The Road Back

Well, it has been some time since I have written and I have decided to blog my journey back to life. It is my firm hope, that this new approach, called Antibiotic Protocols, which from this point on I will call AP, will give me my life back.
I started yesterday.
The only way to approach my lack of control and frustration is, first and foremost to take the control back. We have got to be advocates in our own lives, and get past our defeatist attitudes. I am the biggest pessimist in the word, for I am sure the grass is always greener, the cup is definitely half empty and I am sure I am invisible in a crowd, all the while being positive that everyone is staring at that invisible girl. Does that makes sense? No. So first I must drudge past my "it'll never work" attitude and try.
I have been diagnosed to death. As a child, I always had "growing pains" and after a car accident at age 12, I have had Charley horses and spasms in my legs.
I have always had pain. In 1997 I got my sickest after the birth of my 3rd child. Pain and fatigue, stiffness, and the worst case of what I came to know as Fibro Fog, where I suddenly can't finish a thought, or replace names and words with unrelated words, and basically look like an idiot. I began to work part time and go to school, thinking that being on my feet all day as a surgical tech, might be the reason for all the pain. However after two semesters I couldn't think clearly and has spent more time asleep on the couch, than living.
So, after becoming completely disabled and useless in my own eyes, I began searching for an answer. I have been to pain specialist, physical therapy, counseling, rheumatologist, family physicians, neurologist, endocrinologist, ear nose and throat specialist and chiropractors. This has occurred over 11 years. One problem is that I am the rare person, that despite negative tests, definitely has a real physical problem. No doctor denied that something is wrong, but they didn't know what. Now diagnosis is easy to come by, as I have been told I have fibromyalgia, diabetes, osteoarthritis, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, Degenerative Disc Disease, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, Goiter, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, undifferentiated, mild neuropathy, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, restless leg syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis.
At this point I now have run the gamut of pain pills that don't work, new vitamins that promise to be the cure all, physical therapy and stretching, and drugs like methotrexate, which is just a scary drug to take. After 3-4 months of Lyrica, Requip, and Methotrexate, I was taken off all three because I couldn't tell a difference. At this point the Rheumatologist, that I drove and hour and a half to see, spent 15 minutes or so with me and said, "well that didn't work, don't take it anymore, we'll MRI your wrist again in 6 months to see if it still shows you have RA. However, I think you have Fibromyalgia".
Now the frustrating part of that is,I came in believing he'd discover the source of my pain, and he gave me Lyrica is for Fibromyalgia. Now, he is back to the original diagnosis, but takes away the only medication that is supposed to help Fibro. I was up to 450 mg and could feel no difference, so I wasn't upset with the medication being taken away, I was frustrated that we had back tracked all the way to my original dx. It felt like a slap in the face. I left crying, with a script for physical therapy, and more frustration.
It was at this point that I gave up. It was also at this point that I found a website describing what I believed might explain me- RUPUS. Rupus is a name given to people with aspects of both Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis, but overlapping test for both, but no enough for either to be specifically diagnosed. As a joke, I sent my mom the link to RUPUS. I told her, "look, I don't need doctors, I diagnosed myself!" Of course, I was joking, but she read some of the side info and low and behold we found the Road Back Foundation.
I am reading, and this is a book all chronic pain sufferers should definitely read, " The New Arthritis Breakthrough, The Only Medical Therapy Clinically Proven to Produce Long-term Improvement and Remission" by Henry Scammell. The title is a mouthful, but it is a great and enlightening read.
I will continue my blogs on my AP treatments and success or failure. I promise I will be honest, and I think by now you can tell I am not one to fall for the latest, greatest treatment. I'll try anything to get my life back, so if this is the true breakthrough it appears to be, I will scream it from the rooftop.
And so the first day of the rest of my life began yesterday. For those of you suffering, what have you got to lose? I for one am ready to live again and I sick and tired of being sick and tired.