Fibromyalgia. Anyone suffer from it?

[foxinsocks]

Healthwise, I've had such a nightmare year having hardly ever been ill before last year. Suffered a nasty allergic reaction to the mirena coil (Feb/March 2005) and have really never been the same since.

After that, started getting terrible migraines and flu-like aching in my legs and my neck/lower back with dreadful tiredness. Coupled with this was nausea, twitching eye, going to the loo more often and sometimes (but not always) rashes on my knees/elbows. This happens for about 4-5 days twice a month.

Went to the doctor and they tested for lots of things but apart from a lower than normal white blood count and anaemia, nothing was irregular. She told me she thought it was a virus (I'm pretty sure it isn't) and sent me packing telling me to take nurofen for the migraine. I was furious especially as I feel this is impacting on me going back to work - until this is sorted, I feel I cannot (with a clear conscience) go for a job knowing that I would not be able to manage for around 10 working days each month!

Anyway, decided to have a look on the net after discounting most of the major illnesses through the blood test and have found fibromyalgia and my symptoms seem to fit. Have also seen that doctors seem to be quite hesitant to diagnose it, even though it is recognised by the WHO, as some see it as a 'mind illness'. Just wondering if anyone else has it.

it's funny you mention wheat because I was thinking of cutting that out so I might try it and see what happens

I've tried a few natural supplements that are supposed to help hormonal imbalances (like evening primrose oil, agnus castus) but none of them helped

the normal treatment would be to give me oestrogen patches/gel (because apparently a menstrual migraine is caused by a certain hormone level dropping) but they can't give you them without giving you mild progesterone and I refuse to have any (after what happened before). Hopefully they might volunteer to chop out my ovaries (which would solve my contraception problem at the same time!).

I also knew someone who had MS. She was in a wheelchair from it, then went gluten-free. She also cut out chicken and a few other things and quickly went into remission. A lot of people say it can be a coincidence, but I say it's worth a try. I met her when we rafted Hell's Canyon together and you would never know she had been ill. She said she followed the advice of author Louise Haye (sp?).

Worth a try - cutting out wheat isn't that hard (at least I don't think so, dh is wheat-intolerant) and some people do notice a major improvement, as jabberwocky says.

Think I should set myself up as some kind of complementary therapist :) (wine would be a major part of my therapy)

Forgot to say, fox, thanks for your kind message. I have considered asking my GP to sort out counselling for me, but frankly I think it would just be more effort than it would be worth, particularly having now viewed the type of help on offer from clinical psychology.

Haven't tried the supplement you mentioned, we haven't seen any benefit from any of the many things dh has tried, however.

Have read everything here, but 3 years ago I wasnt well, achey, teary, very tired, went to loo a lot. I went to the doctor and one of the things he mentioned was fibryomialgia, sorry cant spell it. As time went on I had a blood test and it came back with not enough white bloods cells, I think it was that way round, he gave me antibiotics and told me to rest for a week and in my case it was just a disorder in the blood and not anything long term. Could this be the case with you?