Fibro-Fog Treatment?

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. As you could probably tell, it was due to my fibro having me feeling so low, go figure eh? Couldn’t post on my fibro blog because of my fibro. Heh.

As to my last post, I have yet to try the CoQ10 or Mila due to medicine changes for other problems and am trying to adjust to those before throwing something else in the mix.
In addition to the Lexapro I mentioned I was taking for my depression, I also took a blood pressure medication that could also be used as a migraine blocker called Verapamil, due to suffering from intense migraines from a young age.

I was still having mood issues, so my psychiatrist put me on a mood stabilizer called Lamictal, which I had to take time to adjust to, but which has done wonders to help me. But then, unfortunately, my Verapamil quit helping me after me taking it for over two years and it controlling me headaches completely that entire time, so I’ve been switching around on meds for headache blocking for the moment, and trying to find one that doesn’t cause adverse side effects that were like the conditions I had/have (such as depression and such), so I’ve had to put off adding even more stuff to the mix so that I’ll know if something actually helps me while I’m taking it.

But in an interesting development med-wise, I saw a segment on 60 Minutes about college kids who were taking Ritalin and Adderol, the ADD/ADHD meds, in order to help them focus for studying and taking tests and such, and it got me thinking that if normal people who don’t have those conditions are taking these meds and are able to function, could they help someone with fibro who suffers severely from fibro-fog?

Fibro-fog, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, is where you can’t focus or concentrate, either due to lack of energy or exhaustion, or some other unknown reason that’s because of fibro. It’s why a lot of people can’t handle school and work. We can’t remember things or forget what we’re doing while during it and can’t follow conversations or thoughts and are spacey and flighty and absent-minded, in ways we didn’t used to be.

And for someone like me, who used to do really well in high school, having this part of fibro has been especially hard for me, because I was so good in school. I feel like I’ve lost a part of my intelligence in not being able to have the deep conversations and intelligent conversations because I just can’t concentrate or even think long enough to have these kinds of convos.

So I decided to be my own science experiment, and try Ritalin to see if it would help me in dealing with fibro-fog. I’ve been on it about a week or so, and so far I’ve noticed that it gives me more energy and I tend to be restless and more talkative and wanting to be up and doing stuff, as opposed to just lying around all the time.

But as to concentration and focusing, it’s more difficult to determine if it’s helping because the Ritalin is also causing me some sleep issues because I’m taking it so late, since I don’t wake up until the afternoon due to needing more sleep than normal people because the fibro robs us of our ability to get restful sleep, no matter how much we sleep.

So I’ve been staying up later, unable to sleep, regardless of taking my sleep medications (another med I’m on because of the sleep issues caused by fibro), or just because I’m wired and not quite yet “ready” to go to sleep and feel I keep wanting to do more and more and keep pushing my bed-time back later and later. I’m hoping to start getting up earlier and taking it then and hopefully being able to go back to getting to bed earlier. Hopefully, once I start getting enough sleep, I’ll see some effect on the concentration and focus issues.

I do also try to exercise more to get the energy I have out in order to try to be able to sleep as well.

I still have pain, but it seems it’s taken a back-seat when I’m thinking more about being tired yet still having energy, though when I do feel such exhaustion, it tends to exacerbate the pain or just make it tougher for me to deal with because I just don’t have as much of the ability to deal with it mentally or physically. It’s a weird combination of restless energy and exhaustion.

But I’ll hopefully be more diligent now about keeping up with this and letting everyone know how my journey with Ritalin goes.

Supplements

I saw my rheumatologist the other day, and he is a big supporter of getting off prescription meds and trying to control fibro with health supplements. The two he has recommended to me so far have been CoQ10 and Mila.

I have tried the Coq10 for about a month, but it was expensive, like $15 a bottle, which lasted you about a month. And this new supplement that he just recommended to me, he warned me before hand that is quite expensive and has to be ordered offline, through him.

It costs $55 for a 16 oz bottle of this stuff. It is supposed to be able to help with a lot of different things, health wise, and provides a lot of important things needed by the body, like Omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants and fiber, as well as calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, protein, selenium, and phosphorus. It’s a seed and he recommended taking half a spoonful a day. It can be mixed with food and even cooked with, but that still seems like an extreme price to pay for this, especially when my prescription drugs actually seem to help and cost me anywhere from $7-35 (the highest being my anti-depressant).

Though I have given the Coq10 a try before, I am thinking I might try it again, for more than just one month, and try it for a few months at least to really give it a chance.

The Mila I’m still undecided about, and will have to talk to my mom about it and see what she thinks and if it’s worth it. I will keep you guys updated on the progress of both these things though.

Treatments

Today I thought I’d talk about some of the treatments I’ve tried. I’ve only been seeing a competent rheumatologist, who is usually the best sort of doctor to go to for fibro, for about a year now, so I certainly haven’t tried much, even though I’ve been diagnosed for 2 years now.

I have tried all the prescription drugs on the market currently for fibro: Lyrica, Savella, and Cymbalta. Lyrica and Savella are specifically for fibro, though in Europe Savella is used as an anti-depressant, it just hasn’t passed the FDA regulations here in America to be used to treat depression. Cymbalta on the other hand IS an anti-depressant that has been said to treat aches and pains so has been recommended as a treatment for fibro.

I suffer from clinical depression, which is pretty severe for me, as well as IBS and migraines, so I’ve been on a LOT of medication for someone so young, so I’ll probably mention some of those meds as well, since fibro usually doesn’t come alone and usually DOES include a lot of other medical issues to occur as well.

