The rheumatologist was about the same as the psych. This time I made the mistake of going alone as well. The Doctor scoffed at my Fibro Diagnosis as he didn’t believe it is a true real disorder that exists. He looked at me as if I were a problem to be solved, not a person in pain. But he did admit there was one single medicine on the market to treat it (Lyrica) and I would have to slowly ramp up to the high level of dosing to be able to see any pain relief based on clinical trial results. He said I would have to try that and ramp up to the high dose and see relief if I ever wanted to get an official diagnosis out of him. I felt so small, like a nuisance on his schedule. I could have cared less about his diagnosis. I just wanted pain relief and a less miserable quality of life. Sadly he seemed to not believe I was in pain at all and just some young drug seeking addict. I felt so discarded and inhuman in his office.
Of course I forced myself to try the “miracle med” that was the single medicine on the market at the time to treat Fibromyalgia. Lyrica is honestly just a fancier version of Gabapentin, a long time known drug to help with nerve pain and a medicine that might be more known to you. Gabapentin alone has a laundry list of debilitating side effects, and one I had witnessed someone I loved take and have a complete personality change because of it. I however hoped it was “better” due to being so fancy, AND EXPENSIVE!!! I had just gotten a new job at an animal shelter, but even with my husband and I still living with my dad and paying him a super cheap rent for us three to stay upstairs and share the house together. These pills were a whopping $95 a month and we were barely scraping by. I felt like such a burden to my husband already in our young, already semi-rocky, freshly married romance as husband and wife (due to the trauma caused to both of us after a year of me trying random antidepressants.)
As you can probably guess from me previously mentioning I’m super sensitive to medication reactions, ramping up on the Lyrica just wasn’t something I could physically handle. Extreme nausea and no appetite, mixed with dizziness and drowsiness. I was losing weight, barely gaining muscle and getting little to no physical activity outside of my extremely physical animal shelter job. Only hurting more and more the longer I was on the meds.
I finally took my mom with me to one of my rheumatologist appointments and was instantly treated completely differently. I received zero attitude, he treated my mother with courtesy and respect. He finally listened to me saying that Lyrica is not something I will be able to ramp up to the requested dosage for pain relief. However, the only answer was that he had nothing else to offer me and to seek treatment elsewhere. Just wow. Fired by TWO doctors in the span of less than a year, just because I was too difficult to treat by their standards. It was great to finally have him stop pushing and torturing me with the Lyrica at the very least, which I desperately needed to be off of at that point.
I started working more hours, increasing my strength and stamina, started eating less fast food, and my son grew and grew more independent thus no longer needing to be carried and/or held all the time anymore. My body reacted well to this lifestyle change and I finally received some substantial pain relief I had been seeking for the past year and 9 months. All while growing to learn my own body's limits, triggers and needs much better as well. My self intuition flourished off all meds and I became quite in tune with my whole body physiology. Still experiencing random pain and typical flair-ups, but in a much more manageable way of life.
My husband, Jacob, was a pizza delivery driver for Papa Johns at the time and we worked opposite timed shifts from when I started my Veterinary Assistant job at the animal shelter. This allowed one of us to always be home to take care of our son. However, this meant we only saw each other for about one hour a day at most. We would randomly have the same days off and would typically use those lucky chances to hang out with our one and only bestest friends, the BWR family.
We had first met shortly after my Bestie and Mr. BWR had gotten together and became pregnant. Jacob worked with them both at the time at Subway. At that time the Subway crew was just composed of a big super chill friend group. Mr. BWR also lived in the same apartment complex as my husband back then too. The first time I met my Bestie, she and Mr. BWR stopped by our apartment(I think we picked up a video game we had borrowed?) I remember my first impression was that they were the coolest couple I had ever seen in my whole life. Their instant vibe was off the charts. This was mostly due to the fact they were wearing completely matching outfits! They both had on an identical fit composed of a black T-shirt and the same shade of red skinny jeans. My neurodivergent brain loves patterns and this matchy-matchy couple was too much for me to not instantly love. Picking out semi-matching outfits for Jacob and I had already become an early obsession of mine for weeks before that. Jacob and I had fallen in love at first sight and were such a complete and perfectly matched pair too. Plus, their weird TOTALLY matched our weird too.
Jake was probably sliiiiiiiiiightly hoping me being friends with a then pregnant Bestie would be enough for my baby crazed brain, but nope. A month and a half later, on Valentines Day, I got the positive pee test results I had been wishing for and we were both SUPER excited. I nervously reached out to my Bestie on my own asking for advice and venting my own issues as well. We became very close quickly and I was most thankful to have not gone through that time alone at such a young age. One of my high school friends also got pregnant right after me and so I introduced her to my Bestie too. The three of us were able to form a little Mommy trio female support system for a while.
The BWR’s son was born only 2 months before my son, so it was a beyond needed support system form of bonding. The time spent together raising our boys and learning to navigate adulthood together as young family units. Plus our kiddos had each other while us parents all got the rare chance to chill out together when hanging out. Party. Eat. Party! Our other few college friends were a bit too SUPER party heavy and ended up slowly distancing themselves from us while I was pregnant and by 3 months after Rayne was born we pretty much had lost contact with the majority of them.
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