My father drank heavily in the 1960s and both my parents smoked tobacco when I was conceived. As a child, I frequently had strep throat, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. Even at 2 two years old I remember being inside the incubator seeing the outline of my Mom and my uncle who came in to visit.
My teeth are stained from taking the antibiotic, Tetracycline as a young child. As I understand it this particular antibiotic is no longer given to young children because of the dental staining.
Additionally, I am a “DES Baby”. My Mom had 2 miscarriages before I was born. When my mother got pregnant with me, her OB doc prescribed DES in hopes that she might carry me to full term. Well, I’m here, but I only weighed 4lbs at birth. Back in the 1960s, preemie clothes were unheard of, so I wore baby doll clothes. Being small made me vulnerable.
As a child, I had unexplained aches and pains, migraines, sleep disorders, sensitivity to noise, light, and smells, emotional sensitivity, and restless legs. I thought I was different than other people. I still have these gremlins making life annoying sometimes.
My point is that I can look back and recognize symptoms I had growing up and into adulthood, middle age, and now at 53.
My theory is that one or more of those viruses I had, one or more antibiotics or cough/stomach meds or even a vaccine may have all contributed to fibromyalgia and its buddies. I think our food is filled with all kinds of processed ingredients that aren’t really natural, but rather artificial. The air we breathe is polluted and our water is something that has to be “treated” before it comes thru our faucets in our kitchen.
I believe stress in a developing child can get so extreme that it affects our nerves and the processes of our brains.
I can’t point to one single thing and know for sure if that particular thing caused my fibromyalgia but medical science still doesn’t know the cause. There are some very fundamental shared commonalities we seem to share.
You know this is the craziest thing I am going to talk about now…
I’m not sure what the percentage is, but I can tell you that I spent years taking Adderall for ADHD and then had to stop taking it when I got pregnant. During the hiatus from that medication, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
After unsuccessful attempts at treating it with many of the same methods you mentioned, I decided that I was sick of being a test monkey and asked my doctor to put me back on the Adderall. This time around, not only did it manage my ADHD symptoms, but it also seemingly “cured” my fibro.
Being a stimulant medication, its purpose is to counteract the area of an ADHD patient’s brain that makes them feel restless and unfocused by “tricking” the brain into believing it has produced too much of its own stimulant, therefore making it produce the chemicals that calm.
While it still does this for me, it also cleared up the brain fog and mental sluggishness that accompanies fibro, but the best thing it’s done is make the pain tolerable so I can normally physically function. As you certainly know, with fibro, some days are worse than others, and it’s not as though this medication blocks the pain as an opiate does, rather, it keeps me so focused on the task at hand that it also distracts me from the pain.
Upon realizing this, I started doing things to help further lessen the background pain, such as yoga and taking daily vitamin B12 and folic acid supplements, as they support nerve health.
Adderall is not recognized as a pain management drug, and only a small handful of doctors currently acknowledge it as a treatment for fibromyalgia. It is a controlled substance with a high potential for abuse, so, doctors won’t prescribe it without a perfectly valid reason, and they usually require a clear EKG prior to prescribing because the stimulant property is sometimes hard on the heart muscle.
BUT, Adderall IS recognized as a treatment for chronic fatigue, so, if you approach your doctor after having utilized so many other medications unsuccessfully and specifically address the concern that the fatigue which accompanies your fibro is debilitating in nature, and you propose the idea of trying a stimulant, he or she may agree to prescribe it at a low dose on a trial run.
Be prepared, however, as it is a common practice for doctors to perform drug tests before and during treatment with a controlled substance to ensure a patient is not abusing it or any other drugs.
I’m certain this is a treatment that will not be appropriate for every person with fibro or other chronic pain disorders, but it has worked in this way for me and a decent handful of other people in our shoes. That being said, for how significantly my quality of life has improved, I firmly believe that it is a treatment that deserves consideration by doctors and sufferers alike.
Get your genes mapped. If you have either fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue it is probably most likely due to “Soft Tissue Calcification” which is caused by the body not excreting enough sulfur and phosphorus, which is caused by having genetic mutations like CBS 699 and SUOX mutations.
The treatment for these mutations right now is to eat a diet that is very low in sulfur and phosphorus and calcium and vitamin D because these will all lead to pain or chronicfatigue.
