I really don’t know how best to help my sister right now and it’s rather upsetting. My sister has a learning disability and our mum suddenly passed away in February so I’m now 28 caring for my 25 year old sister as well as my son.
I’m a nurse myself but pretty much out of ideas and it’s now prolonged so I’m going to speak to her GP next week. I’m still learning about her as I haven’t lived with her since I was a teen and her and my mum lived some distance, but she’s restarted physio and had previously been diagnosed with bursitis in her hip. The physio at my GP confirmed that the areas affected so point to bursitis but now she’s having long periods where she’s in pain all over her body legs, hips, into her arms and fingers all at once.
she does also have hyper mobility. We just can’t seem to keep on top of the pain and manage it very well. I was initially concerned about long term codeine use so give paracetamol first line and try not to resort to codein if we don’t have to but even that’s not helping. Her physio said ice therapy was better than heat therapy and she’s asthmatic so hasn’t used NSAIDs like ibuprofen although after speaking to the pharmacist at the gp we have got her ibuprofen gel 10% and that often helps a little with the hip pain but not the all over body pain.
she’s completely wiped out with the pain and having to go to bed during the day to lay down but even then she’s having to just cope with the pain and it’s leaving her exhausted. I’m now thinking could this be fibromyalgia? Although I know from my own job this does seem to have a stigma so I’m not sure if we’re going to have trouble with getting to the bottom of it but my heart breaks seeing her in so much pain and unable to do everyday activities