Car Crashes Can Cause Stress For Chronic Pain and Fibromylagia Patients

Car Crash Stress Fibro

A Day In The Life Of Fibromyalgia

Anyone who has had fibromyalgia for any great length of time has to come to terms that stress of any kind can be a major trigger in a fibro flare up. Life may be good with a whole week of fibro pain levels at a constant four and then a major stressor happens and the fibro pain scale jumps through the roof.

It’s taken me about a week to write about it because it’s only been the last few days I have come back off that flare up.

It was about 8:00 a.m. and I got a call from my middle daughter who called me on the phone. She said, “Dad, I need you to come and pick me up because I’ve been in a car wreck.”

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“Are you alright?”

“I’m not hurt but I think my car is totaled. There are other cars in the wreck.”

“Are you sure your alright?” By now I am making sure I have my keys and wallet. My wife is asking about the conversation. I say Brit has been in a car wreck, she says she’s ok.”

“What happened, I ask”?

“I got rear-ended.”

“Where are you at?”

“I’m on the off ramp on Center St.”

“I am on my way.”

“I’ll call you when I am on the road.”

The whole time she is emotional on the phone.

I told my wife, “Britt has been in a car wreck, she was rear-ended going off I-15 onto Center St., I am on my way. Have your mother take you to work.”

My wife replies with “OK, text me when you know hat’s going on.”

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I am worried and scared for my daughter, but I feel kind of normal. Experience has taught me that the feeling or being normal won’t last. But I know this is not a time to be concerned with that.

I am on my way. I call her to check on her and she’s filling out a police report. She’s emotional, but trying hard to keep it together. It seems like forever, but I am there in fifteen minutes. Put my hazard lights on and get out of the car. I see highway Patrol vehicles on the far left lane and on the off ramp on the far right side of the interstate where I am at. I see my girl in a car with a witness to the crash. I come up to her and the good Samaritan rolls down the window and I ask her how she’s doing?

She says she is starting to feel pain in her neck. She has had a bad back for five years since she last got rear-ended.

A tow truck shows up so I get all of her personal belongings out and put them in my vehicle. I talk to the trooper and asked him how the girl who rear-ended my daughter is on the far side of the Interstate. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know, that’s what we are investigating.”

“Will that girl be sited,” I ask.

“We’re still investigating, but yes, she is responsible for the accidents.”

“My daughter is starting to hurt. If you can be done with her in five minutes fine, but otherwise I need to take her to the ER.”

“That’s fine, ” he said, “I can drop off the information to you there if I need to.”

I go back to my daughter and ask her if there is anything special that needs to be removed from her car. She rattled off a list of things. I had got most of it, but went back and found a few more things. This time I take a big look at what happened on the inside of her car. The force of the impact broke the driver’s side seat. Jammed all the doors, but the front passenger side. I am amazed at the extent of internal body damage to the car.

The trooper comes up to me and said, “we are going to meet at the Chevron station off of Center street to clear up the emergency vehicles and then I’‘ll print out a report for your insurance. Unless you need to go to the hospital.”

“We can wait,” I said.

I shake the hand of the good Samaritan and thanked him with gratitude.

We had our accident report and left for the ER. She had a CT-Scan and a large series of X-rays and all the was wrong was a bad case of whiplash.

She wanted to go see her car that had gotten her through a large portion of college and to say goodbye. We checked for a few more things and we got pictures of the car.

We got her prescriptions filled. Got her an appointment that day with the chiropractor and a week later she is still under doctor’s care but she is healing and doing well.

I rose to the occasion, thanks to adrenaline. That afternoon when I knew my daughter was comfortable and was resting I relaxed and the adrenaline wore off quickly. It took about five days to come off of that flare up that followed. I was in such shock and in so big of a hurry I forgot to take my fibro emergency go bag. I did have the presence of mind to grab the book I was currently reading. Didn’t ever use it. I was amazed how fast we got in and out of the ER.

fibro_car_crash_stressUnexpected things happen to those of us with Chronic pain and fibromyalgia. Life goes on even if we are sick or in pain. We don’t have much choice but to deal with it, taking it day by day. I was able to rise to the occasion, but I paid for it for five days of worse than normal pain and malaise. It was worth it. Just another day with fibromyalgia and the consequences of the terrible disease.

10 Things Everyone Should Know About People With Chronic Pain

10 Things Everyone Should Know About People With Chronic Pain

This is an open letter to anyone who knows someone with a chronic pain illness. From the perspective of someone with a Chronic Pain illness, these are ten things we want you to know about those of us, who suffer from anyone of a number of chronic pain diseases.

