How Fibromyalgia Affects My Daily Life – Star Gazing

There are so many symptoms of fibromyalgia that is seems impossible, during an episode of poor health, to fully figure out what triggered the episode. When it’s all said and done, sometimes fibromyalgia is like riding a roller coaster, there are up and downs, twists and turns, and in the end you don’t know why you’re having an episode except that you have fibromyalgia. I’m calling them episodes rather than flare ups because we refer to a flare up as a short term increase in pain. The issues I am talking about are just about everything but pain.

Case in point.

I went with my litter buddy, who is truly an astronomy buff and he’s not quite five years old, to a Star Party last night hosted by the Salt Lake Astronomical Society in Stansbury Park at the Observatory near the Great Salt Lake.

His mom and baby sister came along, as did my oldest daughter and her date. There were more than twenty telescopes trained on Jupiter and Saturn but not Venus. We meandered around the park looking at these planets and the rings and moons around these planets through many different telescopes. One kind telescope owner aimed his telescope so I could see Venus. It wasn’t spectacular, but at least I got to see it.

I noticed that as I looked through each eye piece of every telescope that my eye would physically hurt. Not the kind of hurt when you read too much or are on the computer too much. It was like muscles behind my eyes were getting sore.

This in turn made be dizzy and nauseated. To be fair, I was dizzy and nauseated on the hour long drive getting to the park, but between the crowd and the focusing on the eyepieces of the telescopes my symptoms got worse.

I was leery about the crowd, but because it was in a big park with a lot of space and open air, I was hopeful the crowd would not be over stimulating. I was wrong. The optic nerve muscles surprised me. It was clear that I was over stimulated and I was sick because of it.

After I got home, I was hoping a good night’s rest would solve everything. Nope. I woke up several times in the first three or four hours after finally getting to bed. Finally, I was able to relax enough to get four or five consistent hours of sleep. I’ve been sick all day today and in a lot of pain. My neck is seizing up and causing tension headaches. My tens machine wires are broken so I can use that to help. The pain MEDs and muscle relaxers help but not completely.

Just another example of how fibromyalgia affects my daily life. Sigh.

Troy Wagstaff

Filed under: Fibromyalgia - Fbro Awareness | Tagged: chronic pain, fibro, fibro pain, fibromylagia, How Fibromyalgia Affects My Daily Life - Star Gazing, stimulation | 1 Comment »