What's Up with Cbearsmamma

So I'm back, and the purpose for that is to share with you what I've been going through. What else IS the point of blogging anyways? My intent is to share what I know now, and what I learn as I go through this process I'm in and hopefully come out the other end having helped somebody as I help myself deal with everything by getting it out.

For the last 6 months or so I've been actively seeking a diagnosis for whatever is causing my body to be so very tired and so very much in pain. It's quite the process trying to pinpoint such an obscure thing let me tell you! The first step for me was realizing that what was going on with me was not normal and it IS chronic. Meaning that I have pain and fatigue daily. Every day. A good day is when it doesn't bother me ALL day.

One of the questions the dr's ask when you seek information on such things is "When did it start?". Well, let me see, I want to say in my teens, but I can't qualify my shoulder and back pain then as necessarily having anything to do with what I'm going through now. I mean, in this world of high stress and anxiety that's a fairly common issue. Skip ahead to when I started having episodes of my back going out on a somewhat regular basis and we've at least got me into my twenties, but again this ailment could be attributed to any number of things and not necessarily linked to my current situation. Skip ahead again, still dealing with shoulder, neck, back pain etc now enter headaches, and joint pain in my knees and hips. At this point those aches and pains are in all those places above as well as my feet, hands, elbows, you name it and it hurts. So although I'm almost positive this has been gradually getting worse since my late teens I told the doctors that it has been at least 5 years.

Five plus years of nearly constant pain and fatigue. I'm 31 years old. I should not be having these kinds of issues. I feel like I'm talking about an 80 year old person when I describe how I feel. It's completely ridiculous!

In any event, the first thing to do was run my blood work. We've done this several times over the years and not had any results so I was somewhat deflated but knew that was the natural starting point and was determined to not let it be the end of the line. This time something came up though. My iron levels were too high and my doctor was concerned about something called hemochromatosis . It's a disease where your body stores iron instead of using it and it can be very dangerous as well as cause every single one of my symptoms. However, after some further testing my Dr decided that my saturation levels were within a normal range and that I should definitely stop taking iron supplements but that I did not actually have the disease. I'm not personally ready to rule that one out just yet. Too many puzzle pieces fall into place with that one, and I will continue to request that those levels be checked in any further blood analysis that I undergo.

After hitting that wall, we had the conversation about how similar my symptoms are to my mother. My mom was diagnosed years ago with fibromyalgia. My Dr thinks it is quite possible and has referred me to a specialist (a rheumatologist) who should be able to help either diagnose it or come up with some other idea of what it might be. I waited a few months to get into his office of course and once there he asked many of the same questions and did a brief physical exam. He told me that I do show signs of having a chronic pain disorder and wanted me to go back for more blood work just to rule out a few more possibilities before moving on to whatever the next step might be. I have gone for the testing but won't know my results till I see him again in January.

At this point I have no idea what will happen or not. I'm trying to live as healthy as I can and deal in the best ways I know how. Taking advantage of medical coverage to utilize massage and chiro and hoping to try acupuncture as well. I will try anything if it might help. I'm almost willing to completely alter my diet and if you know me at all then you know that's HUGE as I may be the world's fussiest eater.

So that's what is going on with me. In future posts I would really like to share what I'm dealing with on a day to day basis as a full time working mother as I battle through and continue to LIVE because as much as I'd like to curl up in bed all day and never move some days, I wouldn't dream of missing this awesome life that I have! Whatever this is is going to have to figure out that it will be in the backseat for the rest of it's time with me and that's all there is to it!