25 years with Fibro and what I've learnt

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Not long after the birth of my first child when I was 20, I started to have a lot of pain behind my left shoulder blade. This pain slowly spread up my neck, across my back and then all over. I went to test after test. I was sent to physios, chiros, scans, blood tests, x-rays and eventually I think they just thought I was hypochondriac. I was always tired and had IBS symptoms and got very depressed. I felt like a lazy useless human being. I was also basically told that I was just that.
 
I worked a few jobs part time and I would have nothing left to give at home. After my second child I became single again and needed to get work to give us some sort of decent life. I also wanted my children to see me working. This was hard on them as I didn't have the energy to do everything when I got home. The house was often a shambles and we often had take out for dinner. They had to do so much more than their friends did. I felt so guilty.
 
I ended up working full time and an hour away from home, this was where it all went pair shaped. I was running myself into the ground. I hurt all the time. All my sick and holiday leave was used up when I had to have days off, which sadly was often. I was good at my job but they struggled to understand all of the leave I needed to take. So did I. This made my anxiety worse and also made my depression worse.
 
Then it happened. I had a melt down. I didn't want to leave the house. A relative made me go back to the doctors. I went to a new one. He started testing me again. Turned out that at that time, I had Glandular fever. But fortunately he didn't stop there. He decided after hearing all of my history he would send me to get tests again and got my medical records. By this time I'd had the symptoms for about 13 years. He referred me to a Rheumy and I was finally diagnosed. So I had glandular fever and Fibro... I was sleeping 18 hours a day and barely able to function. With time the glandular fever improved and I was able to go back to work part time. Over the next couple of years I slowly increased my hours. and then for the last 7 years I was working full time again. It wasn't easy, I still have heaps of time off due to this condition and hadn't had a real holiday in years. The kids are older so that part was easier but the home was still a write off as I still had nothing left in me to do the house work.
 
Oct 2015: In the last 8 months, so many things have changed. I nearly lost my mum several times at the beginning of the year. (I lost my father to suicide 6 years ago (2009)) I was drinking quite heavily due to how hard things were (self medicating) as I found it too hard to convince the new doctors (I moved) to help me with the pain. As all Fibro sufferers are aware, we are treated like junkies. So I drank wine, chewed Mersyndol up 3 or 4 at a time and took phenergan to hopefully get some sleep and relief and I also smoked pot (not great for the lungs). I put on heaps of weight and I was very unhealthy and very miserable.
 
When my mum got sick and nearly died, she asked me to stop drinking, I scoffed at the idea. She couldn't understand my pain, however deep down, with her asking me to do it (and having to stop for a week before a medical procedure) changed something. After the procedure and those words from mum played on my mind. I noticed after not drinking for a week that I wasn't as anxious. I stopped drinking unless I was out for a special occasion (which wasn't often as I was always tired). I had always avoided social activity because I would most likely cancel anyway due to how I was feeling. I noticed within a short time of not drinking, that I wasn't as highly strung, I didn't crave sweet drinks or heavy foods, all of a sudden it was like my body was taking over and telling me what to eat and drink and I wanted fruit, Mandarins to be exact. I ate kilos of them. I only drank water or tea without milk. I wanted fresh food not processed food. I started to lose weight. I also went back to 4 days a week so that my body could rest mid week. My meal size naturally decreased on it's own.
 
I also stopped taking multi vitamins and started to take bioactive b12 and folate (look up MFTHR). I now take Coq10 (which had helped a little in the past but for some reason I stopped) I'm also taking a pro-biotic. Now don't think I'm this crazy health freak, I still have thee occasional KFC foldit or butter chicken, however I sometimes feel the affects of those choices. I really cannot do things with a lot of sugar though. That keeps me up at night, makes me feel ill and my skin breaks out almost immediately. Funny enough though, my body makes it easier to NOT have them as I don't want to feel the way it makes me feel. I've also recently stopped smoking pot for the pain (this has increased my pain but I was over the effects on my lungs) I treat myself to nights out at a place where they make quality cocktails that have heaps of fresh fruit especially lemon juice and I don't have any bad side effects from it. I'm now working out that it's about good quality, unprocessed food. In 8 months I have lost 23 kgs and I'm still losing it. I have more energy (but still have to be careful not to over do it) Sadly, I cannot report that the pain is gone, in fact it's possibly worse but my capacity to cope is greatly improved. Maybe I will still improve with time, as I'm sure that I'm still detoxing and that will take quite a while. (all those those toxins stored in my fat have to go somewhere right?)
 
Oh, I also eat anything up to 100gms of dark chocolate a day... yup, chocolate and losing weight!!! The chocolate needs to be good quality and they don't add a lot of sugar to it :)
 
It has been a tough 25 years but I believe it's slightly easier now that I'm letting my body tell me what to do instead of the symptoms.