No pain yesterday!

Woohoo! I had no noticeable pain yesterday! That's the first time in over a year! Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! I have been pretty much sticking to my strict diet. No onions, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, dairy, wheat, gluten, or bell peppers. Eating either veggies or fruit with each meal, drinking my greens shakes, taking my supplements, and exercising. For my cheats I have a handful of potato chips, half a can of Coke, a Icee Coke (my favorite!), or some gluten free cookies. I try to keep it limited to one cheat a day. I have been making lots of stirfrys, Gluten Free rice pasta salads with lots of diced up veggies in it, homemade chicken soup, and the other night I baked a huge turkey! I froze most of it in individual Ziploc bags for quick easy meals. I also made my first giblet soup. I put in a couple bags of frozen veggies, some celery, and some sea salt and boiled it all together with the giblets. It was yummy! But I couldn't get myself to actually eat the giblets...they looked like huge gonads! But the soup part was yummy over some brown rice :).

Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl!

Today my Baby Girl turns 4! I am so blessed to have been chosen by God to be her Mommy! As per our family tradition, I woke her up this morning singing "Happy Birthday" to her. She yawned and gave me a BIG smile and said "Yay! It's my birfffday!" We gave her our presents this morning. A HUGE Fisher Price Dollhouse complete with tons of little dolls, furniture, and accessories. Thank you Craigslist for saving me a bundle on this. I think I spent about $100 on all her gifts. I think the dollhouse itself would have been over $100 if I bought it brand new. I wasn't sure that she would really like it, but she has been playing with it all morning :). It's such a wonderful sound to hear her pretend play :). I love little girls giggly voices! Tonight she gets a little birthday cake and gets to open her package from my in-laws. Then in 2 weeks a party with all her friends at Pump It Up. Healthwise I have been feeling better everyday. Today is my first official day "Back to Normal" schedule. I dropped my son off at his charter school at 8am, came home and ran some laundry, walked/jogged on the treadmill for 30 minutes, played dollhouse with my daughter, ate breakfast, took my supplements, checked my emails, and am now blogging while I wait for the pool repair guy to fix our pool pump. In the last two weeks we have replaced our over the range microwave ($500), spent $350 for my Integrative Specialist appointments and all my supplements, and now the pool pump motor went out so out goes another $500. Thank goodness we got our tax refund last week! I can't complain though since we havent had to replace anything since we moved into this house 5 years ago. Both the pool pump and the microwave were 10 years old. I am still taking supplements to elevate my mood for minor depression (hello, with all I have gone through no wonder I get emotional), liver detox, greens drink (gotta get my fiber), Ceralin Forte to improve my mental brain neuron connectivity (I think we all need a little help in this area..lol!), Anti inflammatory, and now I have added back in Orthobiotic (a really good probiotic) and Omega 3 fish oil capsules. I swear I take a lot of capsules everyday! Let me count: 15 in the morning, 6 at lunch, 11 after dinner. BUT they help my body to heal and feel better so I guess I will have to suck it up (or rather suck them down) like a big girl. And it's not like I have to take them forever, just until my body can regulate and manage itself in a healthy manner. I also had an ultrasound done last week for my ovarian cyst. The one on the right side went from 6.8 cm down to 3.8 cm. But they found another one on my left side that is 2 cm in diameter. SO I will have another ultrasound done in 5 weeks to monitor them. In a couple of days I will also start taking an Iodine supplement to help heal the ovarian cysts. Things I am happy about today:
1) The Lakers won last night so are 3-1 in the first round of the playoff series against New Orleans. Yes we are Laker fans in this home!
2) It's my cute little girls 4th birthday today!
3) Taking my little girl to the GNI (Gluten Not Included) Bakery in Escondido for a birthday treat for lunch..yay!
4) Looking forward to taking my daughter to her friends M & T's birthday party at Build A Bear on Saturday.
5) I actually jogged a whole quarter of a lap on the treadmill today during my 30 minute workout. That's the farthest I have jogged in about 2 years! I have been walking between 1 and 2 miles about 5 days a week the last 2 weeks.
6) The sun is finally out! We had 2 weeks of overcast or rain all day. I am loving the sun and the warmth!

