National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day.

The last few days I've been feeling kinda crappy.  It all started last week when I stopped taking Lyrica.  You see, I've been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia - 3 times in the last 10 years!  Most recently my very awesome doctor prescribed Lyrica which actually worked pretty good - but it made me kind of fuzzy headed and worst of all, it made me gain weight.  Which clearly I don't need to do!  Just the opposite, I need to lose weight to the tune of about 40 pounds.  So, because of that, I decided to titrate down on my dosage and completely go off of it.  By Saturday afternoon I couldn't move my head.  Fortunately my dad had some Loritab and he gave me two of them so I could move around on Saturday and Sunday.  Today I went to see my doctor and he said that he's more convinced than ever that I do indeed have Fibromyalgia.  And it just so happens that today is National Fibromyalgia Awareness day.  I was given a new medicine to try that doesn't cause weight gain, so I've already taken my first dose.  Even though it hurts I'm going to continue trying to get out of the house and move around, take a walk.  In this vein I had the following conversation with my daughter just now:

Me: Hey I've got a suggestion.
Sarah: What is it?
Me: We can walk down to the creek with the binoculars and see if we can spot the geese and their babies or we can play our new Scrabble game (just got it today to practice building words with her).
Sarah: Um, how about we do both? (smart kid - get everything you can, right?)
Me: Uh, okay.  Which one do you want to do first?
Sarah: Let's get the 'vernaculars' and go see the baby geese! (I love being her mommy!)

So if you are one of the millions that suffer each day from the pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia, don't worry, just keep moving.  And talk to your doctor.  I believe you.  It's definitely real - and it has causes and symptoms.  For more information, go to www.fmaware.org.