Also, it is important to supplement daily with a well-absorbed brand of magnesium citrate like Solgar magnesium citrate tablets, or CALM magnesium citrate powder by Natural Vitality that you dissolve in water and drink, or CALM magnesium citrate gummies that you just chew up.
Pick one of the three, depending on which would work best for you. They are all very well absorbed.
It is also very important to avoid vitamin D and calcium in both supplements and foods, so this also means to avoid multivitamins as they are all very high in calcium and vitamin D and only have unabsorbable magnesium in them (aka they usually contain magnesium oxide, which is only 4% bioavailable)
So ditch the D, calcium, and multi vibes, start taking magnesium citrate daily and avoid all foods high in sulfur, phosphorus, vitamin D, and calcium. And also avoid MSG and MSG chemicals like the plague.
Doing these things will help you to get rid of or lessen any fibromyalgia pain or chronic fatigue that you may have.
If you think I’m crazy, then all you have to do is try what I am saying for a couple of weeks (as it is not dangerous) and you should see your symptoms lessening.
And then to be absolutely sure, get your genes mapped to see if you have the CBS699 or SUOX (SUlfur OXidase) mutations.
See genetic genie dot org and 23andme dot com for more info. (It will cost about $250 to get this done or maybe less if 23andme is having a sale or if you buy more than one gene testing kit)
I had this done and it turns out that I have a lot of these mutations from both parents so my body cannot properly metabolize and excrete sulfur and phosphorus, and this causes excess sulfur and phosphorus in all my cells which causes both pain and fatigue in the cells and calcium and vitamin D make the pain worse.
So as long as I stay away from all foods high in sulfur and phosphorus and avoid calcium and vitamin D and all MSG chemicals, I am pain–free.
If I eat anything that is high in sulfur and phosphorus or high in calcium or vitamin D, I will get bad pain within half an hour of ingestion. Black pepper and foods high in oxalic acid will also cause pain, so I avoid those as well.
And I also avoid zinc supplements since zinc strengthens the glutamate response in the body.
At any rate, this is something for others to try and see if it works. It is cheap and easy and safe. And as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
I no longer have bad fibromyalgia pain and before, I had such bad pain that I couldn’t even sit down. So this just might work for others as well. I can’t be the only one with these mutations. And I know I’m not because both sides of my family carry them and have all sorts of medical issues.
I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2015 and have been finding ways to keep going!
Well, let’s look at this logically.
When a person goes missing alien abduction is not on the police’s mind. At no point in their investigation does a detective state “should we not consider alien abduction.” When they have completely exhausted all areas of questioning they have to move on and they leave the case as an open “cold case.”
The person has disappeared and they are actively choosing to remain so for whatever reason.
The person has had an accident in a place where anybody can find them and sadly they die.
Someone has abducted the person and either they have found no evidence or their inquiries did not look into this perpetrator.
At no point even then do the police consider alien abduction. This is something that others may consider on internet forums and chat rooms. It is outside of the general psyche.
Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that most up-to-date physicians are / or should know about.
There are no specific tests (at this point in time) to detect Fibromyalgia so the Doctor tests for other conditions that have similar symptoms to Fibromyalgia. When they have tested a patient for several other conditions and all the tests have come back clear and the symptoms have remained for six months or more a Doctor will give a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.
Medical knowledge is not complete doctors are learning new things all the time. There may be several new conditions that come under the umbrella of Fibromyalgia at the moment. Even if doctors don’t agree with Fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, most of them understand how much their patients are suffering.
At one point they didn’t know or understand HIV or Aids, at one stage they didn’t understand or know how to treat cancer. As lifestyles change to adapt to the changes in how people live and work new medicalconditions arise.
I have a feeling that the person who asked this question was trying to be funny, however, Fibromyalgia is very far from a joke. So I have given Fibro the respect it deserves and answered this question, as a byproduct of this I have treated the question with respect, that part is unfortunate and all I can hope for, is that the person asking this question never has to understand the reality of living with Fibromyalgia.
Karma may have other ideas and may make the question asker regret this.
The brief answer is that in 2002 I was 33 and I took up running again after a four-year absence due to a ruptured disk that needed surgery to fix. When I began to run it became a real joy in my life. It was a mind over matter hobby that helped me to discover how far I could push my body and learn to listen to it at the same time.
During my running years, I knew already that my mother had Fibromyalgia and from there, her symptoms became something I learned about and talked with her about.
