Chronic Illness or Age Related

I was 46 when I was diagnosed with Long Covid and 49 when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Suffice it to say, I heard, "You're just getting old. Get over it. Everyone goes through that," a lot. When I told people, you don't understand, I literally lost my near vision overnight. The replies were, "Yeah, it felt like that with me as well."

"No, you don't understand. LITERALLY! OVERNIGHT!" I don't use the term literally loosely. I use it like it is supposed to be used. I had a lot of problems with my eyes when I had Covid. Then about two months after having it, I was reading a book. I put the book down to go to bed one night and when I woke up, I couldn't read. I freaked out; I thought I was having a stroke. Someone handed me a pair of reading glasses and I could read again. "Ah, you're just getting old." The problem was this wasn't the only problem I had with my eyes and I could read fine the day before. Off I went to an ophthamologist. He checked me for macular degeneration, glaucoma, and a million other eye diseases. I was diagnosed with premature cataracts, severe dry eye, and long covid syndrome. He verified that I had classic symptoms of damage to my eye from Covid and that Covid had indeed done damage to my eyes. It would likely continue to damage my eyes, but he did not feel it would cause me blindness. I felt better, because regardless of what all of my non-eye-doctor family and friends were telling me, I knew the blurry vision, the new floaters, the wavy lines, and the sudden visions changes were in fact not due to my age.

I started having problems maintaining homeostasis. Which means my body was having trouble maintaining normal balance. I couldn't maintain normal body temperature, norma pH. My body temp was all over the place, my blood pressure was all over the place, I was always nauseas and/or couldn't eat. My gynecologist ran hormone levels to see where I might be with my hormones. My hormones showed I was nowhere near menopause. Which sucks because I got my period really early and I am physically unable to have children. I get to have my period for 40+ years and don't even get the joy of children. So that's really cool. She said my temperature fluctuations didn't sound like normal hot flashes anyway. She felt that they were more neuro related. Some members of my family apparently still refuse to either believe that I have Fibrovid or that it exists. And called bullshit on the whole thing. Apparently menopause starts at 50. You don't need a test or doctors to tell you that. If you are 50, you are in menopause. Whatever. How do you tell me you have no respect for me without saying you have no respect for me? Disregard my disease completely. Ding ding ding.

When I was sixteen I was in a bad car accident. It messed up my neck pretty bad, knocking the C curve right out of it. My Cervical spine is straight as an arrow and a few vertebrae used to be out of alignment causing me pain and numbness. They were adjusted back into alignment by a chiropractor but I never did get the curvature back. Add that to 25 years of wrestling large dogs on the floor and I end up with a diagnosis of severe degenerative disc disease in L3-L5, C3, and moderate degenerative disc disease in my thoracic region. I was diagnosed with that in my late thirties. Now, I have fibromyalgia. I first heard of Fibromyalgia over thirty years ago. A family friend had it. I didn't know anything at all about it then, and I didn't know anything about it when I first got diagnosed. I thought it meant chronic widespread pain. I rarely tell people I hurt when they ask if I am in pain. Mostly, because the answer is I want to say is, "of course I am in fucking pain. I'm always in fucking pain." They would get sick of hearing it. The other reason is because when I say I am in pain. The response is usually met with a me too, that's part of getting old, it's probably just arthritis. "Yeah, I have arthritis as well. I can tell when it's my arthritis vs. my back vs. my fibro, but thank you for trying to explain my pain to me."

But fibrovid is so much more than that. The inside of my body hums, my hands and fingers go numb. I have brain fog, chronic migraines, memory loss. Vestibular problems, dysautonomia, dysphagia, anxiety, depression, ear pain, hypnopompic hallucinations (hallucinations when I wake up). extreme exhaustion. Oh that's always a good one. I can never say I'm exhausted today. "oh yeah, I hear you. I didn't sleep much either." Listen, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you can't complain about not feeling well. When Willy isn't feeling well, if his back is hurting. I don't care how bad my back hurts, I won't say a goddamn thing about it. Because everything on me hurts all the time and if his back hurts I keep my trap shut! But what I take issue with is, If I say something is bothering me, it's pretty bad, don't dismiss it. Ask me about it. I am trying to engage with you. Don't compare it you. You wouldn't like it if I did that to you would you? The list goes on. I have run out of energy to complete the list of symptoms that go along with Fibrovid, or Fibromyalgia, or Long Covid. Even though multiple doctors have agreed that I most definitely have Long Covid and Fibromyalgia. Not a single one has ever once explained what Fibromyalgia is, how it affects the body, or the symptoms that go along with it besides pain. My neurologist likes to "stay in his lane" but will offer vitamin supplement suggestions for brain fog (Vitamin E) and muscle pain (Magnesium), and he was the one that prescribed the only medication that helped with the nerve pain that didn't cause severe mental side effects so he's my best buddy. My rheumatologist and her nurse practitioner "who's been specializing in fibromyalgia for 20+ years" likes to throw prescription drugs on me and has yet to ask about anything other than pain. So, I have stopped going there. If you stick with me, you will eventually learn why, and you'll just how much more there is to fibromyalgia there is than just pain.