Fibromyalgia Community

Well, my answer is "I am doing better" This is a tough mess I got into son, but I am doing better as I learn more about it.

Then I come here and dump the real**** feelings and challenges I have...I listen to any tool that someone shares to help me be better and I try it.

Some worked , some didn't......

Our families cannot understand this, and I don't even try. The best thing I did though was get my husband to attend a trigger point injection session with my doctor. IT was an eye opening experience and he "was so proud of me" I get 30-60 injections to the muscles to release them and I am better for it.

In the beginning it was tough going but I am so much better now.

I feel when the muscles are tight and not right, it pulls you down, feel flu like and blah....Takes the spirit right out of you.

I medicate and push through as best I can and then I rest when I can. BUT never giving in to the couch for long.

My children are older and they now understand more because of my DH being my champion, and knowing I really do have a problem.

I am a very hard worker and push the envelope all the time, my kids can't understand that i can do something one day and not the next. THIS is still a hurdle to explain, but I don't know the answer either.

Learning to forgive them the lack of understanding and NOT SHARING IT with them was big.

GOD BLESS this website............Hope you get a plan figured out. Nancy B

I don't tell my son my medical issues, unless it is needed.

I don't need him stressing over mom...

My reply when he asks is "I am six feet above ground, can't complain"...

Like both your answers. My son worries too. He also helps me a great deal. I don't know what I would do without him. He can tell when I am having a bad day. He no longer asks how I am feeling he understands I am pain every day, just learn to deal with it. Some days better than others with the dealing. He pulled a muscle in his back one day and said to me, this is only muscle and the pain, I can't imagine what it must be like for you everyday. He does most of the driving for me now. He helps me with the groceries and chores around the house. At first he didn't understand and well I wasn't telling him either.

This last week and half has been bad for me. Live WV and power was out for almost a week. I think from heat and going in/out of a/c I got a bad case of pleurisy. Then the sun broke me out in my rashes of course. Sucks but like you said I am not 6 ft under yet. I try to stay optimistic through it all too. So yes a lot of people think I don't look sick, um except maybe when they see me without my wig and the thinning hair or hear me cough.
Crystal

This reminded me of "The Spoon Theory" and the secret language described by lupus sufferer Christine Miserandino.

Different conditions but similar symptoms of exhaustion, pain and it being easier to to say "I'm fine" -

Community TV: Speaking of Lupus

Check it out, change Lupus to Fibro and I think you can relate.

Elizabeth

Thanks for all your replies. I'm going up to visit my son this weekend. I hope we can have some honest conversations. I'd like to be able to say," today was a good day" or " Today was tough. The pain was bad but I plan to take a hot shower". And have it taken at face value rather than as I don't have the word. A good day doesn't mean forever from now on. A day of pain is OK to acknowledge because that's not every day forever and ever either. I want that much honesty in our communication.

I'm fine is a lie. I'm not fine. I'm doing the best I can. It's a struggle. My son can't fix it, but he also can't understand if I don't tell him. It's no more fair to put up a false front with an intimate friend or relative than it is to dump everything. Real communication is honest. Maybe more tactful than I usually am but honest

I've got more to say because this dance with my kids has been going on for years as I have learned to deal with fibromyalgia. For years I didn't know what was wrong. I had longer periods without flares but I was always off balance because I didn't know when the next episode of whatever was wrong would happen. So when I talked with the kids I was always"fine" Then I would crash. Have to quit my job etc Clearly I was no longer "fine". I couldn't explain because I didn't know. Now I know. I understand as much as anyone can about this disease. I want the kids to know why! Why we lived with this on and off business. We live in different places now but they lived through the unnamed flares with me. Mom was fine. Mom was sick. Mom was fine. Mom was sick. OK, understand that Mom is still going through these flares. I'm not sick and then well. I have fibromyalgia. Read about it. On the Internet.