Everything cannot be cured

Such a bad day, asthma-wise. Anything triggers an attack: laughing, having a shower, just whatever. Snow-storm out-doors, and I suffer from a bad case of fibro fog too, added with a really deep blue. I am starting to think that I will really never get well anymore. Illnesses are like that sometimes. Everything cannot be cured. BOnus: some friends seem to think that now is the appropriate time to turn their back to me. So I can only think that I now know them better than I did before.

Having flu, and a fibro flare

Fibro Flare Going On

The fibro flare is going on. It started the night before yesterday. Last night it got so bad that I could not sleep. Even wearing clothes caused too mch pain and was intolerable. The pain is on an intolerable level but I don't have any alternative, I have to be in this hurting body which is driving me mad. I am hurting immensely all over, including eye lids and just everything. No pain killers really "bite" now - I am taking them all which is not so much. I am also having flu, or influenza - whatever, the horrible disease that has already made all other family members ill. Maybe it is the cause of the fibro flare too. (I think flare is fibro slang, it means a pain attack which can last from hours to days, weeks and months). I am having fibro fog too, so even writing - typing is difficult because thinking is difficult, and i mistype in an awful way too, no word comes right to begin with, and I am not sure whether anything of what I write makes sense.

My husband is really nice, he is fussing on me, telling me to stay in bed and being worried that I get some additional diseases if I don't take it absolutely easy and just rest. He is so wonderful, I love him so much and I am the happiest woman on earth to have him, and to have had him all these past 20 years! He went to the pharmacy to get the additional medication I need for asthma now as I have breathing difficulties, and yesterday evening he came home from shopping and told me he had bought my favorite ice cream, and then he made spaghetti sauce with lots of garlic and onions and tomatoes to help me feel and get better.

Side effects again

When I was quitting Lyrica, my doctor put me on Cymbalta. It does not work on its full effect yet but the pain has eased remarkably and I have the feeling that I have less foggy days or moments too. Now I am on full dose of Cymbalta (for a week already) and I am wondering if I am having one of those side effects again... they will go by in three months, said my doctor... so.... if I can make up my mind on whether it is a side effect or not.... then I have to make up my mind on whether I can stand it out for three months... or whether it is safe to wait for so long...

I feel very undecisive. I am also starting to feel like an outsider. I feel like withdrawing from everything, and when I do, I end up blaming myself of not being there with others or for others, not taking part, not doing this or that... I am like questioning my own value all the time, and doing things I don't approve of. I also feel I am too dependent on other people and their doings and sayings and I don't want to be like that so I withdraw even more, to prove myself that I don't care.

I also react very strongly to things which I would normally let pass and not care. I was deeply hurt by being rejected by a moslem because of my faith. We had good conversations until the moment when he realized that I was a believing Christian to whom faith meant really a lot. Things like this happen, this is not the first time, and he was by no means anything special. The difference is that now I react really unreasonably and feel deeply hurt. - I also had an agreement with a friend of mine to meet her. Foggy as I am, I had made the first appointment with her on my husband's 50th birthday so I had to cancel it. Now I could not go this week either because I have hurt my back and I am on sick leave - besides, even the day was wrong because it was the day when we have our Arabic lessons, as my husband kindly reminded me. I cannot control these flops although I do my best because if I am foggy, I am and I cannot perform faultfree. And how could I know I would hurt my back right now? Now she told me we can as well meet next year, she is tired and she has problems at work.... she is like that, she has been like that all the time - and I understand I have hurt her - okey, she has hurt me too. I feel rejected because of my illness. And it hurts really a lot. But of course I am rejected by it all the time and I should not care - people are like that, and I know I am difficult, canceling appointments and things like that. I think I will be trying to avoid all kinds of appointments - which will make me even more isolated and feeling an outsider.

Some part of my mind tells me this is perhaps a warning signal on that the medication I am taking now is causing depressive thinking and that it is not healthy. I feel it important to write down how I feel and what I think about it, so that if I need to consult a doctor, I can explain the problem to her.
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I have here in between been reading about Cymbalta, and the experiences people have had. The side effects are said to be strongest in tghe beginning, especially self-destructive thoughts (which to me seem to mean that feeling of isolation and of an outsider) but in the end it has turned the opposite though not with everybody... I don't know if I am any wiser. I will wait and see and pray this goes by and I will be back to normal again.

Fibro Fog

This is part of the mail I sent to a dear friend of mine. I want to add it here too, in case there are more people who want to know about fibro fog. There are more precise documentations about it, sure - this is just what I feel and what I ahve to live with.

I was asked what fibro fog, or brain fog, is. A friend of mine made the same question before, in chat, and I pasted and copied what I told him, and that time I was ”foggy” so I was describing how I felt. I have left his comments out but he was really encouraging and supportive and I am so grateful of that. I am also grateful for your prayers, they are really needed and appreciated. The other day when I was having my council meeting at work in the evening, I was asked a lot of things like I usually am, but then as I was having a fibro fog attack, it happened that in the middle of the sentence I lost the clue of what I was saying and I could not fix it anyhow so I had to say that I had a black-out... it happened twice.... with a condition like this, it is always risky to do things that are included in my work like meetings where you have to answer a lot of questions and usually don't know beforehand what you will be asked about – and things like MC:ing festivities, feasts, celebrations, other occasions and such...
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Here is the chat about fibro fog:

it is something you have when you have fibro, it comes in attacks and it is called brain for or fibro fog.... a "colleague" fibromite calls it fibrosmog.... anyway.... i think it is what it sounds like, your head filled with some damn fog which just prevents you from thinking logically and from doing things, from being systematical and well.... makes you feeel like you suddenly have a strange idiot in the place of your own brain....

it usually comes with pain attacks - not always - but i have no pains now and i still ahve it...

it is only awful as long as it lasts and it goes by, i know.... and anyway this is not so bad... because i know what is wrong..... the worst is when i have it and i dont knnow it because then i feel really lost until rikard tells me what is wrong.... that it is not me gone mad suddenly or something

it just needs a lot of concentration to get anything sensible out and typed right..... i was typing simple greetings here in between to a few people, nothing much but a few sentences,... and i had to check them letter by letter because i tend to type just whatever, words that dont mean anything because i just dont hit right

Quitting Lyrica

Today, I have taken the last tablet of Lyrica. From tomorrow, I am off that medicine! It feels good, really really good! It almost took my life but the status of asthma has stabilized now - although it is not yet perfectly good (it takes time) but it is so much better anyway! It feels like a triumph to finally be in this state! My last day on Lyrica, woooow!!!!

It has been a slow process, quitting that medication, as it has been reduced by and by. Pain is back but usually not too bad to tolerate, and anyway I have been able to use quite strong pain killers that do not trigger asthma. They are not very many though or so it seems. One which was very good resulted in more than one doctor telling me that it can cause heart attacks, so I quitted that too.

What is bothering me most these days is fibro fog - I have it to some extend almost every day and it seems to be somewhere between me and the world. And the other thing that bothers is stiffness. Otherwise I am so much better than before..

I have been in a really bad state due to medication. I hope and pray I don't need to wittness anything like that anymore.