ruwth is writing...

~ Fibromyalgia, Substance P, Zostrix and Fatigue! ~

I mentioned in "Note: I am so worn out... I am exhausted all the time..." about feeling exhausted. I did not mention in that note that I have fibromyalgia.

I have had fibromyalgia for years and years and years. I had it before it was even called fibromyalgia. Back then it was called fibrocystitis and was not recognized by the A.M.A. as a disorder.

I have successfully dealt with the pain part of fibromyalgia for the last 23 years by regularly using Zostrix.

Zostrix is a cream primarily marketed for arthritis pain. It contains capsaicin. Capsaicin applied to the skin depletes stores of something called Substance P in the body. People with fibromyalgia have been shown to have more Substance P in their system that the average person. A high level of Substance P in the body causes non-noxious events to be sensed as pain. Reducing Substance P reduces pain.

It has worked for me for twenty-three years.

However, I have never found a way to relieve the fatigue part of fibromyalgia and right now it is kicking my butt.

Years ago, as I was reading Call of the Wild, there was a paragraph that resonated with me about the fatigue of fibromyalgia:

No spring or rebound was left in them...There was nothing the matter with them except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left, no reserve strength to call upon. It had been all used, the last least bit of it. Every muscle, every fibre, every cell, was tired, dead tired. And there was reason for it.

For the dogs, it was too long on the trail. For me, the reason is fibromyalgia. I have no spring or rebound left...

Energy, energy, energy—my kingdom for some miraculous way to beat this unbearable fatigue.

Taking on the responsibility of providing 24/7 care for a patient certainly has not helped—but, look at me, I just wrote an almost 2100 character note.

Is there a contest somewhere I can use this as an entry? That would be a good thing for me and my participation in "Twenty-three in Eleven " 


It you read all of this note, comment below and I will enter you in a drawing for a Merit Badge...

~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~