FIBROMYALGIA TREATMENTS: WHAT WORKS!

I'm posting this so, hopefully, readers who have fibromyalgia can get to this post quickly to find out what works and what doesn't. Here's what works:

1) NARCOTICS.

OxyContin, tailored to the dose you, personally, need, for instance. But different people in chronic pain need different narcotics. Which is to write, as I have before, that some fibromyalgians will benefit most from hydrocodone, some from morphine, and so on.

The take-away from this being that the only thing that will reduce your pain by an appreciable level is a narcotic analgesic. Fuck anyone and anything that touts a "natural" cure.

Well, I got ahead of myself: Fuck anything that says it's a "cure." By definition, fibro is incurable. If you thought you had fibro but it went away through one or another action(s), you didn't have fibro and please shut the fuck up because the people who actually have it are being hoist with your petard by the thousands.

My own mother told me about someone she knows who has fibro, but who does not experience daily, constant pain. I had to refer her to the exact diagnostic criteria to show her she had a hypochondriac (or wicked asshole) on her hands (and wasn't told the name of the person because I wanted to track her down and give her a taste of the pain she, despite "having fibro," wasn't in. ...Such is the insanity induced by my pain.)

Fibro is coming to encompass too many things that it is not because of inept doctors and moronic patients.

Anyone who knows anything about fibro is a pain specialist, pure, simple. And knows: Fibro is pain. Treat it with painkillers.

There are diets you can read about that claim they can cure you. If the diet cures you, you have Celiac's Disease, not fibro. Both cause quite similar symptoms.

Please, everyone who does not have fibro, shut the fuck up so fibromyalgians can be treated properly, so the disorder can get some goddam respect -- stop keeping us in the limbo of having been diagnosed with a pseudo-disorder, while you can simply cut gluten out of your diet and live pain-free, but unable to eat pizza.

...Trust me: Fibromyalgians feel your pain, douchebag.

2) NOTHING ELSE.

Only narcotic analgesics help people with fibro.

Sure, Lyrica may bring your pain down one number on the pain scale, but the extra fifty pounds you gain that it puts on your joints and vertebra are going to put your pain right back where it was.

Cymbalta: Doctors will be happy to give you this, along with thirty-or-so pills/injections that will do nothing or next to it, instead of prescribing you narcotics. (Pain relief from an NSRI. ...If I could laugh at that I wouldn't be able to catch my breath and drop dead, blue as a Smurf...)

However it is, by its weak ability to increase the amount of dopamine in one's brain (not by increasing norepinephrine, as most docs will say) also capable of bringing your pain down maybe one point on the scale.

But you'll still feel suicidally painful if you actually have fibro.

In short: Narcotics are the answer. Narcotics are the only treatment that works for fibromyalgia.

This must be accepted by doctors, and narcotic analgesic treatment must be insisted upon by patients (please see previous posts for all the crap I had to go through to finally get chronic opioid analgesic therapy).

If your pain isn't enough to make you cry your lungs out every day for a dose of morphine or oxycodone, chances are you don't have fibro and you're harming everyone who actually has the disorder. Find out what you really have, and don't let your doctor diagnose you as a fibromyalgian despite the fact you don't have a single trigger/tender point.

If your pain hasn't made you wish you were dead since it started, please get the correct diagnosis and shut the fuck up about fibromyalgia.

Please, as this disease becomes understood, let doctors and patients realize, together, the only effective treatment for it: narcs.

To anyone who can be helped with anything else enough to matter: You don't have fibro. You're not helping yourself by being misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia, and you're hurting everyone who has fibromyalgia by going with whatever bullshit treatment you're being given (I could go into cortisol here) and finding that it helps your so-called fibromyalgia...

I understand that fibro is irresistable to hypochondriacs... Fibro is quite an easy disorder to pretend you have if you do your homework.

The problems is that you fuckers are helped with placebos, with Lyrica, with Cymbalta -- you're in studies yourselves and keeping out true fibromyalgians and making sure that our treatment stays bullshit.

To all fibro-pretenders: Just let me press down with my thumb on a certain place in your lower back for about thirty seconds, and we'll know what you have and do not have.

[Jesus, did the ire rise today. And I've been happy all day, too. ...I never know what's in my head until I sneeze it out.

Pain: 4/5. Debilitating, the best it will get... though I may want to think about upping to 50mg Oxy next month... Still too soon to say for sure -- I need to see exactly what 40mg can do, and it's been only a week now.

Anxiety: 4/10. Debilitating, the best it will get.

I would not dare complain that my conditions are managed as well as they are... I believe I feel the best I possibly can.

Still, I do miss being able to lift more than ten pounds...]

Mixx it!

MARCAINE! MARCAINE! MARCAINE!

No more talk of Percocet: The taste of a new generation is marcaine injections!