So in late 2003 at 34 years of age, I began to experience some painful realities. For instance, when I would sneeze I felt a powerfully strong wave of pain flush through my upper body. The kind of cringe-worthy pain that kept me stunned until several moments when it disappeared or until I sneezed again which was normal since I typically sneezed twice in a row. This sort of pain I kept to myself and I’m glad to say that I don’t experience this as much as I did early on.
As a runner, I felt like I could run for miles and feel the better for it physically and mentally. So in late 2003, my second set of symptoms came with great discouragement when on Monday I ran 11 miles with such satisfaction that I couldn’t wait to push myself further on Tuesday.
But on Tuesday I experienced a fatigue brand new to me. No pain and no stiffness that seemed foreign to me but the fatigue worried me. I could not even run a half-mile without having to turn back. This continued to be sort of a pattern with me at the time. As healthy as I was there should be no excuse for this fatigue.
I saw my doctor and we went over my symptoms and landed on depression, which was and has been a true struggle since my high school days. Possibly I’m not sleeping well enough and lack certain vitamins. But these symptoms are not typical with fibromyalgia even if I trace back to this timeframe as my onset.
It wasn’t until 2007 when I sat down with my mother and knowing full well what she was going through it really was quite easy for both of us to fully self-diagnose me with fibromyalgia. From there it took a few years to get a doctor to believe what I already knew.
So this is my brief version, there are many years of loss and pain that only people with chronic pain live with could possibly relate to.
In 2003 I started to have pain in the muscles of my legs. A doctor’s visit found nothing wrong. As time went on I started to feel pain in other muscles. Down my back, back of my arms, calves, and back of my neck. OTC pain relievers did nothing. Trip to the doctor got narcotics.
They did nothing. Tried muscle relaxers with no results. The pain kept getting steadily worse. The doctor finally me told there was nothing he could do for me. I asked if there might be a doctor anywhere that could help. He said he didn’t think so but he put me in the hospital for some tests.
After 5 days my pain lessened somewhat. He didn’t find anything wrong so I went back to work. Within 1 day my pain level was so high I had to leave work. Called my doctor in tears and begged for help. After saying he didn’t think my pain level was that bad, he recommended that I see a Rheumatologist.
That doctor asked if I had trouble sleeping. I told him I dreaded going to bed as I knew I would wake up feeling worse than when I went to sleep. I told him it felt like I had been run over by a train. He asked if I had any places that felt sore when they were touched. Yes, two on my shoulder.
He started running his hands down my back and pressing different spots. Each spot was extremely painful. He found 16 different spots that were painful. After asking me several more questions he asked if I had ever heard of fibromyalgia.
No, l said. He explained the symptoms to me and some were things I was going through but didn’t think were related to my pain. I was in tears when I left his office. I knew I could not live the rest of my life in severe pain. He offered no medication or treatment plan except to say try to stay as comfortable as possible.
I headed to the internet. At that time very little was known about fibromyalgia. The word means muscle pain. I lived 5 years in constant pain until I came across a pain reliever that gave me some relief. I went to my regular doctor because I was getting very depressed.
When I started taking the antidepressant, I found more relief. I have been on these two medications for 17 years and on most days my pain level is around 2 or 3. In winter I have more trouble and the rainy weather isn’t so good.
I am of the opinion that they still don’t know what it is or what causes it. The medications they advertise on TV have never worked for me or else had too many side effects. I can tell you if you find a medication or combination that works for you stay with it.
The mix of non-narcotic pain relievers and antidepressants is what works for me consistently. I have tried everything that is recommended for fibro and these are the only two that works for me.
Anyone that has fibromyalgia has my sympathy. Good luck. I found out I can stand a lot more pain than I thought even though I am more pain-sensitive.
Exercise helps break the chronic pain cycle associated with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) by improving fitness and functional levels, relieving physical and emotional stress, and boosting one’s confidence and self-esteem. While you probably have heard a lot about the benefits of aerobic exercise, you may be wondering about strength training. Women at risk of osteoporosis commonly hear about including strength training activities in an exercise program.
Should a person with fibromyalgia perform strength training activities? Is it safe? Will this type of exercise hurt you? In the following article, we will answer these commonly asked questions and describe how you can include basic strength training activities in your exercise regimen.
There are three important steps to take before beginning an exercise program.
