The third anniversary of my living hell is just around the corner, on the 29th. I could never imagine how my life would be turned upside down and fucked up completely, to the point of being done for the day just for cooking a quick meal.
The beginning
When the pain began, it made my lower back hurt like hell, and it would spread to my hips when it got worse. For more than six months, it remained like that. Eventually, it began spreading to the entirety of my back, then to my arms, legs, feet, neck… I can sum it up: only my head and genitals are not impacted by the fibromyalgia pain, although my brain is DDoS’ed 24x7 from the insane number of pain signals it receives.
Not only did it spread, but it slowly got worse. I never imagined the baseline level of pain would increase; I already had an insane amount of pain, no way it could get worse. Well, it did, and not by a small amount. I’m talking about two levels of pain increase on a scale from zero (no pain) to 10 (pain so high it could kill you). If I were to put my current average pain level on the pain scale after this syndrome was initiated, it would be an eight and a half; now, it’s a six and a half. Before the fibromyalgia began, it would be a ten or an eleven (I’m including the pain I’ve felt for a decade on my intestines because I also have IBS, and it’s not a pale manifestation of this syndrome, let me tell you).
Nowadays
I’m stuck with the same ones I had last year regarding medication and treatment. No doctor, no matter how much I complain about the pain and ask it, prescribes me more potent opioids or some fucking low-dose morphine. Doctors can prescribe marijuana in Portugal, and no physician prescribes it to me and only tell me outlandish excuses to hide the prejudice against it. I’m reaching a point where I’m an inch close to giving up on medical appointments because they are not worth it if they only leave me stressed out and don’t bring pain relief.
The future
How will it be in ten years? If it got this worse over three years, I’m terrified of out it might be then, forcing me to make a challenging decision with no way of reverting it after it’s done.
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, however. Recently, research about fibromyalgia has been published, pointing to an autoimmune origin, which might help create actual treatments for it. Let’s see how that goes. For now, I’ll continue to feel like I was run over by a fleet of trucks.
