expat64

hi, I've been watching this board for a long time and I finally want to join in. 2 years ago I was finally diagnosed with Fibro after many doctors thinking i was nuts or just a hypocondriac. These were the GP's. All the specialists said Fibro without a doubt. Plus I had a brain MRI from my GP who has a fibro clinic, for he says every new fibro patient he gets he gives them MRI's and about 80% of them have the white matter lesions that look like MS. So, I was told to wait a year and get another MRI to see if they were still there or what, so a month ago my wonderful Pain Managment doctor had me go in for an MRI, and it showed more lesions and it's getting worse, so I went to a neurologist who doesn't believe in Fibro and pain meds, and after 30 minutes of having to defend myself for why i'm on pain meds (opiates), he finally did further testing, tons, i think i have an appt with about 7 specialists from cardio down to gasto to dietician in the next 2 months, and i guess i failed on of the MS tests for my optic nerve, i noticed my sight has been fuzzy but i just turned 41 and i thought that was it. So, now i'm being told it might be MS and fibro, since something causes fibro either an illness in your life or an accident, nobody knows, but i could have the fibro from MS, then my sister had a baby, the first child in our famly in 40 years since everyone in our family has been through infertility with bad endo and misscarriages, she finally has a baby and it was born sick with myotonic muscular dystrophy which is 100% hereditory then she got tested and she has it at 36, it's adult onset MD which is a muscle disease so now they're thinking i might have had that all the time, my mom has fibro too. so, i'm so stressed out with fibro, and maybe it's MS or MD. argg!!!!! All i know is I hurt terribly. And without a pain managment doctor i couldn't have any quality to my life, i can't suffer and limp around like an old woman at 41, i won't so after the neruologist last year wouldn't give me meds i tried everything under the sun then resorted to pain managment. GP's don't have a clue, they give you percocet with all that tylenol and it's toxic at the levels I need, so i'm glad and feel safe that i'm with a professional specialist in pain, i highly recommend it, even if you don't take that much they monitor me so much that i know i won't have problems with it. It's just like millions of people can drink wine with dinner and not become alcoholics. chronic pain patients have a low chance of becoming addicted, but you do have physical withdraws which aren't fun if you miss your dose for some reason. Anyway, I'm reading all of these messages on this board from months ago too, and notice a lot of you don't go this route and i'm wondering why? is it because doctor won't help you or personal choice? I finally realized that I had a right to pain managment and i am the oe that hires my doctors so i can fire them too and hire someone who will help me. it took me 40 years to realize that!! I thought if my doctor said no, that that was it. I kinldly reminded my GP after research on the american medical association's website of something called, "informed concent" meaning if i am diagnosed with something they have to tell me all the treatments they know of for the disease even if they don't treat it, and it's MY choice what treatment plan I pick. Key word is I pick, not them. So, I'm with the best doctors now who are kind and help me, believe me, they're not pushovers, they're very strict, but that's good that's why I feel safe with them. My mom takes percocet but only maybe one or two days a week, where I am miserable hourly, it's horrible and I need much more, so I'm guessing there must be different feelings with us all physically or does some get it worse than others? Maybe i do have MS,and my CNS is all messed up and I feel it more, who know.....anyway, thanks for listening to my story, and I hope to get to know you and we can all get throught this together!! btw, winter just hit here in Arizona, and boy, every time the temp changes i must age 50 years!!
nice to meet you!!