First, let your doctor and other health care providers know about any change in what you are doing to manage your health—including exercise. While exercise has many physical, emotional, and social benefits, there may be health issues you need to address before starting an exercise program, such as unresolved foot pain or back pain. You may be directed to stay away from certain forms of exercise because of other health issues.
Second, an exercise program is most effective when you do it consistently. Decide on what you are going to do for exercise and where you will do it. If your exercise is not enjoyable or convenient, you probably will not do it regularly. Follow a basic program, like the one at the end of this article, or get the help of a knowledgeable professional—exercise physiologist, physical therapist, doctor, nurse—to formulate your exercise program.
Does it make sense for you to be outside or inside at this time of year? Do you like to exercise alone or with others? You can exercise at home, in a community center, or in a commercial fitness center. Once you decide what to do and where to do it, make a commitment to yourself to make time in your schedule to exercise. The more hectic your schedule, the more important it is to review your other commitments and plan your weekly exercise schedule. Consider the times of day and days of the week that works best for you.
Finally, anticipate that you may be a bit sore or uncomfortable at first, especially if you have not been physically active in recent months. You should not be in severe pain, however. If you experience severe pain, then you probably have done too much and started too fast. Listen to your body—learn to know the difference between your chronic fibromyalgia pain, the pain of overused muscles, and the acute pain of an injury; they are different.
One way to help judge your level of pain when exercising is to utilize a 0-10 numerical scale with zero signifying no pain, 5 moderate pain, and 10 the worst possible pain. In general, if your pain is 1-4, exercise as you planned; if the pain rates 5-7, cut back on the amount and intensity of exercise you do that day; if your pain is an 8 or 9, don’t do your regular exercise routine, but you may still be able to perform some gentle stretching and maybe go for a short walk, and if you are experiencing pain that is a 10 it is best if you do not exercise that day.
While fibromyalgia can be extremely painful, it is important to remember that you are not damaging your muscles and joints when you exercise appropriately. Making good judgments about how much to exercise takes time to learn, but is essential to your successful self-management. With practice, you can become your own exercise expert.
Recent research has demonstrated that strength training exercises, when done appropriately, can be safe and beneficial for individuals with FMS. Strength training exercises increase your muscle strength and can make daily activities, such as climbing stairs and carrying laundry, easier.
Stronger muscles use less effort to do work than weaker muscles. Some think that by using less effort, your muscles do not get as fatigued. For many years, when FMS was thought to be a disorder of the muscles, people believed that you might damage muscle if you exercised it too hard. Therefore, people with FMS were discouraged from doing strength training type exercises. Today, research demonstrates the safety and benefit of this important type of exercise for the person with FMS.
Strength training activities can be incorporated into your exercise regimen regardless of your level of experience or fitness. The strength training part of a program ideally should include one exercise for each of the major body areas (legs, chest, shoulders, back, arms, and abdominals). Strength training exercises should be done 2-3 times per week with at least one day of rest between workouts to allow muscles time to rest and recover.
Exercises can be performed with free weights, machines, stretchy bands, household items (e.g., soup cans), or the resistance of your own body. Exercises can use one or more of the above methods to provide resistance. There is no magic about how you provide resistance. The key is to perform the exercises correctly and regularly, so convenience should be considered when making your decision of what you will use for resistance.
When beginning a strength-training program for fibromyalgia, you should first learn and master the proper techniques for all exercises. You can learn proper techniques from a book, an introductory session with trained health or fitness professional, or by participating in a class where an instructor will keep a watchful eye on you while you learn with others. More guidance from a knowledgeable professional usually translates into faster learning.
A repetition of “rep” is the performance of an exercise one time, and a “set” is a sequence of repetitions of an exercise performed without prolonged rest. The number of repetitions and sets and the amount of resistance is how strength training exercise is quantified or measured. Begin with a level of resistance that allows you to perform eight repetitions “fairly easily.”
If you can comfortably lift the weight eight times (8 reps), it is safe to progress to 10 reps the next time you exercise. After you are comfortable with 10 reps, you can try to perform a set of 12 reps. When you can perform 12 reps of an exercise for two sessions in a row, you are ready to increase the weight/resistance slightly. When you increase the resistance, remember to reduce the number of reps to eight and repeat the process of gradually increasing the number of repetitions with the new resistance.
There are several important keys to remember while performing strength training exercises. Always use proper exercise techniques. Avoid “guarding” sore muscles when you perform an exercise. Contracting muscles around an aching body part leads to more tension and poor posture. Poor posture puts unnecessary stress on other body areas. Exercising with good body posture and technique will work the muscles in a balanced manner and reduce the chance of injury.