I saw my new GP two days ago (I'll be staying with this guy at least until I start up my usual drug-seeking), and he gave me Marcaine injections into one trigger point per shoulder. I don't know how he found what were, apparently, the exact places he needed to inject, since my shoulders are (were? I think I get to use past tense about this for once) knotted as a forest of oak trees. (Ugh. What a horrible metaphor. Grade-school shit. And I apologize.... I feel decent right now and don't want to write. If I'm not in withdrawal, pissing off doctors and shrinks or being a general douchebag, where's the drama? What's the pull?... Please see past posts while I work this out...)

But he did find these magical places and stabbed me with needles and injected the Marcaine solution. He then held the needle in my muscle until the headache I've had all my life lifted off my skull, from the injection site upward.

I then repeatedly threatened the doctor with various signs of affection, but didn't follow through because the med student who was with the doctor didn't seem like the voyeuristic type. And he didn't give the shots, so he wasn't about to get to join in.

But as I walked out of the clinic, I began to believe I was getting my headache back. However, it was just my inability to process the fact I was pain-free from the shoulders up. I didn't feel achy or in pain, but... it felt like the shadow of a headache... Like it was a physical entity, a fog encompassing my head, trying to get back in -- pushing inward from all sides.

As of this writing the relief has gone down my back... The day after the injections I could feel the rest of my body for the first time, without a headache. And it hurt like fucking hell. I took half a Percocet in the afternoon because I wanted to outrun my back, where most of the agony came from. I've seen dogs chase their tails, and the outcome is never very good or interesting. Today, though, is actually a good day.

Then again, I've taken today the five pills a friend gave me yesterday. This Person described them as "better than Klonopin." I thought if they were a lot better, she was giving me the cup of christ. But This Person seemed to give them up too easily for me to be receiving that artifact in dissolvable pill form...

However, the two I took in the morning knocked me out for a few hours, which is a tall feat for any drug, so I would have to say they might eclipse Klonopin. Naturally, further study is warranted... But, then, I wouldn't want to get hooked on anything I can't get my own Rx for...

Or this 5/10 day [the pain scale encroaches upon the body text!] is brought to us by the increase in Lyrica and Prozac taking hold. It's been about a month since the increase, and if the extra mgs are going to do anything, the starting gun should be going off about now.

Or the majority of what seems to be a miracle of science is not that at all, and is due to me being in a waning period. I'd hate it to be that, but know it must be a big part of me not being in so much pain.

...Mustn't it?

[I'm going to cause massive civil unrest by ending this post here, lamely. It's been boring as hell anyway.

Anxiety: 5/10

Willingness to crank out crap: Apparent.]

Mixx it!

LAZINESS IS POSTING AN E-MAIL!

Someone e-mailed me, having just found out that I have fibro through the Interwebs. She told me she has been in pain for years and her doctor, who has been giving her Lyrica for years, has thought she's had fibro for years. My response is below (notice the emphasis on drugs drugs drugs, even though I don't know whether Lyrica works like an atomic clock for her)... Also notice that I am, in fact, sleazy:

Begin:

There is one thing you must do immediately: Find a doctor who PRESCRIBES OPIOIDS! I can't stress that enough. I get pain relief only from them, but the asshole doctors I've found in Lummox [I change the names of people and places, nothing else -Ed.] won't write scripts for them (especially since I was taking one bomber of an amount of Percocet... Which still didn't work close to well enough! -- even my DC doctor was super-reluctant to get me on COAT -- Continuous Opioid Analgesic Therapy... but he WAS going to, right before I was yanked home by my parents (I was having a very very nasty flare).

[Wow! I can't use punctuation properly! -Ed.]

So I never have been able to experience anything close to 100 percent relief. Which makes me pissed off enough to write a blog. How nerdy and 1990s is that? I write a blog...Well, my first book wasn't picked up through the traditional channels (it sucks), so maybe I can sell my diary...

OK -- also, get yourself some Ritalin or Provigil. I'd be on the latter if my doctors had any desire to allow me to be somewhat awake and coherent during the day. Might as well get some kick-ass speed while you're at it....

And -- stop.

Wow. Rants like those just pop right out.

Anyway, of course I remember you! In fact (not to be off-putting or sleazy), the last time I recall seeing you was at Mutual Friend's graduation party. I was drinking a fifth of Bombay Sapphire and kinda hitting on you. Later it was tent time and I was between you and Erin Lastname (how is she doing? any idea?), trying to decide if I should make a move on you or not -- despite Erin being there.

The booze must have gotten to me... Then again, not enough for me to actually try something, get rejected, and possibly kicked out of the last available tent.

So that's that... Sorry it had to be weird.

OK, so yep, I have fibro, but I'm having pretty good days now. The flare is over, and things are pretty calm now.

EXCEPT I'm coming off some pills (including my beloved sweet divine Percocet so save me jeebus), and it's making me more aware of the world. Which sucks, because I'm stuck at my parents' house. Goddam it.

Sorry to be lengthy

--DBM

[Pain: I will discontinue this portion -- I'm coming off Percocet, etc. and onto the all-natural hell that will be me without it. Not the withdrawal, mind you, but the pain of being alive. With fibro. So figure it's 1,500/10 until this feature resumes, or is brought back by popular demand. Wuss.

