Is Fibromyalgia a Degenerative Disease?

I am still alive and kicking, well, not kicking as I am still dealing with this sprained foot. I have never sprained anything before and had no idea it takes so darn long to heal. I so miss my walking every night and it has taken a toll on my fibromyalgia.

Walking has been my only real form of exercise as using the pool has a tendency to make me very sore because it's hard to determine if you are over doing it. Now that I can't make my jaunt around the neighborhood I can feel the weight gaining up on me and I am much more creaky and cranky.

It has been difficult to sit here at my desk and work on the computer because I can't prop up the foot and it just throbs with all the blood going down to it, so I haven't been posting much or promoting my mosaic shop.

I did read an article the other day and so wish I had saved it as it lumped fibromyalgia in with other degenerative diseases such as lupus, diabetes, CFS and others that don't come to mind at the moment. But I was left thinking how odd that was as I never thought of fibro as being a degenerative illness. It supposedly never gets worse as time goes by like the other diseases, so why would it have been added to this list.

If fibromyalgia is the pain sensors malfunctioning telling us we are hurting and the muscles aren't really sore or stretched or whatever, how can it be degenerative? It isn't really happening physically, is it?? OK, time to do more research.

I know that if I do excessive vacuuming or pruning my trees or anything that uses parts of my body that I don't normally use on a daily basis my brain tells me I just ran a marathon, but my muscles aren't really overused, just that my brain thinks they are. Now, I do know that if the brain is telling you something that it does affect your body, but this is a bit confusing to me.

I will check this out and get back to you.

Until next time :)

Lupus and Fibromyalgia Similarites

I have an online friend who mentioned the symptoms of lupus being similar to fibromyalgia so I decided to look it up. Without getting into all the specifics of this disease I do want to say that the people suffering from this certainly have my admiration because on top of all the aches and pains, severe life-altering fatigue, skin rashes and fevers there is also the possibility of loss of kidney function, anemia and hair loss. This is only a partial list of what lupus can do to your body so my heart really goes out to those sufferers.


The reason I brought this up is because so many illnesses start out similarly in symptoms and can so easily be misdiagnosed, therefore, it is crucial that you become aware of your own body so that when you do go into the doctor you will be able to accurately describe your symptoms. I would write them down and keep a running list as certain problems arise because some are infrequent and you might have forget to mention it.

I also want to invite anyone suffering with aches and pains that seriously alter your life to feel free to comment and be a part of this blog. Fibromyalgia happens to be my diagnosis and I am doing everything I can to educate myself and others about this chronic illness but as I mentioned before, pain is pain, and we all can relate to one another regardless of the label put on the diagnosis.


I would love to hear from each of you how you deal with your illness on a daily basis. Do you find yourself scheduling your activities around it or do you press on and just bite the bullet. For me, the best time of the day is about 2 hours after I have taken my tramadol. I am in the peak of performance and I know I can last several hours before I start to fade. My friends and kids know that I am a morning person and don't bother to ask me to do something late in the afternoon.

I take a 2nd set of my pain pills around 4:30 or so and then I am generally pretty good until bedtime at 11:30.

I have had this long enough to have figured out what works for me. Many times things need to be done or appointments are scheduled in the latter part of the day, but on a regular basis I try to have everything finished before 2:00 in the afternoon. Working on my mosaics is not in this category. I love to work on them anytime of day as long as I feel comfortable enough to sit for a long period of time.


I am not a person who deals well with pain, so if I can take something to release the tension and pressures of the pain then that is what I am going to do. The quality of my life is much better if I am either pain free or experiencing minimal pain. I do know several people, my son included, that simply won't take anything unless the pain gets so bad they have little choice.

I can't honestly say I understand that concept unless there is concern for addiction or reliance on it as I can't imagine having pain constantly and try to get much done. But I want to make it clear that I recognize that each of us has their own way of coping and what may work great for some may not work at all for others.

What do you do?