Breathing during the exercise is very important for keeping muscles relaxed, comfortable while exercising, and supplied with oxygen to do the work. To breathe properly during an exercise, inhale and exhale slowly as you perform the part of the movement that requires the greatest effort. As you return to the starting position of the movement, breathe in slowly and smoothly. An easy way to remember this is to “exhale on exertion,” and inhale on the less strenuous part of the movement. Remember, you should never hold your breath while performing an exercise.
Speed or the pace of a movement is also extremely important to your strength training program. In most strength training exercises there are two parts to each repetition. The first is the concentricor “positive” phase. The concentric phase is when the muscle you are exercising shortens while performing the exercise movement. An example is the biceps muscle, on the front of the upper arm, when you move your hand from your thigh to your shoulder.
The second part is the eccentricor “negative” phase of the movement where the muscle you are exercising lengthens while you return to the starting position of the exercise. The biceps muscle lengthens when the hand moves from the shoulder to the thigh. Strength training exercises should be performed to a count of two seconds for each of the concentric and eccentric parts of the exercise.
Our work over the past several years with the SELF-study (Self-management and Exercise for Living with Fibromyalgia) has shown that shortening the eccentric phase can help decrease muscle soreness in people with FMS when beginning a strength training program.
Strength training exercise has many health benefits for people of all ages. While people with FMS have often been discouraged from performing strength training exercises in the past, evidence today suggests that when performed appropriately, strength training can be an enjoyable and beneficial part of a balanced exercise program. As with any new type of physical activity, it is important to start and progress slowly to allow your body time to learn the exercise and safely adapt to the level of effort.
Recently I was looking at my social media accounts I came across accounts that I had chosen to hide either my content from. As I looked down the list I realized that many of those people were people that I knew for a significant amount of time in my life.
Most were people I had either worked with somewhere along the line since Nursing School Graduation, or I went to high school or college with. These were people who were a significant part of my life at one point or another. Not people who were trolls or people from my past that I didn’t want to think about again.
But as I sat and thought about it I couldn’t find a reason that any of them would have been on the hidden list. The more I thought about it I came to the realization that I must have hidden my posts because I didn’t want them to see my life or my journey.
But why? I spent a LOT of time thinking about this the next couple of days and the more I thought about it I realized that I had done it because I was embarrassed by what my life had become.
The people who knew me 10 or 15 years ago probably don’t know that I am no longer working in my chosen field. That my marriage didn’t work out, that is a whole story for a different day. Or that I am not living my best life with kids, a husband, and my dream job.
While I know most people are living their exact ideal life. Sometimes I still struggle with the path my life has taken. I know there are always going to be things that we want to change. But my life is FAR from what I ever imagined.
That being said, this is NO REASON to be embarrassed though. The things that have made such a change were nothing I did. Or bad decisions I made, for the most part anyway. A person can’t change their genetics. Or honestly in many cases like mine the hand they were dealt. So, what? I may not be at a patient’s bedside twelve hours a day.
Or working to teach future nurses. But I am still making a difference. I may not be calling Drs or drawing blood. But I am still touching people’s lives. Is it the way that I planned? Hell NO! But I have adjusted and found ways to share my knowledge and provide support in other ways.
Disability has a way of changing a person and their outlook on life. The things that once seemed so important no longer rank in the top five of the things we worry about. That isn’t a bad thing though. The version of me that was once embarrassed to let people from my past knew the person who I have become doesn’t exist anymore.
That person has learned to hold her head up high and be proud of the things she has accomplished. To be proud of the life she has built despite the truly crappy hand she has been dealt. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what any of those people think of me. Whether they knew the person I once was or the person that I am now. The only thing that really matters is how I feel about myself.
That is what should matter the most to all of us. The opinion of the eyes looking out. Not the eyes looking in. Paths change and so do people, and that’s okay. But we never should be ashamed or embarrassed about the person we became because of an illness.
Fibromyalgia takes so much away, but it shouldn’t take that. It changes our paths, our hopes, and our dreams. It changes how we look at life as a whole. But it should never change the way we look at ourselves. We all deserve to hold our heads up HIGH and be proud of the badass WARRIORS we have become.
“Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Objective Medical Evidence Requirements …” was the subject of a memorandum from Social Security Deputy Commissioner, Susan M. Daniels, Ph. D., (“the Deputy Commissioner”) to a Social Security administrative law judge (ALJ) in May 1998. This memo has been widely circulated.
The memo was in response to memoranda from the ALJ to the Deputy Commissioner, to an appeal judge, and to the general counsel for Social Security. The ALJ asserted that fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are not “medically determinable impairments” under the Social Security Act and urged the Social Security Administration (SSA) to take a definitive position on this question.
The Deputy Commissioner responded that SSA had taken a position: that fibromyalgia and CFS can be medically determinable impairments under the statute.
She explained that a specific diagnosis is not necessary to prove a medically determinable impairment, especially where the medical community has not yet agreed on the diagnostic criteria. If there are anatomical, physiological, or psychological abnormalities that can be objectively observed and reported apart from the claimant’s perceptions, a medically determinable impairment is shown even in the absence of a definitive diagnosis.
The “signs and the findings” required to prove the disability may include symptoms when appropriately reported by a physician or psychologist in a clinical setting.
CFS is “clinically evaluated, persistent or relapsing chronic fatigue that is of new or definite onset which cannot be explained by another diagnosed physical or mental disorder, or by the result of ongoing exertion” and which “is not substantially alleviated by rest and results in a substantial reduction in previous levels of occupational, educational, social, or personal activities.” It is a systemic disorder whose symptoms and signs may vary in incidence, duration, and severity.
Records reflecting ongoing medical assessment and treatment are needed to document objective physical and/or mental findings. SSA will recognize a medically determinable impairment if the records for at least six consecutive months show one or more of the following:
muscle wasting with no other direct cause identified.
While there are no specific laboratory findings that definitively document the presence of CFS, findings indicating chronic immune system activation, such as slight elevations in immune complexes, depressed natural killer cell activity, or atypical lymphocytes, may also be included in the evidentiary record of individuals alleging CFS.
Some CFS sufferers report problems with short-term memory, comprehension, concentration, speech, and/or calculation. Others may exhibit signs of mental or emotional disorders such as anxiety or depression. When documented by mental status examination and/or psychological testing, these findings mark the presence of a medically determinable impairment.
So, when your patient reports disabling fatigue, your thorough examination – at least looking for the signs noted above, scheduling follow-up visits to monitor persistence, referral (as needed), and comprehensive chart notes on your observations, even if a definitive diagnosis is not possible, will provide the medical documentation needed should this condition become so impairing as to force your patient to apply for Social Security disability benefits.
Your documentation is critical since symptoms alone cannot be the basis for finding a medically determinable impairment, which is necessary to prove disability under Social Security law.
The SSA recognizes fibromyalgia as medically determined if the tender points identified by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) are documented.
The ACR defines fibromyalgia as “widespread pain in all four quadrants of the body for a minimum duration of 3 months … in at least 11 of the 18 specified tender points which cluster around the neck and shoulder, chest, hip, knee, and elbow regions.”
Other typical symptoms which may help prove fibromyalgia if clinically documented over time are irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headaches, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, sleep disorder, severe fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction.
The Deputy Commissioner acknowledged that policies concerning the adjudication of claims involving impairments like fibromyalgia and CFS needed to be better explained and that policy guidelines were being drafted for that purpose.
We have noticed that fibromyalgia has been the subject of increasing numbers of articles in medical journals in recent years, including several by Robert M. Bennett, M.D., F.R.C.P., Professor of Medicine and Chairman, Division of Arthritis, and Rheumatic Diseases, Oregon Health Sciences University.
Recently, a victim of CFS represented by our office had to appeal her Social Security claim all the way to the Federal District Court. There, the Federal judge not only ordered that she be declared disabled and awarded benefits but also penalized the Commissioner of Social Security for unreasonably denying her claim. Our client’s medical record included the types of documentation described in the Deputy Commissioner’s memo.
The absence of definitive diagnostic criteria and the absence of the usual objective and observable findings make these conditions difficult and frustrating for physicians to identify. However, Social Security will evaluate these on an individual basis. Severe cases of fibromyalgia and CFS cannot just be rejected solely for lack of traditional objective findings.
We hope you find this summary useful as you record your observations, so your patients who qualify for Social Security disability may present the necessary medical documentation. The case study belongs to Social Security Disability Lawyer Articles.