Have a good week everyone!

Day 17

Over the last week I have slowly been getting back to normal life. Which feels great! Tiresome, but great! I am about 90% back to normal. I have gotten on the treadmill to walk 4 of the last 7 days for at least 20 mins. Today I did 40 mins! It helped that I had a good book to read, James Patterson's "W". Finished reading that in less than a week. Then had to download "The Gift" onto my Nook so I can read what happens next in the series. The Nook is a great reading tool to have while on the treadmill. Instead of turning pages, I just press the screen to get to the next page. LOVE IT!

I am still having those weird brain tingly sensations throughout the day which still freak me out. But I haven't had a huge emotional outbreak in a few days so that's good. I have pretty good energy throughout the day, but still get tired around 5pm.

My fibromyalgia pain decided in the middle of last night to return :(. Not sure why...maybe the chicken broth I used in my soup? Maybe the return of cold, damp weather? I also got hit pretty bad with pain while we were at the beach on Sunday. It was sunny but windy and cold. We left after only an hour.

I am hoping this pain goes away soon. Today I am just pissed off at it and mentally ready to fight it. I was crying in bed this morning when WH left to drop of DD at preschool because of the pain. Then I just got plain pissed off at it. I was NOT going to let it ruin and take control over my whole day. I had things to do..mainly homeschool my son. So out of bed I went and put on my workout clothes. 40 minutes of walking and sweating on the treadmill. Take that Fibro pain! Now go the hell away! Unfortunately it's still lingering, but only a level 3 which is much better than the level 7 it was all night long!

Now off to Sports Authority to reward myself by buying a new Exercise Ball and some new workout clothes. Yay! I fit back into my size Medium workout clothes. Haven't even worn them in about 2 years. Between the 28 day cleanse I did in January and my opiate detox/getting back onto my mostly veggie diet, I have lost almost 10 lbs! Woohoo!

In the last week I have also gotten 2 1 1/2 hr massages and been to my chiropractor twice. Massage is really good for helping your body to release toxins and other yucky stuff that creates inflammation in your body. If you can afford it, you should definitely get a good massage once every other month. And the chiropractor helps by keeping your spine in alignment, which keeps your muscles and organs aligned in the right place thus helping them to work more efficiently. It also helps to relieve tension and stress in key areas like the neck and shoulders and lower back. And we all know tension and stress directly affects our Fibromyalgia pain. Thankfully WH's job offers insurance for chiropractic and acupunture care.

Things I am looking forward to doing this week:
1- finishing "The Gift" and reading what happens
2- taking my DD shopping for goody bag items for her upcoming birthday party
3- going grocery shopping with my best friend (we do our weekly grocery shopping together...mommy time + grocery shopping= fun times). Haven't felt up to grocery shopping in almost a month.
4- Easter celebrations at church on Saturday and get together with friends on Sunday for our annual Easter picnic.

What fun and positive things are you looking forward to doing this week? Let's keep focusing on the positive things to help get us through the pain. Would love to hear how my blogger friends are doing.

Sandra

What Works for Me

Here is what works to help keep my Fibro in check. I am allergic to the following: chocolate, dairy, casein, wheat, wheat gluten, eggs, tree nuts, shellfish, salmon, citrus fruit, and peanuts. Additional foods that I avoid: onions, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers. These along with wheat, dairy, and soy are natural inflammatories in the body and they trigger my Fibro pain. Google Anti Inflammatory Diet or Inflammatory Foods to get more information on it. I did the Elimination/Reintroduction process with all the Nightshade family of veggies to find out which ones triggered my pain. I see my Integrative Health Specialist every 2-3 months as needed. Integrative Specialists are trained MD's who are trained in Holistic Medicine. I see Dr. Roya Kohani in La Jolla, CA. She was trained by Dr. Andrew Weil. I see my Chiropractor about once a month to keep my spine aligned which reduces general body pain. She also practices Holistic Medicine. Her name is Dr. Jill Paisely in Poway, CA. I have been seeing her for almost 4 years now. She was the one who recommended Dr. Kohani to me. I take a bunch of supplements, herbs, and natural shakes prescribed to me by Dr.Kohani. When I stick to my diet religiously, my pain is minimal. When I derail from the diet, all pain he** breaks loose. Given all that I have been through in the last month, I have rededicated myself to eating the right way and sticking to my strict diet. It's a pain, it sucks, but I have to keep at it for my health. I have been mostly Fibro pain free for 9 days now.

