"I Can Be Cured" By, Nancy Alexander
From Fibro… to Freedom…
I want to start doing a series of posts about how Fibromyalgia affected my body – explaining some facts about each symptom to you. There is now lots of help for Fibromyalgia, and eventually a cure!
By doing this, it is my hope that you will begin to understand exactly how some of these strange and often misunderstood symptoms truly do affect you AND ARE REAL! If you suffer from Fibromyalgia, you'll be more informed as you understand what is going on with your body — and — information in addition to understanding goes hand in hand in leading to a cure.
I suffered physically and painfully for many years with my entire body hurting – even my skin! Also during these years, I also suffered much stress, embarrassment, and misunderstanding from doctors, family and friends when I would try to tell them how and where I hurt. At times, this made me doubt myself! Then, there were other times when I was just plain "mad" because no one could tell me what was going on and no one would believe me.
I want to tell you just a little today about how my skin hurt. I know it sounds strange to say that my skin hurt, but it did! Pants with a waistband hurt me, in addition to bra straps, tight collars, socks, and even shoes. No blue jeans for me…they hurt my legs when I sat down. I even went for several years not being able to wear a bra, so I would wear baggy clothes in layers to keep people from noticing. Even temperatures, either hot or cold, gave me severe pain! Deciding what to wear every day became a dreaded chore. For me, as well as many of you who suffer from Fibromyalgia, this can cause awful, unbelievably intense pain.
First of all, I had a very low pain threshold as do most sufferers from Fibro. This low pain threshold is a point where sensations you feel become pain. This usually varies from person to person, but this threshold is much lower in people who suffer from this horrible disease. A low pain threshold results in a particular form of pain which is called "allodynia".
A definition of "allodynia" is pain, generally on the skin, that is caused by something that wouldn't normally cause pain. Some of this pain can be caused by mild pressure which may come from a light touch, gentle massages, or sheets rubbing against the skin.
These pain signals originate within specialized nerves called nociceptors that sense information about things like temperature and painful stimuli from the skin. This type of pain can go into other areas such as neuropathy, neuralgia, and migraine headaches.
Most of my pain which came from simple touches felt like having a sunburn all of the time. This makes your clothes feel like sandpaper and a light touch can feel like searing pain.
I went through an awful time in my life where it hurt me to hug someone, to shake someone's hand, or to even be patted on the back. I would find myself cowering back from any type of touch. I even sat on a pillow for many years as hard seats hurt. My husband says that during these years, it was awful for him as well as for me because he could not roll over and put his arm around me in bed. We slept as far apart as we could in a king size bed because I hurt so badly.
Thanks to the steps I am taking now, I can wear (tight)blue jeans, I wear a bra again (whoopie!!), and my husband can keep his arm around me all night…which he does (that is such a marvelous feeling — Thank You God!!)
I'll be talking more and more about the symptoms of Fibromyalgia as I also talk about what is beginning to actually CURE me!
Don't give up! PLEASE do not give up!!! I almost did,and now my life is so totally different. I am blessed, I am almost cured, and I truly believe with all my heart that you can be too!
Smiles… Nancy