Hi everyone
My name is Liz and I was diagnosed 4/5 years ago (cant remember exactly, cba to haul diaries out..familiar?!). My biggest prob for 1st 2/3 years was accepting the restrictions FM places on daily/social life, and dealing with the frustration of longterm poor sleep and the resulting chronic fatigue. leading to depression.
Over the past 4 years I have been prescribed (in this order) -
anti-d's [/color](currently Venlafaxine which seems to work relatively well..).
amitrip ( certainly helped with the sleep for approx 3 months, then needed to up from 10mg to c. 15mg - how daft is it that the tablet dosage jumps from 10 to 25! - so I was taking 15 by cutting up a 25 and using the larger 'half').
Co-codomol for the pain - but neither they of otc NSAIDS seem to 'work'. I have found some relief from heat packs and a TENS machine (hmmm - difficult when you ache all over as we often do!!) and the steam room at the gym is heaven..
Also, re pain control - I'm sure my doc disapproves, but the most effective for me is a glass of very chilled white wine! (I put loads of ice in tmine, o water it down and reduce units intake) Obv can only (decently!) do this in the evening but its something I look forward to at the end of my 'working 'day.
I was a secondary school music teacher for 28 years but had to give up 7 years ago due to health issues/fatigue - didnt know about FM then! Now I teach piano privately at home, which suits me very well as I can be flexible and space out my teaching hours. I find that even 2 hours on yhr trot means I have ti lie down for half an hour to recharge..
HOWEVER!! The good news is that last october my gp tried me on Gabapentin. When I read all the reports on this forum I was very sceptical, but I have to say it has made a huge difference to my energy and pain levels. Bad news is that a mild whiplash in the new year caused a flare-up of fm pain/fatigue cycle, but I am optimistic that I am slowly getting back to where I was..
Will keep you posted! And hope that some of what I share can be of some help to somebody out there...