We experience hundreds, thousands and hundreds of tiny movements every day in our everyday lives. We probably don’t even think about most of that. We have natural instincts and reflexes. We have tasks and tasks every day. We’re working, we’re playing, we’re training. We are breathing in, we are exhaling. Even before we get out of bed we wake up in the morning and spend another day facing. In the night (or in the middle of the day, because we sleep wonderfully). We’re dreaming, we are rummaging, we are drooling. As a human being we tend to be very self-evident.
Some people face a much bigger challenge in these small, tiny tasks. People who have chronic pain face daily problems that can be seen as natural and second nature by other people. A simple act like sleeping can be torturous for someone with chronic pain. Sleeplessness, not able to be somewhat comfortable. Furiousness and frustration. The exhaustion of the physics, mind and emotion. It can be life or death for someone suffering from chronic pain the morning that some people find happy and refreshing. Whether it provides temporary relief or throws muscles into a bigger spasm is unknown.
Simple, necessary tasks are becoming stressful and complicated. For example, you have to shower and wash your hair. This is usually relatively fast and easy. However, due to slow, meticulous movements for other people it can take two or three times as long to try to minimize pain. Slowly shampooing, before taking a break. For women, shaving your legs (or men, this is the year 2019, I don’t judge) can feel like you are an eight-leg shaving pulser instead of 2. Blow drying and hair styling is another daunting job after showering. Sometimes (all right, most of the time) you sit in a towel for one hour on your bed, trying to get the power and the mind to continue. It might just be easier to shave your head some days, honestly.
We live in a world of shopping online, but there are still grocery stores and orders. Some people love (or love) food shopping (like me). Walk around the shop, check out sales, decide what to eat for the week and, above all, people who watch make Sunday morning fun. Finding unforeseen treatments and surprises. The surprises here are the rapid appearance of pain and the feeling of having a nap on the center of the cereal aisle. You have to take the groceries to your house once shopping is done and you finally make it home.
Yikes. As if it wasn’t enough to drag you to the checkout? Some of us were one tripper (and always tried to be). Load your arms like a pack mule and refuse to return to the car for a second time. Well, the smartest idea is not when chronic pain is mediocre at best. One trip, turns into two trips, turns into three trips, turns into “What I want, I’ll just take one after the other out the cans of Seltzer.” (I’m not known for my clever thoughts…).
Cleaning. Oof. We all need a clean house and enjoy it, right? Clean clothes and clean? I’m living alone myself, so every job and care for my overall well-being is over me. I always enjoy standing up on a Saturday morning, coffeeing a French press, sprinkling music and cleaning my apartment and washing laundry. This is not very pleasant with chronic pain. I have “good” days (a good day is a day when my pain is at 6-8 instead of a constant 10). Many people with chronic pain are not so fortunate, and none of these days are acknowledged to me. Rather than clean it all in a single day, I do my best to keep my friends or family away. One room, and one object at a time, I do it.
The bathroom, for instance. Take a break, I’m going to clean the toilet. Take a break, purify the sink. Take a break, clean the shower. Take a nap, Sweep and Swiffer. This goes from one room to another. I barely make it across a room for many days. My poor cat. A simple litter box scoop can destroy my arms and back completely. Poor thing has been dealing with a full box for many days, but bless her little heart never got stuffed on the floor (all of them knocking in the wood now, please. Thank you!).
It is a PROCESS; my washing room is in the basement. Fill my basket, carry it, bend down to the laundry, return to my apartment. Go back to the cellar and bend down to a dryer and go upstairs. And finally, one last trip back to my apartment to load the basket up and return. Really, all that happens is a load of washing one day. And if you think it will be folded and packed in 10-14 working days you will joke. Other simple stuff that I, and others with chronic pain, fight with cans, and bottles (the day I fought to crack open a cold beer after a long day was a sad, sad day.) Day after day, tying shoes, putting your hair in the middle, I’ll admit it was mid-March and all my festivals, including the artificial tree, are still up. Dinner for cooking is a trip. From planning, preparation, execution to food. It is exhausting to stand, to stir and to pivot. Dishes, if you have no washing machine? Ha. Hey. That same day won’t happen. It’s awkward because it’s frustrating.
Probably now you can see the trend. Do not be patient or understanding if you don’t suffer from chronic pain. Don’t give up if you have chronic pain. Don’t get on yourself. Don’t get on yourself. You are not alone.
