Fibromyalgia Drug-Free Therapy, Just Relax and Keep Your Money

Fibromyalgia Drug-Free Therapy, Just Relax and Keep Your Money
By Andy Alt / Mental Dimensions

Aug 1, 2008 – I know someone who has fibromyalgia. I didn’t know I had it until talking to her. Every symptom I mentioned was one that she has. “under-the-skin-itching” and in various parts of the body, including eyebrow and ear lobe, just for a couple seconds. When I put my hands behind my head, immediate a numbing or tingling occurred near my shoulders. Being in more pain after a mile walk, which always seemed strange because of what’s said about walking being a great way to help with pain. Pain, soreness, tingling, stinging in the base of the thumb, or on the side of hand, on top of the hand, or in the fingers, sometimes a sensation of burning; also in the forearms at times, biceps, triceps, elbows.

Hopefully relaxation or meditation will work for everyone. You can learn some techniques for free using the Internet. I won’t recommend any, different methods will work for different people. What I did though was buy a book called “Meditation for Dummies.”

Just relax and keep your money. There are no guarantees, not even from me. I’ve had chronic, consistent, and frequent pain for four years. Very inhibiting to someone who likes to write. A week ago, 90% of those symptoms melted away. There’s still 10% in my left arm, which I had gotten rid of for a day, but I built it back up by too much writing afterward. No worries, I’ll just relax it away again. It’s in my left forearm and left bicep and elbow.

The doctors I saw called it posture-related and recommended some physical therapy exercises which 95% never gave me any relief, and sometimes caused more pain. Maybe I was doing some of them wrong, or too often, pushing myself too hard so I would get better – I don’t know. I only had two appointments with my pain specialist, on the next appointment he had planned a couple tests for nerves.

The only “catch” for meditation is that it takes time to work. A month, two months, until your ability to relax, concentrate, etc. improve. It won’t work for everybody, but I sure hope I sounded convincing enough for someone to try it and maybe get better.

A physical manifestation of my stress and tension is what it felt like, but I only realized how much tension had built up after it had drained and melted away. Alka-seltzer for the body. Oh what a relief it is. I feel more hopeful and optimistic again that I have a fighting chance to overcome my chronic depression now. I’m sure I’ll still get severely depressed, but that fibromyalgia thing was such a drag that I totally did not need in my life or in my body.

One day when I was doing some relaxation, I felt some pulsating near my ankles, sensations that felt like mini-muscle spasms. I felt a loosening of… things in that area, I felt circulation begin. After that initial reaction, in two days I felt 100% better. My arms took a few more days. I still have a little back pain, but maybe my body can heal better without the stress that is put on it by Fibromyalgia.

I can get so relaxed now using mental imagery and relaxation techniques, my body feels 4 times better than if I’d taken a Vicodin. I don’t recommend using Vicodin, it’s just something I have tried in the past. I prefer to stay away from addictive narcotics.

I still am trying to avoid the computer due the reasons mentioned in my article, “Speaking of Meditation and Computer and Internet Addiction”, but I’ll keep trying to write cool stuff when I do get online.

Good luck to you all, and please whatever you do, don’t send me any money. Just keep your money and relax.

Feb 26, 2009>There are a few comments regarding Fibromyalgia and how it relates to psychiatric medication in the comment thread at Getting better?!! The ongoing Klonopin-Valium crossover (Beyond Meds, Feb 25, 2009).

Feb 26, 2009 – I wrote a followup to my experience recovering from Fibromyalgia in the form of three comments at Is Seroquel Causing Back Pain, Muscle Rigidity In Patients? (Furious Seasons, January 29, 2009). Here’s what I wrote (visit the preceding link to view the full discussion, and comments by people other than me):

* * *

I wrote this a few months ago. Lately I’ve been more and more convinced the symptoms I describe here are from Stelazine, which I was on from 1992 to 2003. The first couple years, I took Cogentin with it, which gave me terrible problems with acid reflux and aspirating at night (also happened while on Prilosec, though the Prilosec took daytime heartburn away).

Fibromyalgia Drug-Free Therapy, Just Relax and Keep Your Money

As I mention in that post, I was never diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, but my sister was and when we compare symptoms they are almost identical. I believe she still takes Seroquel, but has been on other meds I don’t know about. She’s never been on Stelazine, and I’ve never been on Seroquel. We’re the only two out of five siblings who have these problems. I have to meditate/relax every day to keep the pain/discomfort symptoms under control, and the computer makes it much worse.

If I pay attention, I notice I’m tensing a lot, legs, arms, hands, legs.. but if I consciously think about, I can relax certain areas one at a time. For that reason, I don’t consider it involuntary problems. I didn’t have symptoms like these before the Stelazine, and they started and grew progressively worse a couple months when quit taking the Stelazine.

My back pain comes and goes, comes more when I do more standing/household chores. It’s always on the left side (usually a sharp pain), a little below my shoulder blade. My left arm, hands, fingers, forearm (very tight with tension), “knots” in my elbow.. always gives me a worse time than my right. But I’m pretty sure that’s related to how when I use the computer, my left arm is more tense with how it’s placed when I’m reading, or concentrating or waiting for a task (on the computer) to complete.
Posted by: Andy Alt at January 29, 2009 02:06 AM

Regarding my previous comment: I also have more clenching or grinding teeth at night, something I never had before the Stelazine. And When I wake up in the morning, I can tell I’ve been tensing them, like I’m clenching something in my sleep, sometimes I wake up and one hand is tightly holding the other. That initial “weakness” from the “exertion” goes away shortly after I wake up. I’m still left with the other symptoms. Basically before I started the meditation/relaxation techniques, I felt best in the morning after sleeping. Now, if I “relax” at night or before I go to bed, I’m actually in a bit more pain/discomfort in the morning because I’m tensing my arms during the night. I thought the tensing at night was just anxiety and nightmares, but again, something I don’t remember doing before 92, before I started my “journey” with psychotropic meds.

I think if I was 2 days completely off the computer, there would be faster improvement, but it’s very hard for me to stay off the computer for two days straight. Even 5 or ten minutes on the computer can give me a “flare-up.” With the meditation/relaxation, I can recover a lot more quickly. Before that, it was very much pain/discomfort/tension for almost 4 years straight.
Posted by: Andy Alt at January 29, 2009 02:15 AM

Stephany, increased exercise also increased my pain/discomfort/other issues. Even simply walking. The relaxation techniques solved it for me. I couldn’t say if that would help you or not, I just wanted to point out how exercise, for me too, made my symptoms worse.

I forgot to mention in my previous comments that last year I finally decided to see a doctor about my problems. He referred me to a pain specialist. One thing he emphasized most was to quit smoking, because it’s a neurotoxin. One thing that didn’t come up: what about other drugs I’d been on since 1992? Prozac, Stelazine, Wellbutrin, Cogentin, Nortryptelene, Celexa, Effexor, Trazadone, Depakote… how many of those were neurotoxins? Coincidentally, I asked him for a scrip for Wellbutrin at the time to help me quit smoking. I had to get off the Wellbutrin after three weeks because I was sleeping 2-4 hours a days for about two weeks. (The Wellbutrin actually helped me meditate, and therefore helped my pain and other symptoms dissipate more rapidly.)
Posted by: Andy Alt at January 29, 2009 11:07 AM