There has been a great deal of concern over the addition of Somatic Symptom Disorder’s (SSD) addition to the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) because of the potential for people with invisible disabilities to be misdiagnosed with this vague mental disorder. In the past, there has been a very significant stigma associated with Fibromyalgia people have faced with their doctors and some of the stigma remains today. It is this idea that you do not have Fibromyalgia at all it is ‘all in your head’ or you have depression. It was common not too long ago to have doctors brush patients off, to have them simply not believe them and for diagnosis to take up to a decade as a result. This has caused many people early on in…