Log #43 (Morning Surprise)

I am now in my second week of taking Lyrica for fibromyalgia and over all I've felt better. My anxiety is lower and I fall asleep a little easier, not that I sleep any better, I just fall asleep easier.

This is a fine and dandy, but sometimes medication is not enough to stop the pain from coming on. Call it an episode or attack or whatever, but when it's going full bore it feels like it will last forever. When I'm caught in it's grasp every second is too long to be trapped. As I read and learn more about this syndrome I realize that I have had this for quite some time and didn't know that the things I was feeling and experiencing had a name. My symptoms were sporadic and not as strong back then so I associated them with other things, but now I'm able to see them in hindsight and see it for what it is.
A good web site for Fibromyalgia information

In my case, somewhere close to 3:00am seems to be the magical time. Maybe it has something to do with my sleep cycle or serotonin levels at that time of night, but I can safely say that when I feel the symptoms of fibromyalgia at their worst it is usually close to that time in the morning. When it comes on I'm usually in a half awake/asleep state and I feel a general discomfort that isn't bad enough to wake me up completely. In the same way that an Iron heats up when turned on; it starts out slow but as each second passes it becomes twice as hot as the second before.

By 4:00am it's horrible pain and there is no way for me to get comfortable. As timing would have it, I usually have to get up at 4:00am and take one Oxycontin, so I did. I usually take the Lyrica at 8:00am, but this morning I figured taking it a little early might help, so I did. I only take Norco when my pain level is over 7 and I was at 9, so I did. Norco kicks in faster if you break it in half before you swallow it, so I did.

With all three in my system, it was just a matter of keeping my mind calm in knowing that soon the pills would have their effect and I would feel better. After about 15 minutes my pain level was down to somewhere between 7 and 8, which is enough for me to start thinking of other things besides pain. My pain level didn't get down to a point where I could fall asleep again until 7:10am and at 7:20am my alarm went off so I could make sure my boys were ready for school. I was finally able to got to sleep once again around 8:00am.

What a fun way to spend a morning!!

Once one of these attacks/episodes comes on it takes me a day or two for my system to calm down enough to where the only pain I have to deal with revolves around my low back and groin. Here it is, late in the evening and somewhere around 20 hours after the onset and my body still aches and my head still feels like its wrapped in a tight turban.