Fibromyalgia

Right. Well in 2000 I was in a car accident, just a small one where there was two, two emergencies stops, I also had a fall on that same day. At that point I was nursing, I went into work, it was nightshift, and my neck was extremely painful, so much so that I had to go home and I have never nursed since because by the following day it got worse and it affected my neck, my shoulders and my arms.

Oh aye, it was aye, it was positive because I’d been waiting six months and going through all this other stuff you know, and the GP at the time was saying, “Well that wee accident you had” and it happened like three times in the one day “That’s the cause of it”, and I thought, “That’s not the cause of it”, I mean I’ve had whiplash before.

But as I say this, it was very debilitating you know, and even you know, getting out a chair it was, because you had to use your arms to get out the chair and your neck was sore and your arms and your hands and this you know, like it’s swollen today, this would all be swollen and my arms would be swollen. And this went on for six months and I’m saying, “Oh, it’s just caused by a wee emergency stop in a car”, no.

Well it first started, I’m not entirely sure, but it could, it was probably in the 1990s, the mid-1990s. Originally I was assaulted and robbed, and that was in the ‘90s, and I would say my pain started on my back. As I was working at the time and I was finding it more difficult to do my job, and I kept going for years with my pain and fatigue, well it was mostly the pain to start with, then I was finding myself really tired. I’d be going to work on the bus sleeping, on my tea break I’d be sleeping, lunch hour sleeping, in pain, by the time I got home and had something to eat I would be in bed, and I would say that lasted for about two years. Then I was struggling at work, then there was just one day I couldn’t go back to work. If I went back another day I would’ve had a breakdown or something. And it was then, it was about 1999 I think that I went to the doctor, and then he diagnosed me with, well I think it was my GP, when all he did was write it down on a bit of paper “fibromyalgia” and sent me on my way.

Okay. 1996 I started with problems with my knees and I was going off balance, very, very clumsy, letting things fall, I didn’t know what was going on with me. And prior just to that I should’ve said that I was recovering from, glandular fever and I was very, very sick with that, and this, the, the, the numbness, there was numbness, there was the migraine, distortion in the eyes without the pain in the head, I had muscle, very, very muscle, muscle weakness, and it just was not clearing, terrible, terrible fatigue. And when I would try to sleep I couldn’t sleep and that was very, very distressing because I had two young kids to look after.

So initially, I had gastrointestinal problems leading to me needing to have a stomach operation, that was because of the radiotherapy damage to my stomach. I had cardiovascular issues, kidney issues, other urology issues, neurological issues, and the, I have a feeling based on my understanding of fibromyalgia that my neurological problems, caused by the damage to my nervous system from past chemotherapy and radiotherapy, overlapped with what is being called fibromyalgia in my, in my own case.

So I was, actually diagnosed only in January, but before then I had had a couple of years of really struggling with my joints, which I’ve never had before. I’m quite active in that like I like to do activities, so I like to go for walks and I like to, go to the gym, but I was really, really struggling, with it.

I saw my doctor, my GP quite a few times because lupus actually runs in my family so I was aware of these types of symptoms and, and rheumatoid arthritis so I obviously got quite worried about it. But, he did a blood test, and nothing showed up. So it took a few times of me going to them and see them about the pains, and the symptoms that I was having, the fatigue and everything, for them to finally, refer me to a rheumatoid consult, an arthritis consultant, a rheumatology consultant, who noted down all my symptoms, spoke to me quite a bit and then said that they think that it’s fibromyalgia.

Well my, some family members have, lupus and, so they have arthritis. My nana is a retired nurse, she has rheumatoid arthritis from old age and, my auntie has rheumatoid arthritis and has a really, damaged hip. So I’ve spoken to them about these pains and spoken to them about their experiences and it just worried me because it’s kind of in my family already, the symptoms were similar, and I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t the same sort of thing [laughs].