1. Why We Cancel Social Engagements:

People with Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain illnesses, often suffer anguish from having to cancel plans so frequently. We don’t want to, but we do, that is if we are brave enough to make plans in the first place. Think for a minute, what it might be like to have a chronic pain illness. To a large degree you become a shut in. When you move around with chronic pain, it sucks the energy out of you. Also, the more you move the more it hurts. When you’re a shut in you are willing to do whatever it takes to get out and be social. But sometimes you just can’t. We’re sorry, more than you know. All we ask is for patience and understanding.

2. Chronic Pain Is More Than Just An illness:

Saying that fibromyalgia or any other chronic pain condition is an illness implies that there is a cure or that we should feel better after a couple of weeks of medicine and therapy. The important thing to remember is the key word chronic. The word “Chronic” means “persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.” Chronic pain is not like having the dreaded achy flu with a fever for a week that suddenly disappears one morning when you wake up and you feel just fine. We wish it worked that way. We pray to wake up some morning to find our chronic pain gone and have a lot of energy. But the word chronic means that it will persist for a very long time, likely forever, especially it your chronic pain has a more detailed diagnosis like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue or neuropathy.

3. How Are We Doing?

If you are kind enough to ask “how are you doing?” or “how are you feeling?” and we act kind of funny about answering you, it’s because it’s complicated, or because we wonder, do you really want to know? Or because we get tired of saying we feel lousy. Don’t be easily deceived. We may say “we are fine.” We may be lying or we may be truthful. It’s hard to say because is depends on the time of day when you ask that question. Our condition can vary from one hour to the next.

4. How Can You Help Us?

If you’re interested in helping us, it can literally be as simple as sincerely validating us. Be genuinely sincere when you say you understand. We can spot phonies a mile a way. We would like to have your honest acceptance of who we are with a chronic pain condition and be patient with us.

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5. Important Things to Understand About Us

Things can change hour by hour with for those of us who suffer from chronic pain. So please bare with us.

We are victims, we didn’t ask for a chronic pain disease, who in their right mind would?

We are as independent as we can possibly be. It may not look like it considering how much help we sometimes need. If you should happen to see a smile on our face, please consider how much energy and effort it is taking. We would give anything to not be sick with chronic pain. Anyone who enjoys pain is insane. It may not look like it, but we try to live the best, the most normal life we can. It may not look like it but we are. We need a lot of sleep because not only does pain hurt, it wears us out and makes us tired.

6. Chronic Pain Illnesses’ Are Real

Most chronic illnesses now have an identifiable name like Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, Neuropathy, Trigeminal Neuralgia, IBD, IBS, TMJ, and Gout to name a few. Just because we don’t look sick doesn’t mean we’re not sick. We can feel crippling pain and hopelessness and look fine on the outside.

7. Don’t Judge Us

You may see us clean out our car or do a load of laundry and think we are faking a chronic pain illness. The truth of it is that the majority of our time and for some, all of their time is spent in pain. But most of us have a few good days and because we are not lazy we try and do as much as can of our few good days. We have to pace ourselves on good days so that we don’t have to pay extra on bad days. Some times we choose to over due it on good days because we just want a quick taste of being normal. We know we will pay a price for it the next day but sometimes we think it is worth it. Another point to make is just because you haven’t heard of all the pain related illnesses doesn’t mean they don’t exists.

8. Sometimes It’s Hard to Explain How We Feel

There are so many painful sensations and accompanying emotions and brain fog it’s often hard to put how we feel exactly into words. But trust us when we say, we feel terrible physically and emotionally.

9. Medication

There is a plethora of medication and pain relievers out there as options to manage our pain. But even with all the proper medication we still feel pain. Pain meds don’t take away all the pain. Sometimes the best we can hope for is a degree of relief, but seldom, if ever, does medication take away all the pain.

10. We Are Not Hypochondriacs

We are not making this chronic pain stuff up. There are some people that really are hypochondriacs but if you think we are, take a look in our medicine cabinet or observe us for a few days and see just how fake are illness isn’t.

Conclusion

We don’t want pity, and we don’t want to be looked down upon. We want respect, validation and trust. We really are sick even though we don’t look sick. Ask yourself, who in their right mind would want to be sick with chronic pain for their whole life. We don’t.

