Natural Remedies For Fibromyalgia

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I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1993. While it was tough at first, since most doctors don't understand what the condition is (and less about how to treat it!) I've learned not just how to live with it but how to thrive. Yes, it's possible. Yes, with the right mind set, and with the discipline to take good care of your body and your mind, you can do it too! Let's share what we've learned and not just bring more positive energy into the world, but help other "fibromites" feel better, too!

First: What is fibromyalgia?

I didn't know what fibromyalgia was in early 1993. But just before my wedding, my body started going crazy. I had intermittent pain in both arms, sometimes so bad that I couldn’t work or drive without taking frequent breaks. I normally fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow, and didn’t wake up until my alarm rang in the morning. But suddenly, sleep was no longer my friend. I woke at the slightest noise, and in the morning, I felt like I had been run over by a truck.

My doctor said I had tendonitis from working at the computer. This made absolutely no sense to me. How did that explain the sleep problems? And how was it possible that I could have tendonitis in both thumbs, both wrists, and both elbows when I only worked my mouse with one hand, and not for that many hours in a day, and not for that long? But this is the diagnosis that I got. I was to wear wrist supports, and go to physical therapy, where I endured set after set of weight lifting, which only made the pain worse. My health insurance back then did not cover MRIs, but if it did, I’d bet that they would show two normal arms. Another thing that made me suspicious was that I had no swelling in either elbow. Just pain.

When I told my doctor that I thought we were barking up the wrong tree, he sent me to a rheumatologist (this is a specialist in autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and lupus). And finally, after months of agony, after getting fired from my job as a desktop publisher for taking too many breaks and taking too much time off, I got my diagnosis. After a physical exam and number of blood tests to rule out other conditions, he said I had fibromyalgia.

What Is It?

Fibromyalgia is a condition (also called a syndrome, and some researchers are now wising up and calling it a disease) where your muscles and your nervous system do not communicate properly, so that you are overly sensitive to stimuli that might only cause mild pain or no pain at all in “normal” people. FM (as it is often called) is not progressive or degenerative like Alzheimer’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease, meaning that it won’t kill you, but it can be, literally, one great big pain in the butt. And in the rest of your body as well. Depending on the degree to which you have it, it can range from mildly annoying to completely debilitating.

About six million people in America are living with FM. For some reason, it is most commonly diagnosed in women from 30 to 50. While there are a lot of theories circling around about what causes it and how to treat it, currently, there is no cure.

The most frequently reported symptoms are muscle pain, sleep disturbance and fatigue, although many other symptoms can occur, mostly involving the digestive system (including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)) or cognitive problems (usually called “brain fog”). While doctors and researchers disagree on so many things about the syndrome (even its very existence!) one firm set of criteria has stuck, established at a medical conference in Copenhagen in 1993: on the body there are a series of eighteen bilateral (one on each side) points that when pressed, are very tender.  Creatively enough, these are called “tender points.” If you are sore on eleven of these eighteen pairs, distributed on all four quadrants of the body (above the waist, left side; above the waist, right side; below the waist, left side; below the waist, right side), then you are considered to have fibromyalgia.

And since FM can mimic or be triggered by many other diseases like Lyme or hepatitis or multiple sclerosis, doctors like to play it safe and rule them out first. I had so many blood tests in one day I had a bruise on my arm the size of a bar of soap.

If it turns out that you do have fibromyalgia, probably the first thing you will want to do  (after cursing for a while) is learn how to get rid of it. Unfortunately, very few MDs will have answers for you, except to write you a prescription. You may be one of the lucky few who respond well to medications, or, like most of us, you may need to go through a lot of trial and error, and endure the various side effects, until you find a combination that works for you. Or, you may decide to forgo the medication route altogether. Whichever way you choose, like nearly everybody else who learns to make peace with FM, you will have to become your own expert.

Fifteen years later, I am still learning. Bodies change, treatments that worked before may stop working, and altogether it can be a maddening process. But FM has given me a great gift. It has taught me patience, and how to take much better care of my body.

NPR Health and Science