Pain Induced Pain

It is often difficult to explain to someone just what it means to suffer from fibromyalgia. Unless you suffer from a condition that they can see/understand your pain can seem to be in your mind...you are a hypochondriac perhaps? When I first starting suffering from it I did not have a name for it but thought that it was perhaps just one of those things that happens to some people as they get older..little did I know until later that there are many sufferers who are just kids. Someone would sit next to me and accidently brush against me and this would send a shooting pain through my body. I finally got a name put to this while undergoing treatments for cancer. A side affect of the cancer treatment was the onset of lymphedema. The treatment for that is manual lymph drainage,a light massage therapy technique in which the skin is moved in certain directions based on the structure of the lymphatic system. This helps the lymph fluid drain through the proper channels.massage. One of the team doctors noticed how I flinched at light touch and started to question me. He reviewed my medical history; migraine sufferer, numerous body traumas, etc and told me that I was the classic FM patient. Many doctors do not even recognize the condition because it is basically one of eliminating all other possible causes for the pain but for some patients the pain is cross-related to other medical conditions and exacerbated by the underlying FM. I hit all 19 of the trigger points. One other bit of trivia is that some cases of lower-limb lymphedema have been associated with the use of tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is often prescribed for women who have had breast cancer and I was one of those women. Tamoxifen can also be a factor in the development of uterine cancer. Just how lucky can a girl get!

http://chronicfatigue.about.com/od/whatisfibromyalgia/a/fibromyalgiapain.htm