The 5 Most Popular Posts Of The Last Two Weeks At Fibro Champions Blog

The 5 Most Popular Posts Of The Last Two Weeks At Fibro Champions Blog

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38 Tips To Make Traveling With Fibromyalgia Easier

Coping With Fibromyalgia And Chronic Fatigue – The 10 C’s

10 Things We Would Like Our Pain-free Friends to Know About Us

Not All Fibromyalgia Symptoms Are Fibromyalgia Symptoms

7 Fibromyalgia Awareness Free Graphics Or Memes

Living Free In The Face Of Fibromyalgia, CFS, Or Anyother Invisible Illness

Living Free In The Face Of Fibromyalgia, CFS, Or Anyother Invisible Illness

Anyone who suffers from an invisible illness is tempted to give up or surrender to the frustrating trial of their illness, this quote is dedicated to them.

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Living Free In The Face Of Adversity

When faced with adversity you have two choices, you can give into to the adversity and be it’s victim or you can fight back with the spirit of the warrior and live or die trying. Which would you rather do suffer as a victim or live freely, fighting while suffering and living your life in spite of the trials. Troy Wagstaff ©

A Day In The Life Of Fibromyalgia – An Illness of Contradiction

A Day In The Life Of Fibromyalgia – An Illness of Contradiction

Typically the stormy weather, especially thick overhead clouds, rain storms and snow storms make me hurt two or three times as bad as my normal fibro pain. Good weather days are the best for my chronic pain.

One of the most unique things I’ve learned about fibromyalgia is that it is not only an illness of chronic pain, chronic fatigue, fibro fog, insomnia and muscle spasms, but it is an illness of contradiction. Just when you think you have things figured out, in my case I thought that after thirty-one years I was getting it figured out, something is different, aspects of the disease are contradictory.

Take for instance this past week. Sunday I was able to teach my Sunday School Class but was in my recliner for the rest of the day. That, in and of itself, isn’t so strange but then the next day I wake up to a welcome but unexpected major rain storm. In Utah we are having a drought and needed the heavy rain. I was able to go to the gym and walk the treadmill at a blinding fast and steady speed of two miles an hour. That is not usual.

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Because I exercised on a stormy day I thought I would be massively sore and racked with mind numbing pain the next day confined to my recliner throughout the whole day.

Come Tuesday, I wasn’t in the recliner the whole day. I lead a fibro active day. I was able to help my wife put away laundry. Not for long because of feet and back pain, but the fact I was able to help at all was a miracle from the normal routine. Hence another contradiction. I spent the part of the day being incredibly stiff and typically sore and in fibro chronic pain. Later that day I was able to clean a portion of my den on the same day as laundry. I didn’t overdue anything on Tuesday.

Now today, Wednesday, I am bedridden. In my case bed ridden means being a prisoner of my recliner. Today is a warm day with partly sunny skies. Nothing normal about this week so far and thus from the fibro contradictions, it has been a very normal week.

Troy Wagstaff ©

71 Fibromyalgia Emotions

71 Fibromyalgia Emotions

This is a list of 71 common emotions for those who suffer with fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome and all the other invisible illnesses. We suffer all the emotions that everyone else does but these emotions are prevalent in our lives due to the illness we have.

Agitation

Amazement

Anger

Anguish

Annoyance

Anticipation

Anxiety

Commotion

Concern

Confidence

Conflicted

Confusion

Contempt

Defeat

Defensiveness

Denial

Depression

Despair

Determination

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Disappointment

Disbelief

Disgust

Doubt

Dread

Eagerness

Embarrassment

Endearing

Envy

Excite

Fear

Frustration

Gratitude

Grief

Guilt

Hatred

Hopeful

Humiliation

Hurt

Impatient

Indifference

Insecurity

Irritation

Jealousy

Loneliness

Love

Nervousness

Nostalgia

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Overwhelmed

Paranoia

Pride

Rage

Regret

Reluctance

Resentment

Resignation

Sadness

Satisfaction

Scorn

Shame

Shock

Skepticism

Somberness

Sorrow

Surprise

Suspicion

Sympathy

Terror

Uncertainty

Unease

Wariness

Worry

12 Tips On Dealing With Someone Who Has Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue or Chronic Pain.

12 Tips On Dealing With Someone Who Has Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue or Chronic Pain

If you know someone who has fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome or any other invisible illness her are twelve tips on how to deal with them. There as especially if the person you know is a friend or family member. Remember, they never asked for these illnesses. These are life altering illnesses and we need your support.

1. Be sensitive. We are no longer the person we used to be.

2. Validate us.

3. Don’t just assume we can’t do anything. There are many things we can no longer do, but there are still some activities we can do.

4. Honest communication is not an excuse to be rude or negative.

5. Look for thing we can do and get involved with us.

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6. While there are things we can do, it’s very likely we will do it much more slowly than normal.

