I'm feeling noticeably better today, but I've still got plenty of aches — just in time for laundry day. :p I love snow, but I can't wait for warmer weather!

Since I'm still learning what fibro is myself, I figure it's a good time to share what she and I discussed yesterday as well as share some links to great fibro information.

Fibromyalgia is NOT caused by or related to depression. Fibro is NOT a psychological or psychosomatic condition. Sufferers are NOT hypochondriacs or "whiners." Unlike many other rheumatological conditions, there are no visible signs of the disease. Because of this, many people have a hard time relating to or sympathizing with sufferers, since by all accounts they look healthy, even if they feel as though they've been hit by a bus.

The gist of the disease is that it's an irregularity in the way the body processes pain. Researchers aren't sure yet what causes fibro, or how and why it affects people, or what determines the degree to which someone might experience symptoms. There may be a genetic component, but it's unclear. Certain people might be predisposed to the condition, but the onset tends to be triggered by a physical illness or trauma.

There is no cure, and only recently have there been drugs approved by the FDA to treat fibro. Many treatments are simply a management of the symptoms, such as pain medication and anti-depressants (to elevate serotonin levels in the brain). Many sufferers experience an improvement in their symptoms by adopting a mild to moderate exercise regimen.

There are very specific ways to diagnose the disease, although doctors will try to rule out more serious conditions first, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

As for my own diagnosis, it's been several years in the making. My fibro seems to have been triggered by a nasty cold I had a few years ago, although I can reach back even farther than that to find fibro-like symptoms — achey joints, odd sleep patterns, overwhelming fatigue, random pains just about everywhere, increased skin/muscle sensitivity in areas (mild pokes, bumps, or pinches feel like they're going to leave huge bruises), among other things. My doctor reassures me that I'm toward the mild end of the scale when it comes to severity of symptoms, but I definitely have good days and bad. Sometimes I'm popping pain pills every six hours for days, and then I'll go two or three weeks feeling just fine without them.

If you'd like to learn more about fibromyalgia, I recommend visiting the National Fibromyalgia Association's website and WebMD's Fibromyalgia Health Center. Both are excellent sources of information about the disease.

My holiday gifts:

• Intuos3 6×11 tablet — OMG, the best present I remember getting, ever
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on DVD — love it!!
• Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii — really looking forward to giving this a go
• Personal Trainer: Cooking for Nintento DS — another one I'm eager to dig around in
• Eragon by Christopher Paolini (hardcover) — I'll be cracking this one open soon
• A 1GB USB thumb drive leather keychain that would be nice even if it was just a keychain!
• An IOU for Afrika on PS3, if/when it ever arrives in the US (I LOVED Endless Ocean on Wii, and this is along the same lines)

Hmm…did I miss anything?

The Ailments to Date – cue the ominous music!

• Ovarian cysts (15 years and counting)
  • I've had 2 laparoscopies to aspirate them as well as more combinations of birth control pills and hormone therapies to try to control them than I care to count. They're reasonably under control now, but I still have pain a couple times a month. The general concensus is that they're a result of endometriosis.
• Migraines (11 years and counting)
  • Took me forever to find a doctor that was even willing to treat them, but I'm on a cocktail of anti-depressants and blood pressure medications that keep them at bay –  mostly.
• Fibromyalgia (diagnosed August 2008)
  • One walk-in emergency clinic, two PCMs, two rheumatologists, a bone scan, several x-rays, and countless blood tests and physical exams later, it's official: fibro. The joint pain, overwhelming fatigue, body aches, over-sensitivity to certain stimuli (pain, heat, cold), and inability to focus on just about anything most days really isn't all in my head.
• Polycystic Kidney Disease (diagnosed October 2008)
  • All the blood work I'd had done on the way to my fibro diagnosis alerted my various doctors to an unexplained elevated creatinine level. After meeting with a nephrologist and discussing my family and personal medical histories, he ordered an ultrasound to look for cysts. (My dad and his mother both had one non-functioning kidney, probably congenital, and PKD in the remaining one, along with high blood pressure issues; I'd already passed a kidney stone by age 24, and had been in a car accident in '97 that banged them up pretty bad.) Nothing showed on the ultrasound, but he was sure something was going on, so in I went for a CT scan. Sure enough, cysts ahoy. I'm pretty asymptomatic at this point, but my dad's functioning kidney isn't doing so hot, and I remember my grandma living with dialysis for years, so I know what can happen to me down the line. Thankfully, it was caught pretty early, and with medication and diet management, I might never have symptoms. Then again, my kidneys could fail in 5 or 10 years. Good times! :p

I think I'm all listed out. Mmm, clam chowder time…