Posted , 10 users are following.
Wondering what age everyone was when they first noticed the symptoms, and what age you were actually diagnosed? Just curiosity !
0 likes, 16 replies
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alys97833 emily253
Posted
I first noticed my symptoms at 21, around 5 months ago in the week before christmas I went into work and was getting pins and needles in my hands that got worse until my hands were pretty much numb, then I started to get really bad pains in my hands/fingers/wrists that got so bad I could no longer use a mouse or hold a pen and this is most of my job.
I went to my dr but his advice was to prescribe naproxen and wait and see if it would get better on its own. My pains got worse and spread all over my body and I ended up having nearly 8 weeks off work on statutory sick pay but lost so much money i simply couldnt afford to stay off any longer, so not feeling any better (in fact progressively worse) I went back to work on reduced hours.
I tried naproxen, all strengths of co-codmol, co-dydramol and varying doses of amitriptyline, none of which i have found very helpful. I was continually asking for something stronger while I was off so that I could go back to work but my dr refused to prescribe anything stronger without a diagnosis. So after all my pestering, my dr referred me to a rheumatologist who I saw about 2 weeks ago after a 2 month wait and he diagnosed fibromyalgia, he was very kind and understanding.
Now I can hardly afford to live with my reduction in hours but if anything I feel I still cant manage work and am feeling quite lost at the prospect of living with this condition for the rest of my life.
Looking back I can see i have been suffering with some of the associated symptoms for a very long time such as headaches for many years, quite severe depression since I was 14 and IBS for the last couple years.
Reading about other people on this site staying strong and positive has been really helpful and I hope I can follow their example.