I am quite a humorous person and not really that old, ok I have a few grey hares but still I do not except that people stand up for me or feel sorry for me. It is just that my body is refusing to work with me. This means that I have to stop working for a while and that is even more painful for me. The frustrating part is that giving a diagnose is not that easy. I checked on several sites and forums and my goodness there are a lot of sad stories (for some it took more than 4 years to find a suitable diagnose.)
The following parts I found on the internet and now me and the doctors have to pick one of the diagnoses or what ?
Fibromyalgia is considered to be a syndrome—a set of symptoms that occur together but do not have a known cause. There are theories as to what may cause it, but there is not enough evidence to support any single theory. People—especially women—who have a family member with fibromyalgia are more likely to develop it themselves. It has been recognized as a medical disorder only since the 1980s.
Some theories suggest that fibromyalgia may be linked to:
• Oversensitive nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain. Oversensitivity may be due to changes in chemicals in the brain or spinal cord that regulate pain. As a result, the person senses pain more easily, and widespread muscle pain occurs.
• An imbalance in the brain chemicals that control mood, which results in a lowered tolerance for pain and may also cause an unrestful sleep cycle and fatigue. Once this happens, a person becomes less physically active, and the muscles and tissues become more sensitive and painful and more easily irritated.
• An imbalance of hormones such as cortisol and growth hormone. Their release is controlled by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. Imbalances of these hormones can result in fatigue, mood changes, concentration and memory difficulties, a lowered tolerance for pain, and other symptoms.
• A disturbance in the deep phase of sleep. Some chemicals, such as growth hormone, are secreted by the body during this phase of sleep. If sleep is disrupted, the body produces less of the hormone. Disturbed sleep may be both a cause and an effect of the pain of fibromyalgia.
Many people connect the beginning of their fibromyalgia symptoms to a certain event. These events can include an illness such as the flu, an injury or surgery, or emotional trauma and stress. An event of this type combined with other factors, such as increased sensitivity to pain and an ongoing sleep disturbance, may lead to fibromyalgia syndrome in some people.
Or is it Lyme disease?
Lyme Disease Symptoms
• The initial infection can occur with minimal or no symptoms. But many people experience a flulike primary illness or a characteristic rash several days to a few weeks following a tick bite.
• The flulike illness usually occurs in the warm weather months when flu (influenza) does not occur.
• The rash is a red rash that grows in size daily. It is called erythema migrans.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines this rash as a skin lesion that typically begins as a red spot and expands over a period of days to weeks to form a large round lesion, at least 5 cm (about 2 inches) across. A red circular spot which begins within hours and is smaller is usually a reaction to the tick bite.
When the rash occurs at the site of the tick bite, it is called a primary lesion. Multiple secondary lesions can occur that are a reaction to the infection and are not due to multiple tick bites. All of these lesions can grow up to the to the size of a football. This growing in size is characteristic of Lyme disease.
• Left untreated, symptoms of the primary illness usually will go away on their own within a few weeks although the rash may reoccur.
• Later, additional symptoms may occur. The organs affected later may lead to the following conditions:
Facial palsy is paralysis of the facial nerve that causes the facial muscles to be uneven (This may get better without treatment.)
Nerve inflammation causes numbness and tingling in the arms or legs
Intermittent episodes of arthritis last about a week and usually involve the knee or wrist. These may recur over periods of weeks to months, and if the Lyme disease remains untreated, about 10% of people who have these episodes develop persistent arthritis in the knee. Occasionally, people with Lyme disease can present with an acute arthritis in the knee without a clear history of a rash or other joint complaints.
Inflammation of the heart (carditis) results in irregularities in heart rhythm.
I am all at sea ......................... lalalala, long live the painkillers.
All in all I am fitting nearly in both pictures, is there anybody that is not a 100% sure of what it is. But it is time to hurry with at least a treatment.
The Old Sailor,
