The Beginning: How I was diagnosed

When I was young, I was full of energy. I exercised regularly, danced three days a week, taught gymnastics and aerobics. I was the energizer bunny. When I started college and stress and deadlines took over, I stopped exercising to be a college student and worked part-time as a waitress. Over the course of my college years, I gradually became more and more tired and started developing stomach issues. I felt like I had the flu all the time. My doctor diagnosed me with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and gave me medication which helped some. I still got frequent headaches, stomach-aches, flu-like symptoms and continued to feel sick the majority of the time. I knew that something wasn’t quite right, but just shrugged it off and blamed it on working too hard in school and stress.

Seven years later and ten pounds lighter I was just as tired and weak as ever. I had been to every kind of doctor I could think of for answers. I was tested for Lupus, Lyme disease, Lymphoma, Cancer, Celiac Disease, Leukemia every other condition known to man and even tested psychologically (as if I really wanted to make up all these symptoms). Only after the removal of my gallbladder, losing a job due to illness and two years on unemployment, I decided I had had enough. I broke down in the doctor’s office and told them something was wrong, that I couldn’t go on like this anymore. This is when I was diagnosed with a chronic pain condition called Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is characterized by chronic, wide-spread pain in the muscles, ligaments and tendons. Everything hurts. Your back hurts, muscles tender to the touch and you have trouble doing many tasks that healthy people can do with no problems like walking, running, exercising, sitting for long periods of time and even sleeping. At the end of every day, I feel as if I just finished running a marathon.

A lot of women go years living with this pain before they get diagnosed with the condition because Fibromyalgia can mimic many other conditions like insomnia, the flu, stress, etc, so many women just dealt with the pain for years just thinking it was all in their head. Women who have Fibromyalgia also suffer from IBS, numbness in hands and feet, palpitations, sleep disturbances, and migraine headaches. The pain can increase with activity, cold or damp weather, anxiety, and stress. I was 31 when I was first diagnosed with the condition. I had spent 1/3 of my life with issues that many doctors just called stress.

I listened to my inner voice and got help.
After my diagnosis, I decided to not lie down and die, but continue to live life to the best of my ability. I even started this support blog chronicling my life living with both IBS and Fibromyalgia, because I want other women to know that they are not alone and that we can find ways to deal with the pain, and live as normal a life as possible whether we have IBS, Fibromyalgia or any other chronic condition.



I try to be kind to my body and de-stress as much as possible. I read more books, take lots of bubble baths and try to relax as much as possible. I have learned through this whole ordeal that I have to take care of me first. I used to spread myself to thin and always said yes to event or activity, but I have learned that it’s ok to say no. I get massages regularly, I get plenty of rest and I take it easy when I’m having a flare-up. Although I know that I’ll have to plan my life out more than a healthy person, I may not be able to do the same energetic things I once did and I may sleep more hours a night that the average person, but I know this is ok. I can still function and be positive. I am a person with a full agenda and I won’t let my pain get in the way.

Conversations With Myself

Some people talk to their plants because they believe that if they do, their plants with grow stronger and taller. Some people talk to their animals, because they consider them like a child. Some people have multiple personalities and talk to themselves. When I was little, I was terrified of thunder and lightning storms. I used to take my brown bear, Teddy, hide myself away in the closet and talk to myself, hum or sing loudly until it went away and I was safe again. So I guess I still do this, but instead of thunderstorms, I am terrified of IBS and Fibromyalgia.

I admit that I too talk to my dog all the time and I even find myself talking to the picture of my dead cat, Sopopdopolis. I also have conversations with myself, but not the multiple personality kind. I talk to my body. I ask it to behave before an interview, or I ask it to settle down and be nice so I can enjoy a nice meal out with friends. I talk to my muscles and tell them to behave as well. When my back is hurting so bad that the thought of sitting hurts, I talk to my back, reason with it, plead with it and promise that tomorrow or next week, I'll have a deep tissue massage and it can thank me then.

Sometimes I plead with my stomach when I have cramps asking it to calm down. When I am sitting in the car about to leave for a trip however small or long it will be, I tell me stomach that if it can just behave and not act up until we get to where we are going that I will reward it with a cookie or a stick of gum. I know this sounds weird, but you know you talk to yourself to, you may not be able to admit it to yourself. I bet you're even talking out loud right now telling yourself that you do not in fact talk to yourself. (kinda scary huh?)

I know you must be thinking that this is all strange. I know that talking to my body will not make it grow stronger, taller or last longer, it's just my way of getting though living day-to-day with IBS and Fibromyalgia. I guess you can say that I am talking to myself to get through the inner thunderstorms and that a calm voice makes it go away faster. I just grab another Imodium, swallow it down and continue conversations with myself. Maybe tomorrow I'll try singing.

Fibromyalgia- Living in Hell with a Bay Window to Heaven

I am in love with the most vivacious and alive person that you have ever met. He has not one aching, dull bone in his body. He can jump out of bed after a mere four hours sleep and sing in the shower. He can work an exhausting 12 hour work day in 100 degree heat lifting, stretching, truly working “hard” and he can come home and still want to go on the town with the energy of a twenty year old.

