The Emotional Toll on Figuring Fibro Pain

    I feel guilty a lot and for no good reason. For some reason, probably a virus, started spinning up around 11 PM on Thursday night all the way through Friday. I had to call out of work. On other days, when they try to call me into my part-time job I look at someone in my family, boyfriend, or best friend to see if I should go in or not? If no one is around, I go in. I’ll do this in spite of anything else that I should be doing instead, such as taking care of myself.
    But today, even after whatever it was that subsided sometime after noon, I felt out of sorts and sapped of all energy. When I don’t feel guilty, I often feel like a failure or an imposter. So this emotional roller coaster that plays in my head I force to be quiet and try to lose myself in the busyness of life. These thoughts will always be there. I have accepted that. Sure I could take the emotion out, yell at it for a few rounds, and pretend to toss the damn thing out. But they always sneak their way out of the garbage, through my ear, and back into the hypothalamus.
    I’ve had therapy and meds. The only med that seemed to work was Trazadone. I felt like a million bucks getting five solid hours of sleep every night. Psych said, “Nope! Not enough!” And the dosage was doubled and I would get eight hours but it did not feel nearly as good as the first dosage on only five hours. If I only need five hours of sleep, why do people want to fight me on it? I have already discovered that I’m biphasic and seem to prefer five hours, one to two hours awake, and then another four hours of sleep. Maybe I should just do that from now on.
    Then there are the fibro days. If you haven’t guessed by now, all of these issues seem to feed one another. Headaches, fatigue, sleep problems, intestinal distress, or a fever out of nowhere because the immune system has decided to fight a battle that doesn’t exist. If I wake up feeling great, I have to take advantage of it and pack my day because I am not sure what tomorrow will be like.
    Could it be my diet? I cut massive amount of carbs out of my diet this past week due to bloodwork that pointed at slightly elevated triglycerides. The LDL and HDL counts were good but total cholesterol was slightly elevated. I scratched my head on that one. I have snacked on some tortilla chips and salsa that I picked up from the Co-op but other than that, I really don’t have a lot of potatoes or other things in my diet. I did add a lot more veggies; such as tomatoes, carrots, and collards.

    I did have an emergency this afternoon and my best friend brought a mini care package over that included chocolate and Skittles. The sugar seemed to have perked me up a bit. Hypoglycemic attack? The twelve hour fasting bloodwork appeared normal but I know numbers can fluctuate. Whatever the case may be, I should probably start tracking everything again. The last time I had a major fibro flare-up was in June and it lasted a month and a half. Can I prevent the next major flare-up?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Art and Science of Moving

Image
  The fact of the matter is that I am moving for the third time in four years. It's a process that is annoying and overwhelming. I thought that after I graduated college and moved into my boyfriend's place that would be it. No more moving. No more shuffling.    I whittled all my belongings down to 170 square feet from 2300 square feet in 2013. I threw a lot of items out, mercilessly. Kitchen items that were functional and storage units that could hold plenty of stuff. Knowing that I had little space to work with and lacked funding to rebuild a materialistic empire, I only purchased yarn, books, and art supplies in the past few years.    I try to keep a tight lid on spending despite the fact that I would like to buy one of every item from my part-time job at a craft store and I check more books out of the library than I buy. Which does not count for much since I can check two or three books out and buy the book I must have from Barnes and Noble the same week. B...
Read more

Rural Retreat 2018

Image
Swag from Rural Retreat 2018     Normally, when I sit down to write about an event, an issue, or a cause the words flow freely. I could start at the beginning, which I tried, and found that strategy useless and unenthusiastic. But I am not apathetic nor am I super hyper excited. What I have found from this weekend's Democratic Retreat is that I am more focused on bringing back to my committee what I learned from the sessions that I attended. Krystal Henson: Design Thinker    I am grateful for the organizers that worked diligently to put this past weekend together. I am grateful for the last minute sponsorship of Deb Baum and Steve Bunn from the CD9 (congressional district). I learned about the basics of Votebuilder and how to create a strategy for canvassing in a way that helps our committee update the database and zero in on potential voters for House and Senate races. I enjoyed Barbara Jones and Krystal Henson's presentation on leveraging social media to h...
Read more

How I get past depression.

Image
       Depression and I have spent a lot of quality time together over the years. We know as much about each other in the same way the most intimate of lovers knows every line, curve, and secret. Depression is not a welcome lover and known to attack when you least want to endure it's pain and memories.   I can recount the days that I lovingly gazed upon the gleaming silver blade of a knife, or held onto a bottle of prescription pills too long, or thought about how lovely it would be to wrap my truck around the thickest oak tree at the side of the road in the experimental attempt to meld metal, flesh, and wood. A deadly dance of the macabre.   There is no sure-fire way to get rid of it. As a matter of fact, it often shows up on your face like a bad pimple before your period. You try your best to ignore it but you really want to pop that sucker into oblivion. All I can say is, what works for me may not work for you in matters of coping with the blue-heade...
Read more