It’S Okay to Hurt: My Life with Fibromyalgia

By LINDA KAY MULLINAX

There comes a time in ones life that nothing seems to make sense. My life is normal in every way. Then out of the blue my life is turned upside down. I've read a lot of books on romance, mystery and horror. A lot of them got me so involved I just didn't want to put it down. I never would have dreamed that my life would turn into a nightmare that I could not wake up from. I've read of horrible true life stories happening to other people but it never entered my mind that I would be living my own true horror story.

Being in a car wreck is a horror story that no one wants to go through. When you talk of being in a car wreck the first thing that comes to your mind is pain, being out of work and of course the settlement. I didn't think of all the tests and therapy I would have to go through. I believe I can say that most people think of getting better and going back to work pain free.

This was not the case for me. I had a pain that started in 1992 and has gone on for 19 years with no let up in sight. Please, read my story because you may be going through this same pain but you have never been able to put a name to it. You haven't been able to get any straight answers for these symptoms. I have and it is called Fibromyalgia.
Let me know if this is okay? Linda

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463407001

Book preview

© 2011 by Linda Kay Mullinax. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/19/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0701-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0700-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011908549

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

Life Before Fibromyalgia

CHAPTER TWO

The Wreck that Changed My Life

CHAPTER THREE

Symptoms

CHAPTER FOUR

Medications

CHAPTER FIVE

Disability

CHAPTER SIX

Family and Friends

CHAPTER SEVEN

Coping and Living with Fibromyalgia

This book is dedicated to GOD for inspiring me

to write this story.

To Thomas, my husband, for believing in me

and always being there.

To Judy Tino, a longtime Christian friend, for the

Friday nights of fellowship we shared.

INTRODUCTION

Are you having pain in all or parts of your body that you cannot explain? If you had to describe the pain to someone, you would probably say it is just like having the flu. But usually, with the flu, you start to feel better in about a week. Meanwhile, your pain just isn’t going away.

Can you remember having some form of accident at some point in your life? Maybe you fell down, or maybe you were in a car wreck. Something that traumatic can leave you with pain even many months later. This pain seems to linger, or it even gets worse as time goes by. Because of this injury, whatever it may have been, you continue to suffer that persistent, aching pain all over your body that doesn’t let up or go away, no matter what you try to do. I know with my pain, I wasn’t getting any kind of relief, no matter what I did—and believe me, I did a lot.

You may have this pain in certain parts or areas of your body instead of all over. This pain is horrible whether it is just in one area of the body or all over the body. In my case, I feel it from head to toe. You may be taking over-the-counter medicines without feeling any relief.

This is a terrible pain that feels as if it goes all the way down to your bones. It is a deep pain. My friend, the culprit is fibromyalgia.

I hit my finger with a hammer one time, and it really hurt. You know what I’m talking about if you have had this same experience. I felt as if my heart were beating in my finger. By the next day, it was sore, but the pain had gone away. I remember the pain from the hammer, but I don’t feel the pain anymore. Not so if you have fibromyalgia. With this pain, you may not know when or where your very first pain began, but I do. Yours may have started out as a small, nagging ache, but then it increased more and more. I’m not trying to confuse you. I’ll explain as you read on.

What in the world is fibromyalgia? I could hardly pronounce it, much less spell it. How in the world could such a word cause so much pain? I will explain in chapter 2 how I personally came to have this nightmare.

An ordinary nightmare disappears once you’ve woken up. You may remember some of it at first, but you eventually forget it. The nightmare of fibromyalgia is much harder to escape.

I know how concerned you must be getting about all your pain, because I did, too. All kinds of questions must be going through your mind—questions like, Why am I having all this pain? Why will it not let up? When will some kind of relief come? Dear friend, you don’t just get fibromyalgia by itself. It is hard to even comprehend all the other various symptoms that can come with it or develop in the days to follow.

This pain is a chronic condition. When I say chronic, I mean it is constant and goes on for a very long time. It does not go away. I’ll cover that in chapter 3.

I didn’t know it at the time, but different signals from my body were warning me that something