Symptoms of FMS?

[Guest guest]

Hello, all...

Just wanted to write to all of you knowledgeable people to tell you about my

symptoms and to see if this sounds like FMS to any of you...

Ever since April, I have had severe back pain in between my shoulder blades

that is getting increasingly worse. It all started with what I call stress

knots in my upper back. I used to get these when I was highly stressed and

my hubby would massage them out for me and all would be well. Well, this

knot did not go away and eventually seemed to expand across the majority of

my right upper back and has now expanded to include my left upper back. The

pain gets so bad at times that I feel like I've got a steel bar going through

my chest and into my back. Nothing I do will help this pain. You can feel

the hard knots/hard space on my back. My hubby tried to massage these knots

away, but all he ended up doing was making it worse. The knots did not go

away and I was incredibly sore the next day (not to mention the grimacing I

did while he was massaging). The endometriosis I mentioned in my

introduction has wreaked havoc on my sleep patterns for the past five years,

but in the past six months, they have only gotten worse. I wake up

constantly at night in pain and needing to turn over, or else having to pee

(which I do about 4-7 times nightly), or else I just can't sleep anymore. I

do this for weeks and then my body finally crashes and I end up sleeping for

most of a day. I've had joint pain for a few years (also, I believed,

stemming from some of the prescription drugs I was forced to take because of

the endometriosis) that has spread to other joints (started on the right

side). I am never without the back pain I now have, and nothing has helped

it...It only seems to be getting worse. My fingers and toes are constantly

cold-even when I have wool socks on, I've got TMJ and have frequent (numerous

times a week) headaches (mostly on the right side, where the TMJ is the

worst), I've got irritable bowel syndrome, have had some vision disturbances

in recent months-which are slowly beginning to become more common, and I used

to have a wonderful memory (a friend used to call me an elephant) and now I

can't remember what I did yesterday. I am sure there are more things that I

just can't think of right now, or else I just don't associate them with FMS.

I would love to hear from anyone who can tell me more about this disease and

how to get a doctor to take you seriously enough to refer you to a

rheumatologist...Anything else that any of you can tell me would be greatly

appreciated.

I live in NYC, and I would love to hear from anyone in this area about what

doctors or pain management clinics are good. Also, any information on

support groups in this area would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all so much!

-Donna Riley

niobioblio@...