roses4lace

Have you tried a chiropractor and massage? Sometimes I get a severe pain in my left shoulder blade, but never in my right shoulder blade. I know it's from how I sleep. The chiropractor can usually relieve the pain. Right now, the back of my neck on the left side has a sharp pain, my entire neck feels tense and tight, my mid back hurts, and my arm muscles are "tired". I don't have much brain fog right now, but don't ask me to do anything complex or with multi-steps. The muscles on top of my shoulders feel like hard knots and are painful.

Here are some of the ways my pain occurs, it's a mixture of fibromyalgia and other things, with varying degrees of severity at any given time:
1) pain in all my joints, knees, fingers, the bones in my fingers hurt, and my joints swell. I can barely lift my leg to walk up steps. My knees feel so unsteady, they feel like they will give way. I can't hold my hairbrush. A description would sound like arthritis.
2) My skin hurts, a slight bump feels like a hammer hit it, a washcloth feels like sandpaper. I had to stop allergy shots due to the pain. This is apparently a common fibromyalgia symptom.
3)My brain is foggy, I lose my executive functions, can't make decisions, have severe ADD. Can't make heads nor tails of a book.
4)The muscles in my arms and legs feel "tired" all the time, I am worn out from going up a single flight of stairs, like my muscles have been working all day.
5)depression, cry easily over small stresses and crowds, even waiting rooms
6)constant muscle spasms, always in my back, and sometimes in my calves and toes
7)the rheumatologist pushed on 18 points, and 14 of them hurt. Apparently that was something he used to diagnose the fibromyalgia.
8)nominal aphasia
9)all the anxiety and social difficulties that come with Asperger's Syndrome
10)hips, back, and neck constantly "out of alignment" with pinched nerves causing numbness and tingling, sore spots, and things not moving correctly, like my neck hurts really bad to turn my head to look behind when backing up. Headaches. When the hip is bad, I hobble around, and am constantly wiggling trying to get relief from the almost constant mid-back pain.
11)overall pain in my back, feels bruised (this is an allergic reaction to phenol, which is in canned foods)
12)sinus swelling, face swelling, eye swelling, stopped up nasal passages, stopped up ears, horrid painful gas, diarrhea, sore throat, lots of phlegm
13)constant itch from poison ivy circulating in my system and oozing out in various places since at least 1980 (I use Zanfel and benadryl gel to stop the itch)
14)osteoporosis
15)wake up tired, body doesn't move very well
16)poor memory all my life
17)TMJ which was never relieved since I was 18, so I created a habit of not letting my teeth touch

It is obvious that something has gone haywire with my immune system, but I'm not sure that anything can "fix" it, so we're focusing on relieving the symptoms and removing the substances that have become toxic to me right now.

I discovered gluten was creating the bulk of problems 1, 2, 3, and 5. I have two friends with fibromyalgia who also notice a decrease in pain when they avoid wheat/ gluten. My vitamin D was super low, and taking a mega-supplement prescribed by my doctor has helped with 4 and 5, and should help with 14. I see a chiropractor every week, which helps with 10, also he gave me a TENS unit which helps when I can't get to his office as quickly as needed. I'm sure massage would help my back, but insurance doesn't cover it. My ENT has me on allergy drops now (have been on and off shots for 30 years, and have had allergy problems since 1964). They help with 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, and 12.

I find time to be totally alone with no social contact for a day or two at a time, which helps with 5 and 9.

I don't know how others with fibromyalgia are, but I have so many symptoms, I don't know which one goes with which diagnosis! I just try to do whatever it takes to reduce my pain and stress level. My psychologist helps me cope with all the stress of constant pain and feeling overwhelmed with life. I don't normally feel the severe fatigue that others mention, mine is just a low energy level. I can keep moving, but slowly, and can last a long time if I pace myself.

My various doctors never talked to each other, to see me as a "whole". I recently got a referral to a new Internal Medicine doc, who specializes in "diagnosis and treatment of complex medical problems, including multi-system diseases". She discovered the vitamin D problem, and sent me to several new doctors to find/rule out various diagnoses. Hopefully, she can put all the pieces together and see the big picture.

I hope you find a doctor who can help you find relief for some of your symptoms.