Fibromyalgia Symptoms HOME

You may have Rheumatoid Arthritis. Sounds like it fits your symptoms, get checked for that. I too have epilepsy, what anticonvulsant are you on?

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Welcome gabi.goo, I'm sorry you are having such a hard time at the moment. You must be a brave person to live your life as a teenager and going through the pain of fibromyalgia, at best it's tough, I can only imagine.

A good multivitamin with iron, an average intake of iron for a girl your age is: 14.8mg a day, find a multi-vitamin that has at least half of that amount or more. The rest you can absorb by doing a few simple things, like drinking a glass of orange juice at the same time as when you have your having your cereal, because this could help boost your iron absorption. Eating fruits and vegs, nuts will give you the extra iron, your body needs.

When you're short of iron - known as iron deficiency - it isn't pleasant. The symptoms can include: tiredness and lethargy; difficulty concentrating and shortened attention span - not good news if you're trying to revise; looking pale and feeling faint; breathlessness.

And the news gets worse, because if you've got iron deficiency and you don't do anything about it, you could end up with anaemia. But don't worry, the news isn't all bad, because it's easy to get enough iron.

Young women should be having 14.8 milligrams (mg) iron a day (men need 8.7mg a day).

You can easily pump up your iron stores, but first you need to know which foods are rich in iron: roast beef and other red meat (beef, lamb, pork, offal) are rich in iron that is easy for the body to absorb. The darker the meat, the more iron it contains; chicken contains some iron - choose leg meat rather than breast meat if you want to get more iron, baked beans, boiled eggs
canned sardines or other oily fish and mussels
breakfast cereals with added vitamins and minerals
green leafy vegetables, such as watercress, kale, spring greens and broccoli dried fruit such as raisins, figs, apricots and prunes wholemeal bread
lentils, beans and peas nuts such as peanuts, cashew nuts, almonds and brazils seeds such as sesame and sunflower.

Here are a couple of iron tips:

Try cutting down on tea and coffee as this could not help improve your iron levels in the body. This is because tea and coffee contains a substance which can bind with iron making it harder for the body to absorb it.

Eating fresh fruit or salad vegetables (including tomatoes) or drinking fruit juice (all of which contain vitamin C) with meals might help the body absorb the iron in food.


I am confident that when you start taking your multivitamin such as materna or vita-min chewable and taking care of what you eat, it should all help you, balance your active lifestyle as a 17 tear old that has fibro.

Problem with your bones and bone pain, try calcium & magnesium, those essential minerals for healthy bones, take between 1200 calcium & 320 mg of magnesium daily more if there is osteoporosis, along with your vitamins.

Again for pain try Joint Q or Glucosamine Chondroitin sulfate 500/400 mg up to twice a day, I use it along with everything else, especially in the winter, it helps with the flares and pain.

For sleep, use Melatonin from 1 to 3mg one hour prior to bed time. It's a hormone, that regulates sleep/wake cycles and improves sleep quality.

Don't worry if you don't take all this in, just start with the good multi-vitamin and work with the list as symptoms appear.

Good luck to you and do come back from time to time, we would like to hear from you, ask us questions and give advice.

Sandrivers

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Noca, I take Zonegran (400mgs) 300 Am, 100 PM. and Carbatrol (300) once daily.

What are you taking?
do you go and chat in my.epilepsy.com?
get website for info, and support.

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Axxie,
thank you for the great info.
Okay like today i couldn't think for the life of me. i have the 'stabbing pains' all over my body every now and then. its making me very very tired, moody and i just don't wanna eat. it's taking so much energy for me to do everything.
anyhow, well, the funny thing is my dad looked into it a couple months ago, and i started biking daily for 45 mintunes and drinking green tea. websites said it helped fibro.
i took the magnesium(500mgs) and HTP-5 for a while but stopped because i felt like nothing was helping.

i try stay on a sleep pattern, try to get at least 8 and a half hours of sleep. but doesn't always work, just because of school and my job. also, i wake up a lot in the middle of the night.

btw, do you or anyone have trouble staying a sleep, and having horrible pains in the morning? that fibro pain?

thanks.sorry so long.

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My epilepsy has been in remmission for 17 years or so. I still gotta watch drugs that aggravate seizures. I take 4mgs of Clonazepam a day to prevent the seizures nowadays. Back when I was 4-6 I took Depakene(Valproic acid), the dose of which I have no idea.

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Yes, I can usually tell when I wake up what the weather is going to be that day. Doing range of motion exercises (stretching every joint in the body) really helps with that morning stiffness. (It helps at the end of the day, too.)

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Hey gabi.goo

Sometimes, your muscles will twitch. Other times they will burn or ache with deep stabbing pain. Some have pain and achiness around the joints in their neck, shoulders, back, and hips. This kind of pain makes it difficult to sleep or exercise.
Many things such as food, stress, and weather will make your pain magnified.

Excercise is the best thing to help you with fibro, but don't overdo it, you have to alternate from your bike run to gentle stretching, yoga, to massage should all help you, with the pain you are experincing.

As for the calcium & magnesium must be taken together to see a benefit, as for the Glucosamine Chondroitin sulfate you take in the winter time, when your flares are more active, because of the cold weather.

Keep up the great work you are doing, you have the 'can do' attitude. Don't forget to smile, life is way to serious to be serious.

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When asleep, everyone go through cycles of 'fast alpha brain waves and the slow delta waves'. First you go to sleep which means you will go through the 'fast alpha brain waves' meaning a half awake state. Your brain will then go through several stages to finally rest your body in the 'slow delta wave sleep' this is the part that your body secrete growth hormone that help your body restore your body of aches and pain. With fibro unfortunately, you go through the cyles in rapid times, where you return to the 'fast alpha brain waves' you then wake up and cannot return to sleep.

Now if scientist can determine how to turn on the slow delta wave sleep and stay there a longer time would help us all in restoring our bodies to be healthier.

For the most part, sleeping pills do that.

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