First off, Lyrica and Savella did absolutely nothing for me, and are quite expensive as well, even on insurance, as they aren’t listed as anti-depressants or such, which you usually get a break from. I personally have never met or talked to anyone that those two drugs have worked for in managing their fibro.

Cymbalta was the first anti-depressant I ever took, and I was prescribed it before I was even diagnosed with fibro. It worked wonders on my depression, but didn’t really do anything for the pain or fatigue, at least not that I noticed.

But there is a side-effect of fibro that not many people realize or know about, and it’s that fibro sufferers tend to acclimate to medication very fast, meaning that we constantly need to go up on doses to have them work or switch to other meds quite often. Don’t be alarmed if this seems to happen to you. You’re not alone.

That’s what happened to me with Cymbalta, and while on Cymbalta, I couldn’t take Savella at the same time because they are in the same class of medication, so I had to switch my anti-depressant to Lexapro, which I am still currently on. I was maxed out on the highest dose of Cymbalta, and it seemed to not be as effective as it used to be.

Because I’ve only seen my rheumatologist for about a year, and taking each medication and I had to give it a few months to see if it worked, these are the only treatments I’ve really tried so far, though they are not the last, that’s for sure.

Some doctors recommend exercise for treating fibro, but when you feel like crap all the time, you definitely don’t want to exercise, especially because it’s very easy to push yourself too far without meaning to and then you end up paying for it later in increased pain and fatigue.

But for the past few days, I’ve been doing a little bit of exercise, alternating between days of doing aerobic/low body exercises and doing upper body exercises, though I walk my dogs for 10-20 minutes every day. And I’ve noticed that my pain isn’t nearly as bad at it was before. I did really hurt myself the first day I did it and pushed myself too hard and was really hurting the next day, but I found that exercising a bit that day helped to ease the pain and stretch the muscles and ease the tension.

Though I suspected I was in a fibro-flare before hurting myself like that, which is when your pain and fatigue get worse than normal for a period of time that you have no idea how long it’ll last, and I could have just come out of it and that’s why the exercise isn’t hurting me as much because I’m taking it easy. I just have to keep it up to see if it really is helping me or is just a fluke of time concerning my flare-up.

Another treatment option my rheumatologist is changing my diet, getting rid of all things white, like white bread and white sugar and white rice and white pastas. He wanted me to use stevia instead of sugar and to avoid processed foods. Except with both my mother and I are in so much pain and so tired that we can’t be bothered to try fixing dinner, so we eat out a LOT. When you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck or beat up severely, you just don’t have the energy to cook. And eating out is definitely processed and definitely use white foods, and I need caffeine in order to even stay awake for the entire day, so I’m reluctant to try the dietary changes quite yet, though I wouldn’t mind doing so eventually.

I will definitely update this as more treatment options are presented to me and I will definitely let you know how I fare with each one and whether they provide any relief. But just remember, just because something didn’t work for ME does NOT mean it might not work for YOU, so be sure to give any and all forms of treatment that don’t seem too crack-pot a chance.

The Basics of Fibro

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain and fatigue condition that makes your hurt and feel tired 24/7, 365. It usually affects women more than men, and usually middle aged women more than those of younger age. The pain and fatigue vary from day to day in intensity and the pain also differentiates between different fibro suffers in where it occurs, how bad it is, etc. as well as the fatigue sometimes being less than the pain in some people, which the fatigue is sometimes worse. There is no cure for fibromyalgia, and no proven treatment for it either. Treatment varies from person to person, and what works for one may not work for all.

The best way to describe my fibro is like I have the flu all the time. I ache and have sharp, shooting, throbbing pains randomly throughout my body, though generally my arms and legs and shoulders ache more than any other part of my body.

Fibro also comes with a mixed bag of other illnesses, including depression, digestive issues, headaches, anxiety, and others. There is a common myth that depression causes fibro, but in my personal opinion and experience, even when your depression lets up and you have a good day, you STILL have pain and fatigue, so while being in pain and tired all the time may make you depressed, being depressed does NOT cause fibro to occur, though it can make the pain worse because you feel down.

Fibro is diagnosed by having pain 11 of 18 tender points that doctors will press on that are located all over the body, and having had wide-spread pain for at least 3 months. There are no blood tests or other types of test to diagnose fibro, so it’s mostly relying on the tender points and the discretion of the doctor to be diagnosed.

Sleep disorders and trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or just sleep problems in general accompany fibromyalgia. You never feel well-rested, no matter how much you sleep, and that’s the fatigue and exhaustion part of the condition.

Stress and emotional and physical distress may trigger the condition, but there is no known cause for why some people develop it and some don’t and there is no known prevention for it either.

So those are just some basics and I’ll be discussing treatment options that I myself have tried or am trying at the time, and other research done on it and it’s affect and treatments and so on.

Intro

Hello and welcome. This blog was inspired by one of my friends who gave me the idea to chronicle my journey through fibromyalgia and what it means for me and how I'm trying to deal with life at such a young age handling a chronic, uncurable pain condition that leaves me debilitated and disabled. :-p

My name is Mandy and I am 22 years old. I was diagnosed with fibro in 2008, and over the last few years have been trying to treat it and cope with it. My mom also suffers from it and was diagnosed the same year I was, around the same time.

I'll talk about fibro issues and may even have a guest blogger or two. Here's my journey and I hope it helps those who are newly diagnosed and those who are currently suffering or those who know someone who is suffering.