Driving again...finally!

So it's been over 2 weeks since I drove with either of my kids in the van. I just didn't feel safe driving them around given my condition. In fact, in the last 2 weeks I have driven only twice. Both times just 3 blocks up the street to my chiropractors office. I felt strong enough to drive my 6yo son to my optometrist to pick up my new glasses and to stop at Target on the way home. Woohoo! Focused on something fun and positive..getting goody bag treats for my daughters upcoming 4th birthday party. And my son even cooperated (popcorn and an icee helped with this...lol!). An hour and a half later we are home and I am pooped, but at least I did it. I drove and got us home safely and got out of the house. Each day I am getting stronger and healthier. I still feel a bit disoriented and like have a fog covering my brain and still get the brain tingles every so often, but it is getting better. Emotionally I am feeling healthier too. Yesterday I did great until I crashed around 3pm emotionally. But after crying for an hour I was able to put on my Big Girl Panties and get up and focus on folding laundry while deep breathing. I figured if I was going to cry and be emotional, I may as well get some laundry done. So this morning I washed a few more loads of laundry in preparation for my late afternoon melt down :). More good news! I just ordered my daughters birthday cake. Since we both have several good allergies (hers being wheat and nuts), it is very difficult to find something simple like a birthday cake. It makes me sad when we go to her friends birthday parties and she is always left out when it comes to birthday cakes and cupcakes. So it is well worth the $70 for an allergy friendly 6 inch birthday cake that she can eat on her birthday that actually tastes yummy. It is $54 for the cake itself and $15 for delivery. The bakery is in Los Angeles and we live near San Diego, so having it delivered is totally worth it for us. If you are interested..check out Baby Cakes in either NYC or Los Angeles at www.babycakesnyc.com. They also have two cookbooks where they share some of their yummy recipes. They make by far THE best gluten free and allergy friendly birthday cake and FROSTING that my family has ever tasted! Now only if they would open up a location in San Diego :). We are getting a Vanilla/Lemon cake with yellow frosting..can't wait to try it! Off to walk on the treadmill and read my new James Patterson book.

Day 11

It's 12:27 pm and so far I am feeling much better than yesterday. Went to my chiropractor today to help relieve some back and neck pain. Then came home and felt like taking a nap but instead made myself get on the treadmill and walk. My goal was to walk for 10 minutes. I ended up walking for 25 minutes! Woohoo! The other day I went to see my Integrative Specialist. I was an emotional mess. She said I should try Lexapro for my anxiety and depression for a few weeks to elevate my mood. I tried it the other night and within an hour threw up my dinner. I was nauseated all of yesterday from it. No more Lexapro for me. I usually don't like taking meds and try to find natural ways to go about things, but I was so desperate to find something, anything that would help me feel better that I was willing to try it. WH didn't want me to try it and suggested that he take the next 2 weeks off from work so I could just let my body heal naturally and find some good supplements to help me out. Like I said I was desperate for help and thinking about suffering like I was for even one more day seemed like pure torture for me. But now after dealing with the nausea and vomiting from Lexapro, I am set again to go the natural route. It will be a longer journey back to health and feeling better, but I just gotta do it. Another positive thing I did today was read 4 chapters of my new James Patterson book. I LOVE reading and haven't even picked up a book or touched my Nook Color in about a month because I was feeling so miserable from the Percocet and Fibro pain and then the withdrawals. I also read a book to my little 4 yo. I haven't engaged in doing any activities with my kids for almost 2 weeks now. So reading her a little book felt great! Now since I have a little energy, I am going to get some laundry done! One day at a time, and count all the little positive things you do...they all add up!