Anxiety: 10/10. I'm freaked right the fuck out all the fucking time.

Being lazy enough to post an e-mail: Hey that's pretty lazy!

Sleazy?: Umm-um!]

Mixx it!

WITHDRAWAL!

I'm detoxing for the holidays. Stepping down off Percocet 10/325s by increments of one pill every five days. Right now I'm taking four per day instead of the normal five... Well, normal was six, which barely masked my pain enough for me to walk three blocks in a day... A day that would ensure that I would be on bed rest for the following two days.

So five wasn't enough, but was all I could get from the GP I had. He dropped me because he didn't want to deal with a fibromyalgian. And he didn't want to deal with a fibromyalgian who is seeing a pain clinic that is horribly averse to writing scripts themselves. If they had their way, a GP would write all their prescriptions.

Have I made the point that the pain (no "management") clinic I'm seeing is totally fucked up?
And I know it isn't fair -- I haven't described my dealings with my GP in enough detail yet. I assure you such will follow... Perhaps when I don't want to tear my teeth out...

Anyway, the posts may have more time between them. Or maybe not. Writing -- getting things out -- can be therapeutic. In fact, I'm surprised the good people at QPC didn't prescribe it.
OH -- and sorry this is going to be an aside, basically -- I also am in the process of getting off Mirapex and Effexor and dear sweet Klonopin because all QPC will prescribe me is Lyrica. Lyrica Lyrica Lyrica by the mouthful. So how does 900mg of Lyrica stand up to Percocet 10/325s times five? It's a knockout in the first 10 seconds of round one... The winner? You're aware.

No segue -- I'm thinking about taking five Percocets a day until they run out. Why stretch out the misery? I know I'm experiencing less of it because of the (all too brief) step-down I'm doing, but am becoming convinced it would be better to go cold turkey (or turkee, if you prefer) from five. I've always preferred ripping off the Band-aid instead of trying to be gentle and taking five minutes and experiencing each individual hair being ripped out as separate events.

Will keep you, dear reader, up to date on any such decision. Until next time, I write you from Purgatory.

(My own, since the Holy Catholic Church decided there isn't one any longer...)

[Pain: from 10/10.

Anxiety: 10/10.

Self-righteousness: set to 10/10 and stuck there.]

Mixx it!

DR. DOOM!

So the nameless doctor in a nameless place in a nameless state did the following for me: he gave me trigger-point injections in my lower back. The pain was so excruciating I almost bit through my clenched fist, and my screams(?)... sounds kind of effeminate... likely were heard by all the other patients. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced, and I've bruised a kidney, broken a wrist, and have had a really bad paper cut on my thumb. It was such that, when the doctor was done with my right side I said, "Don't do the other."

"But the treatment works best if we--"

"Don't do the other. I can't stand it."

I looked at the nurse, who was looking at the doctor -- I'll call him Dr. Hilarius -- and knew what was coming: five more stabs in the back.

Which is the best way to describe what Dr. Hilarius did for me overall. After giving the injections, he told me to get a prescription for 600mg of Lyrica per day, an increase from my then-current 400. And that's all he did.

I informed the nurse, who was the only one who would talk to me after the injections, that I take Percocet 10/325s (10mgs oxycodone, 325mgs acetaminophen) and, since the doctor had prescribed nothing (I was to get the Lyrica, even, from my general practitioner) I was going to go through withdrawal, and then the pain that returned was likely to be so unbearable that I was bound to think of suicide.

She talked to Hilarius outside my room and came back and had to report what Dr. H said:

"If you have any problems, just go to the ER."

...My parents had told me that he was the only pain specialist in town, and that I had to deal with him for better or worse. So I held my tongue... After I said

"Well, could you please tell him that it's extremely negligent on his part to let a patient go through withdrawal -- and especially one with a history of suicidal ideation?"

The nurse left and came back:

"The doctor says you can get the narcotics through your family doctor. Otherwise, I guess you just have to go to the hospital."

And I held my tongue.

Next week I see a psychologist at the same treatment center. I have come to the early conclusion that I am trapped in a pain management center that manages pain by increasing it or letting it be.

Whenever I enter the clinic doors, I'll be surrounded by doctors who do not believe in practicing medicine.

[Not bad for today... Left a lot out, though. I'll have to tell you about how I now have 150 Percocet tabs, at the cost of being dumped by my GP. In Bush's America, no one wants to prescribe narcotics. They could end up in Bush's niece's hands! (Was it his niece that had the jones for Xanax? ...Anyway...)

Pain: 5/10.

Anxiety: 8/10.

--Anxiety is a new one! Which reminds me to tell you about the shrink I visited November 27th! Wow. It was classic. I've never come so close to hitting someone.

So you have a lot to look forward to. If my Dad still had some Provigil, this would go a lot faster. Oh well -- the suspense builds!]

Mixx it!