7. If you felt pain 24/7 with chronic fatigue and fibro fog at the same time, how would you want to be treated?

8. Pray for us.

9. Understand, we didn’t ask to have fibro or chronic fatigue and we are not hypochondriacs.

10. Don’t be offended if we don’t act on your advice. We may have already tried it or know better than to try it.

11. Losing your good health is a loss we suffer and sometimes we feel like grieving. Give us space to grieve.

12. Don’t forget about us.

Review Of The Article: Fibromyalgia Now Considered As A Lifelong Central Nervous System Disorder

Review Of The Article: Fibromyalgia Now Considered As A Lifelong Central Nervous System Disorder

This article comes from the website WWW.News-Medical.net and it covers research done by Daniel Clauw, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan

I do this review with thirty-one years of chronic pain experience. I spent about twenty years with chronic pain and misdiagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. I’ve been correctly diagnosed with fibromyalgia for the last eleven years. I have been to more than fifteen doctors over the years, maybe more. Fibro fog does a number on the old memory.

The article talks about the research that Dr. Clauw has done on fibromyalgia. It is stated in the article that fibromyalgia is the second most common rheumatic disorder, yet he states that is it a central nervous system disorder. That confuses me. A central nervous system seems like it should be treated by a neurologist, whereas a rheumatic illness would be treated by a Rheumatologist.

The majority of the articles deals with the issue of the central nervous system. He also states that it is a life long CNS disorder.

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When I first read this article over a month ago, I wondered about the assertion that it is a life long disorder. My first thought was, “no it isn’t.” Then I was preparing a Blog post about fibromyalgia having more than 70 symptoms. I thought about a few symptoms manifesting while I was a child, but pain was not among those symptoms. Then I talked to my Neuro-psychologist and she said that people may have fibromyalgia waiting for a stress-induced trigger. That stress inducing trigger might be a car wreck, an operation, abuse or suffering some other traumatic life event.

So maybe it is a lifelong condition. But for me, it has not been a life long chronic pain condition.

Because it is a Central Nervous System (CNS) disorder, the pain one feels with fibromyalgia comes from the brain and spinal cord, not the area of pain. If you feel extreme pain in your lower back, hips or thighs, the pain is coming from the CNS not the lower back, hips or thighs.

This article makes three other questionable statements that I take issue with. First, he asserts that opiates are not a good treatment for fibro. I have eleven years of experience and two pain management doctors who would disagree. My pain is helped a great deal by opiates and muscle relaxers.

And then after making that assertion doesn’t go into detail, but glosses over the alternatives to pain management. He does mention gabapentinoids, trycyclics and serotonoin reuptake inhibitors. Those MEDs have not worked for me and I have heard from many fibromites that they do not work for them as well.

The last criticism is that he states that goal improved function. While he is obviously not a patient of fibromyalgia he can say that, but to those of us with fibromyalgia, we want pain, relief first then we can try to work on improved function. Often, managing pain alone improves function.

The biggest contribution the article makes to the issue of fibromyalgia is that is suggests that fibromyalgia is an illness of the CNS. Other than that, most of the information has already been presented by many other researchers.

What do you think about the article? Do you agree or disagree with my review of the article and why?

Troy Wagstaff ©

I am not a health care professional of any type and I assume no liability for the information and opinions presented in this article or Blog post.

6 Fundamentals Of Coping With Fibromyalgia

6 Fundamentals Of Coping With Fibromyalgia

1. Accept the fact that you have it.

2. Accept the fact that, at the present time, fibromyalgia is incurable.

3. Manage the various symptoms as they come upon you.

4. Don’t be afraid to let go of the you, you used to be before fibromyalgia.

5. Look for a new you that you can be in spite of fibromyalgia.

6. Look for the spiritual strength you need to give you the energy to cope with Fibro.

six_fundamentalsIf you can accept the fact that you have fibromyalgia and that at the present time fibromyalgia is incurable you will save yourself a lot of money and a lot of stress. There are people out there that want to make money on peoples misfortune. If you knew, for an absolute fact, that doing a certain thing would, for sure, cure you of the chronic pain, fog and fatigue called fibromyalgia, would you be willing to pay almost any sum of money? I know I would. We can make easy marks for shysters.

Coming to terms with the fact that there are things you can no longer do because of fibromyalgia and that there is no known cure for fibromyalgia, then you can take that stress, and pressure off of you and focus it on dealing with the present, which is you with fibromyalgia.

