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For generations women had a tough time convincing doctors to take them seriously for many medical conditions, especially Fibromyalgia. Women have been called hysterical and told to curtail their active imaginations. However, men with Fibromyalgia are Now, don’t get me wrong, women will also push through the pain and fatigue to take care of their jobs, family, and home, but they will also seek medical attention much earlier in the process. Gender roles may not be the only reason though since
insomnia manifests itself earlier in women. Ron also pointed out another difference, “Men are also more difficult to diagnose, since the physical muscle structure of men is different, they often don’t have pain in the 18 pressure points that doctors often use to diagnose fibromyalgia.” Of course, as the syndrome progresses, men and women quickly become equal.
So, whether you are a man or a woman, you need to go to the doctor, get diagnosed, and stop suffering in silence. As more people are diagnosed, the more research the pharmaceutical companies are willing to finance. [...]
The Cymbalta required a withdrawal, that the makers do not admit to. I had to reduce the amount slowly to avoid the painful headaches and stomach aches. Then there is the brain zaps ! don’t know what else to call them, all of a sudden its like an electric shock in the brain, [...]
What I have just described is a very common Fibromyalgia flare up. Yet they only look at you as if you have a screw loose. They do not even check to see if it is Fibromyalgia. They look at your heart and other physical problems that could cause this pain but find nothing. They could perform a simple pressure test to eliminate or confirm Fibromyalgia but you must first navigate a maze of other tests. [...]
Here is some of what I have learned as a man from my own
experience with CFIDS/FMS, life, suffering and shame.
Who can know the pain and suffering one must endure?
When misunderstood by those who have no time,
to account for their own infirmity and lack of understanding. [...]
Sometime during my mid teen years I began to have great difficulty sleeping. It would take me 1-2 hours or more to fall asleep. Waking up in the morning I felt as if I had not slept at all. I hated mornings. However, I was still able to function normally albeit I was ready to take a nap at any given moment. I finished high school a half-year early because I had already fulfilled the required number of credits for graduation. [...]
A fever would change my life forever and how could one imagine that a fever could do that? Over the course of a mid-June weekend I noticed myself getting sick. By Monday morning, I woke –up feeling like my head was going to explode; I could hardly swallow; my throat felt like sand paper; and I was dizzy and disoriented. I asked my mother to check my temperature and it came up a tad below 106 degrees. S [...]
In February of this year, I had something like the flu in which I ached and had swollen throat and bad headache and neckache and went to my family doc who said I had all signs of viral meningitis but didn’t confirm with a lumbar puncture and he said since it was viral, it should go away in 3 days and did but left me with vertigo that continued to worsen to the point where I couldn’t do anything. [...]
As far as I have been able to remember, this was the beginning of my FMS path. I was subsequently treated for several disorder/symptoms—ulcers, spastic colon, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, gout, depression, hypertension, allergies, sinusitis, tinitis and more that I do not recall. (Perhaps that is the ‘brain fog’ of FMS or just the result of all those ineffective meds doctors had previously prescribed.) [...]
My name is Ray. I’m 29 years old. In 1998 I started developing strange symptoms in my body. It began with severe pain in my neck and shoulders, pain and stiffness in my arms, hands, fingers, legs and feet, severe headaches, not being able to sleep at night and just total exhaustion. All this started after years of extreme stress, including working as a aircraft mechanic with the Air Force [...]
I’ve battled with several ‘syndromes’ and other tough to cure illnesses over the past 15 years. Many of the syndromes were a) hard to diagnose and b) even harder to treat. I’ve gone through years of suffering with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), A distended bladder combined with insomnia, headaches, Leaky Gut Syndrome, tonsillitis, depression, etc. [...]
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