My History Part 1

Now that my brain is a little more clear, I can give you a history of what I have been through with all my crazy medical issues. This will be a long post. WH and I were married in 2001. I already knew that my menstrual cycles weren't quite right. I was right. After almost 2 years, I still wasn't pregnant. My OB said I had "unexplained infertility". All of my hormones were "normal" and he was scratching his head and didn't know why I couldn't get pregnant. I tried one round of Clomid. I felt like I was going to rip off my co-workers head for no reason the day after I started the Clomid. Never tried it again. In 2003, I got pregnant the all natural way. Unfortunately I miscarried our first son at 14 weeks gestation due to a 14+cm degenerating uterine fibroid (it was so big they couldn't accurately measure it by ultrasound). I ended up in the ER 3 times in dire pain. On the 4th trip is when I finally miscarried my son. Then there were 2 more trips to the ER after the miscarriage still in dire pain. That was my first real experience taking opiates for pain. During those few weeks I took Darvocet while I was still pregnant, Vicodin the day after my miscarriage, and then Morphine the next few days because the Vicodin didn't even touch the pain I was in after the miscarriage. Six months later (and 6 months of being on Depot Lupron to shrink the fibroid), I had my first open abdominal myomectomy. That was my first major surgery. I was in so much pain afterwards that I couldn't stand up straight for almost 2 months without being on a double dose of Vicodin. I remember sitting in the hot sun during our MBA graduation ceremony in May and feeling so much pain and nausea that I thought I was going to pass out during the ceremony (WH and I started and finished our MBA school together in 18 months). In 2005 we were blessed with the adoption of our son. Things were great, except I started to have the familiar abdominal pressure that I knew too well to be uterine fibroids. Two months after our son was placed with us, I endured another open abdominal myomectomy. Recovery this time was much faster. I think I only took Vicodin for a couple of weeks afterward. All was good for a few months. Then when my son turned 1, I felt like the world was caving in on me. I had started taking Yasmin birth control pills the month before to help prevent more fibroids from forming (at least that's my OB said). I literally could not get out of bed, wasn't sleeping, couldn't sleep, and felt anxious and paranoid all the time. After 3 months, I stopped taking the BCP. My general Dr at the time literally told me that everything was normal and that I was crazy and needed to see a psychiatrist because all my symptoms were in my head. Needless to say I never saw her again. I cried a lot and prayed a lot. Three months later God brought me the help I needed. I found my Naturopath. She was totally a Godsend. I sent over my recent test results and she immediately said that even though my Thyroid and Adrenal levels were in the "normal" medical range, she knew that they were very low FOR MY BODY. After 6 months of taking the natural herbs and supplements she gave me, I felt healthy again. I had tons of energy, was back at the gym working out, and was sleeping through the night with no problems. To be continued a little later...trust me there is more.