Most people find out that they have fibromyalgia from chronic throbbing pain and then with differing speeds, other symptoms start to afflict you. Don’t just assume that it is par for the course. Treat each and every symptom that comes your way appropriately with the doctor. The additional symptoms, if left untreated, can become as bad as or worse than the chronic pain.

You’ll find that, like most people with fibromyalgia, you can’t do what you used to do. You should accept that, and take the energy you would spend fighting the fibro disease and apply that energy to becoming something that you can do with the give and take of fibromyalgia.

Often, when you are spending so much energy dealing with the pain of fibromyalgia and the many other symptoms associated with it, you can slide away from the spiritual energy you need most. Keep aware of that possibility and try to keep or get that spiritual energy to help fighting the hated monster, fibromyalgia.

Perhaps there are more fundamentals in fighting fibromyalgia. What have you found to be a fundamental in your fight with this terrible disease?

Troy Wagstaff   ©

This is not medical advice, just my opinion.

My Journey With Chronic Pain and Fatigue

My Journey With Chronic Pain and Fatigue

I still remember when I was just tiptoeing through chronic pain and the journey I took getting to the point where I was completely submerged in chronic pain and fatigue. At first I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) and, for two decades, I spent my life trying to manage a disease I didn’t have.

With every excruciating step it felt as if every bone in my feet were brittle sticks being broken at every step as well as catching fire like kindling. My calves felt so tight it seemed as though they would snap with every stride. I had to rally every ounce of will power to make the next step forward. With every bone crushing step forward I was one piercing pain closer to crawling on my knees.

31_year_journey_chronic_pain_fatigueBack in 1984, I was excelling as a salesman at a home improvement store. I was the leading in store salesman and occasionally the regional sales person of the month. After I decided to go to the doctor about the pain, it took six months and three or four doctors before ending up with a Rheumatologist diagnosing me with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). Given the time period and the symptoms, it was as good a diagnosis they could make.

Chronic pain wasn’t really, to my knowledge, recognized as an issue or a diagnosis. At least not with the community of doctors I was around. I read a lot of literature about managing arthritis. One of the things I read was that there are a lot of unscrupulous quacks out there preying on those who suffer pain from various types of arthritis. They make outlandish claims about treatments that will take away your arthritis or manage it completely pain free. People are so desperate that they will pay any amount of money at a shot of relieving the pain they are going through.

My treatment was primarily an anti-inflammatory and when needed, Tylenol. Other than flare ups from time to time through those two decades, the treatment worked. Occasionally my doctors would update my anti-inflammatory as a new one came along. Occasionally they would give me steroids for flare up pain.

During those years I got married and a few years later started having children capping off with three adorable girls. I had a great job and things were going well in spite of the occasional flare up, where pain would come from the front my pelvis and hip region. The pain was exquisite, but fairly short lived. Usually two or three days tops.

In the fall of 2004, I had reached a climax of pain. It was at that time period, about the time the Vioxx was taken off the market, that my pain started to flare up and transitioned into severe chronic pain and chronic fatigue. Only this time, the pain was twenty times worse than in 1984. I was virtually paralyzed with pain. Thank goodness for a recliner. My back hurt too badly to lie prone all day, and I couldn’t sit all day long without raging pain. So with a recliner I could move into many positions to try to relieve that infernal chronic pain. A heating pad seemed to help some of the time.

31_year_journey_chronic_pain_fatigue_2I was skipping around from doctor to doctor like a flat stone skips on the water only to have my hope of a diagnosis sink like the flat stone sinks, into the deep cold water of pain and misery. My body was a prison of pain that I didn’t have the strength to escape.

I spent more than a year with chronic pain before I found another Rheumatologist who diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. Great diagnosis. The problem was symptomatic of the times, around 2005. Some doctors were generally understanding the syndrome, but at the same time, generally lacking the ability to treat it. So with a correct diagnosis and no treatment I was right back where I started from, the only difference was, now I had a name to call my suffering.

After that diagnosis, it took two or three additional doctors before I started to get treatments that worked. The doctor that finally came through for me was Dr. George. He was a pain doctor who specialized in treating chronic pain. Several months later I found a ND who added to my diagnoses several additional illnesses like Epstein Bahr Virus and Cytomegalovirus along and Chronic Fatigue syndrome. After about three or four months, my pain started to improve and the other symptoms improved somewhat, but I was still lousy with pain and other symptoms, but now with a correct diagnosis and a couple of treatment protocols, I finally had hope to face the future with chronic pain and fatigue. It wasn’t smooth sailing, but at least there is hope and less pain and fatigue. Sadly, the pain, fatigue and additional symptoms will not allow me to work as I once did, and that’s where I find myself now.

Troy Wagstaff ©