I am jealous but more than that I am afraid! I am afraid that one day he will walk away and leave me. Not because he does not love and adore me, but that he will leave me because I am no longer vivacious and fun. I am a 32 year-old with the body of a 75 year-old. This scares the hell out of me!

I want his energy. I want to make love to him all night long and wake naked in his arms, and after no sleep feel alive again.



I want to feel what he feels, but I cannot. I only feel pain, and more pain. I work at a job where I am surrounded by air conditioning and chair rests and after working a eight hour day, doing nothing but sitting in a chair with a computer in my face, I am so exhausted that I can barely move and I wonder how this is possible and then I see my sweet boyfriend and I find myself always complaining about the aching, pain and sleepiness and after what, eight hours of air conditioning after he has endured a day with none.
I feel ashamed that I feel this way and wonder if the future will be different and better. Living with Fibromyalgia is like living in hell with a bay window to heaven.

The Worst Place To Be

Most Bulimics obsess about food, anorexics obsess about exercise and alcoholics obsess about the next drink. Imodium addicts obsess about shit, literally. I obsess about food and what it will do to me once I've eaten it and I obsess about whether or not too much exercise will cause stomach cramps and I obsess about what will happen if I decide to have wine with dinner. Then I obsess about how long it will be until my next shit and I pray that it will be a painless experience. This makes me think of all the places I hope I'm never at when those debilitating stomach cramps take over and my ass is screaming for a bathroom.

Here are my top twenty places I hope I am never at when shit comes knocking at my door:
1. Stuck in an elevator
2. On the Subway
3. On a roller coaster. I'm sorry for the people who may be under me if this were to ever happen.
4. In a Taxi just starting the drive over the Golden Gate Bridge
5. At school taking a timed test like the SAT or MAT
6. Making love
7. Half way to the top of a lighthouse
8. On a date
9. Meeting someone famous. I can see it now. Oh, hello Rob Pattison. I am so happy to finally meet you. I love you, wait, oh wait, I'll be right back. I think in this occasion I may just shit myself not from stomach cramps but from the thrill. So not sure if this one counts.
10. Hiking in the mountains
11. Dancing on stage- Oh wait a minute- already did that one when I was twelve. I think I'll forget this one all together.
12. On a Gondola
13. On a boat with no bathroom
14. Rock climbing
15. In the tanning bed right after the start button turns on
16. Getting a massage or a seaweed body wrap
17. At the top of a snow covered mountain about to ski down.
18. Stuck at a train crossing, twenty cars back.
19. In the middle of an interview
20 And lastly the worst of all on your wedding day minutes before you are to walk down the isle.

Can you name some places that you think would be the worst place to be when stomach cramps happen to you?

What Was I Thinking? Zumba Anyone?

My neighbor recently invited me to join her in a Zumba aerobics class. Zumba uses Latin and salsa dancing and is not as painful on the joints as a high impact aerobics class would be. I being the past dancer and avid night clubber, thought that this may be a good opportunity to get back into exercising and may be a good way to get the small amount of exercise that my doctor recommended. With my twenty minute gym tour over and fresh, crisp seven day pass in hand, I was ready.

All I can say is what the hell was I thinking? I haven't exercised in over ten years and other than the occasional night of dancing at the club, I have put exercise on the back burner, really for fear of pain or that I am already in so much pain that the thought of moving my body that much makes me feel pain.

The class started off with great music with pulsating Latin beats and deep stretching in a small room surrounded by twenty women and 85 degree heat. Right after the first song ended, the lean, instructor put her hands in the air and everyone yelled "Zumaba." Oh, Lord help me!

I did pretty good and loved being one with music again. I swayed to the Latin beat, sweating buckets, but a part of me that had been dead for so long started to come alive, one samba beat and waist shake at a time. It was exhilarating, fun and I felt free again. I felt alive if only for that one hour. I loved the movements, butt shaking, hands moving and the motion my body made.

I felt twenty again, on a stage under hot lights, crowds of people looking at me. I'm swaying across the stage moving the layers of my colorful samba skirt, black paten heels, digging into the floor and I am smiling. I had to come back to reality, but was impressed at how much dancing came back to me. It made its way back into my soul. I didn't want it to end, other than the fact that after one hour, I started to feel my sweating body start to harden.


After class, I walked out with my head held high and I felt like me for the first time in years. But that glorious endorphin high was just that, a quick moment of splendor followed by a night of grueling and searing pain. Every muscle, bone and ligament in my body ached and screamed for mercy. I apologized to my body telling it I was sorry for doing that, and tried to explain to my muscles that it will never happen like that again.

I loved the Zumba class, but I couldn't walk for three days and still just thinking about that pain, makes my neck twinge. So my seven day gym pass turned into a one day trip back to never never land. At least I still have my dreams that can take me back to Dance, Samba, Zumba amd any other dance where the beat fills me with rythme and life lives in me once again.