Day 8

This morning was terrible! I was an emotional wreck! Crying, nauseated, and more crying. BUT I did do three things successfully today. 1- went with the family for a short hike up a moderate hill. Felt like Sh** the whole time and felt light headed on the walk down from the exercise, but I made it! 2- cut my WH's hair this afternoon. The boys in our house get basic buzz cuts every few weeks from the $25 hair cutting kit I bought from Target a couple years ago after my son kept cutting his own hair and I kept having to pay out $20 to the barber to fix it. Mommy said "Forget this. Why am I paying someone else to buzz off all his hair when I can do it myself at home." 3- Flushed all my left over Vicodin, Percocet, Tylenol with Codeine, and Ambien down the toilet. I have been taking Ambien the last week to help me sleep at night during my withdrawals from the opiates. But WH is very good at tracking all my symptoms and he asked me this morning if I had any idea why I was much more emotional during the morning hours and felt better in the afternoons. So when my head cleared out a bit about an hour, I googled Ambien side effects and read through countless personal stories of people who were addicted to Ambien. Holy Cow! Like I need my body to become addicted to another drug! And many of the people said that Ambien made them depressed and very emotional...hello..ding ding ding! That's me! Hopefully this is what was causing most of my depressive states over the last week. And hopefully I will be able to sleep well in a few days using the all natural supplements that I have that encourage natural serotonin levels and my depressive states will stop and my emotions will return to normal. I kept wondering why it was taking me soooooo long to go through the opiate withdrawals. WH did some research for me the other night and said that from what he read, most people going throug opiate withdrawals start to feel better within 7-14 days. I figured that since I wasn't on them much for a long time, my withdrawal symptoms wouldn't last so long. And I kept wondering why I was getting so depressed and panicky. So, down the toilet it all went. Kind of empowering to finally do something productive. Also very scary to know that I don't have any backup in case my Fibro pain flares up so much that I can't walk. But like I have told many of my friends, "sometimes you just have to jump". You can research and pray about things until you are blue in the face (I am a total believer in Faith, God and Jesus Christ), but even God says that you must also ACT. Which in some cases that means you have to jump in faith even when it's scary. So I am JUMPING! Please keep praying for me and my family.

Day 7

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I didn't start uncontrollably crying until about 4pm. A vast improvement from 2 days ago when I cried all day long. I actually felt good enough to clean up my room. Then I crashed emotionally at 4pm. Last night was the first time I didn't wake up in the middle of the night with hot and cold sweats. I still feel pretty yucky, but definitely way better than I was even 2 days ago. I have been having some Fibromyalgia pain the last 2 days and my back pain is still bothering me. But I went and had a 1 1/2 hour massage yesterday which I think helped. It's now 636pm and I am feeling emotional, weepy, and very irritated. My poor kids just want to be around me and are being very good, but I am so irritable right now I can't stand to be around them. Not their fault, just the way my brain is working right now. My little girl just wants to spend the whole day "taking care of Mommy". For a 4 year old that means spending about 2 minutes petting my head, then another 20 minutes of blabbering about all the silly things that 4 yo girls want to talk about followed by 20 minutes of whining to get me to do something for her. Unfortunately I just don't have the energy to deal with anything other than the 2 minutes of head petting. I SOOOOOO just want my life back! I want to be able to take my kids to the park, volunteer in their classrooms, go to the beach for the day, all without Fibromyalgia pain and without being on narcotics. I also just feel very alone. Thankfully I only know 1 other person who has this terrible disease. I wouldn't wish Fibro on even my worst enemy. But it would be nice to have someone that I am close to to talk to and comisserate together who understands fully what I am going through. I am on 3 chat boards for Fibro and they are great support, but still not the same as talking to a real live person. Anyone else in blogland understand what I am going through?

One Day At A Time

Normally people use their first post to introduce themselves, but I will get to that later. For now, I will give you this...my name is Sandra, I am a Mom of 2 wonderful kiddos, I have an awesome hubby, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia 3 years ago, and am now on Day 6 of detoxing from Opiate use to deal with the Fibro pain. I know many Fibromyalgia patients use opiates (primarily Vicodin or Percocet) to deal with the constant and daily pain along with a variety of other meds to try to get a hold on this crazy chronic pain disease. I don't know about the rest of you, but I always feel like I am at least 2 steps behind in catching up to controlling my pain. Over the last 3+ years I have radically changed my diet, taken all sorts of holistic supplements and herbs, changed my activity level backwards and forwards, and when I finally feel like things are "normal" again, my Fibro takes me for a HUGE downward spiral leaving me totally physically and mentally drained. Then it's back to the drawing board again to see what can be changed or eliminated and what triggered the massive pain this time. And each time, it's a totally new trigger. SO FRICKING FRUSTRATING! And that's an understatement! The latest issue is that the Vicodin that normally worked for my pain for last 3 years has become pretty ineffective. I used to take 1-2 pills at night about 3 times a week for severe pain. The rest of the time I could bear it through the day as I didn't want to take them while caring for my 6 and 4 year old munchkins because it made me loopy. Then about 3 weeks ago, I would get really nauseated whenever I took a Vicodin. So I tried some Percocet that I had in my medicine cabinet left over from one of my 8 surgeries. The first week it was 1 pill a day. The second week it increased to me needing 2 pills a day to control my pain. The third week it dramatically increased to 2 pills 2 to 3 times a day just to function! Then I met with my Integrative Specialist (a trained MD also trained in Holistic Medicine) because things were soooooo bad. She ran some tests and it came back that my liver enzymes were slightly elevated so she told me to get off the Percocet. That was last Friday. Saturday morning I got up at 1am in severe pain. I am not a wuss when it comes to pain and I can say this ranked about 3rd in my severest of pains ever. The first was my bowel obstruction 7 days after I delivered my daughter by c-section (I totally thought I was going to die that time cuz I was in so much pain). They gave me 5 cc's of Morphine every 10 minutes in the hospital and after 5 minutes I was screaming uncontrollably in pain that's how bad it was. The second was the severe cramping/hemorraging pain I was in for about a week when I was miscarrying our first son at 14 weeks gestation. My WF (Wonderful Hubby) said "We are going to the ER". So to the ER we went. They gave me a shot of Dilaudid that took the edge off and some Zofran for my nausea and sent me home with a prescription for Tramadol (non-narcotic and non-acetaminophen pain med), Zofran for nausea, and Percocet (just in case the Tramadol didn't work for me). They also explained what the narcotics detox will look like...it didn't sound like a fun weekend for me :(. Saturday was the last time I took any form of narcotics. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were kind of a blur. Good thing WF was able to stay home and take care of the kiddos while I wasted the days away in bed in pain. The Tramadol helped, but after a few days I noticed I felt very weird while taking it. Increased heartbeat and my brain felt like someone was taking a needle and poking me from the inside of my brain. I stopped taking Tramadol on Wednesday. The symptoms went away to make way for a new one.... Thursday I spent all day in a bad depression and uncontrollable crying. WF was at work and I had my 6 yo home with me. The good news is that I had very little pain, except low back pain from my recent muscle pull about 6months ago. Probably from all my lying around, slouching, and couch laying the last week. But man, I could feel my body craving for the Percocet! It was all I could do to NOT take one! In my brain I felt like a total junkie and it scared me. Thankfully when I was totally at my breaking point, WH came home from work and talked me down from the ledge so to speak. Also forgot to mention that all week my WF has been making me eat a vegetarian diet because in January we did a 28 day mostly veggie diet with the first week being all veggie and nothing else. For that entire week I had very little pain and didn't have to take any pain meds. So all week it's been veggies and a serving or two of meat or fish, all home cooked. Well, okay, yesterday in my moment of weakness I somehow drove my 6yo down the street to Carls Jr and got a small coke, a chicken salad and 2 plain hamburger patties (so still somewhat healthy, right?). It's also been over a week since I have had any caffeine in my system, not that I am a big caffeine addict or anything. I maybe drink a total of 1 full 16 oz bottle of Coke a week and have an Icee Coke from Burger King once a week (man, those are my faves especially on a hot day..actually on any day). So my brain LOVED having that little bit of caffeine in it! That's what helped me get through the rest of the day until I caffeine crashed at 4pm and started with the uncontrollable crying again. Guess my brain was using that little bit of caffeine to replace the opiates. Last night was pretty rough for me. My body was craving the Percocet again. I spent another 1 hr or so crying uncontrollably. WH sat with me and rubbed my back the whole time. I was trying not to take a sleeping pill (been taking them all week so I could sleep). But at 1230am, I took one. It's now 1050am on Friday morning. Hopefully today will be better. Sandra