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My Worst Fibromyalgia Pain Ever and What I Did About It

November 18, 2009 by Lisa


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So, about three thursdays ago, I came home with the worst fibromyalgia pain ever. It was so bad it made me nauseous and made me fear kidney stones or gall stones or ectopic pregnancy or appendicitis.  Finally, I figured out what it was and how to fix it, which is what I want to share here.

I don’t actually have fibromyalgia anymore, but I believe this pain was caused by a mass of bunched, fibrous tissue and fascia that was probably one of my original causes of fibromyalgia.  So I call this pain fibromyalgia pain.

My main message with this story is that because the pain was referred, it was extremely hard for me to know it was just muscle pain.  And, since the pain was so intense and extreme as to make me nauseous and unable to function, I considered going to urgent care at one point.  And if I would have gone to an urgent care clinic, they either would have sent me home and told me “there’s nothing wrong with you” or ‘found’ something wrong with me or sent me to the hospital or a specialist.

As it was, I treated myself with some heat and some self trigger-point massage.  Imagine, if this incident would have ended with drugs or exploratory surgery or a new diagnosis.  This is one reason why I say my fibromyalgia was a gift.  Because of my fibromyalgia and all the muscle issues I endured, I worked for many years to discover what was causing my pain, and become intimate with the structure of my own body and what hurts it and what heals it.

Because I have this knowledge, I always ‘know’ what is going on with my body and what my best plan is to fix it.  Talk about priceless knowlege.

****** I am NOT saying that you shouldn’t go to the hospital or doctor if you have pain.  You should.  I am saying that my knowledge of my body, has progressed (as a direct result of my years of work with it trying to heal from fibro) to the point that I was comfortable with MY decision not to go to the doctor at that point in time.  *******

So, what exactly happened was this:

I just moved from Hawaii to Idaho 6 weeks ago.  My son and I came with only the suitcases we could carry to find a house to live in so my husband could send the dogs and the car and the boxes.  It’s quite a process to move over an ocean.  I had been doing yoga every day and since we moved, I had done it maybe 3 times in 6 weeks.  I was feeling good still, and for the most part emotionally well, but a major move and life disruption is just that – so even if I wasn’t stressed out, I wasn’t in my ‘healthy groove’ either.  I’ve been eating more carbs than usual, stretching WAY less than usual, sleeping crazy schedules, not getting massages or doing self-massage, and just basically changing everything.

So, that morning, my 6 year old son and I biked three miles to go to my friend’s house.  I did not stretch when we got there.  That evening, my friend and I biked another mile or two.  I didn’t stretch after that either.  And then I started feeling some pain.

The pain was in the upper left quadrant of my abdomen.  So, if I put my left hand just under my left ribs, it was all in that area.  It was bad, and it was getting worse.  I couldn’t sit still.  I started to hunch when I walked.  I started feeling like I was going to throw up.  This was a kind of pain I haven’t felt since I was in labor with my son.  Over the course of about 4 hours the pain got so bad I considered going to the emergency room or urgent care center.

I used to work as a paramedic, so I checked a few things on myself that would tip me off to appendicitis or internal bleeding or anything else that could kill me quickly.  I was fairly certain it wasn’t ectopic pregnancy for a pretty iron-clad reason.  I kept thinking maybe it was a gall stone or a kidney stone.  It was bad enough that I wrote down all the emergency numbers for the oldest child who was with me, just in case.

However, even while all these doomsday thoughts were running through my head, I just knew this was muscular pain. The reason, however, that I kept having the other thoughts was that I was doing everything I knew in the area to treat muscular pain, and it wasn’t getting any better.  Based on my experience, it should have been getting better.

At 10 pm, I got all the kids to bed and I laid down myself.  I thought maybe I could use my thought dismissing and breathing to deal with the pain.  nope.

Now, this pain was just below my ribs on my left side.  I had been pushing and rubbing and prodding and feeling that area for hours.  Nothing. Then, laying there, panting, I had the thought ‘I wonder if it’s my groin’.  I put some pressure on the monster mass of knotted tissue I have had for as long as I can remember in that area, and BOOM, instant relief.

The relief was not full relief, but I immediately knew I had found the spot causing the pain. The pain moved from my upper left quadrant to my lower left quadrant, and the intensity went down from a 9 to a 5 or 6 right away.  whooo.  sweet, sweet relief.

So let me talk about this mass for a little bit. I discovered this mass about 4 years ago.  My left side has always been a bit tighter and more tweaked than my right side – and when I say always I mean my whole life.   I had a massage therapist who would massage my stomach, and that’s when I first started noticing this whole area on my left side of my stomach was knotted and frequently spasming and tight and painful.  Almost by accident I discovered that my inner thigh, where it meets my groin was ALWAYS so tight and spasmed that I couldn’t touch it in any way.  I took to having my husband just lean on it with the heel of his hand with a lot of pressure because that was the only kind of ‘treatment’ I could stand.

The mass starts in my groin on the left side and the muscle that it is connected to must travel up and connect again at the front of my left hip bone, because I can kind of follow it up there and find the other end of it where there are more trigger points and knotted masses of painful tissue.  If you look at the picture above and find the muscle noted as iliopsoas, I think that’s the culprit here.  I hear many people call it the psoas muscle (pronounced like so-as).

After about 6 months of applying pressure when I could stand it, the area loosened up enough that I could start self-trigger point massage on it with a tennis ball. For months, whenever I would put the least bit of pressure on it, I would feel like it was on fire.  It was an incredibly strange and painful sensation.  It was like the tennis ball was on fire and I was applying it directly to my skin.  I’ve never felt anything like it before or since.

I believe that this sensation was caused by a mass of nerves and tissue that was so knotted and damaged that it pulled an bunched my fascia in extreme ways and caused much of my pain and probably was a fibromyalgia precursor.  I don’t know what originally caused it, but one of my theories has to do with spankings with a board I received as a child.

Yes, I believe that fibromyalgia started in my body when I was a very young child, and when I was 30 and I got symptoms, it was because my body was finally so full of these twisted masses of tissues that it could no longer function normally.  This one in my groin area was probably my first one that ever developed, and as such it is the last one I am getting rid of too.  It’s still there, but I don’t have any fibromyalgia anymore.  Eventually it will be gone too.

Ok, back to what I did that night about the pain.  It was about 11:00 at night.  I was laying down.  I didn’t really have the strength or desire to get up and massage the area with a tennis ball so I got my hand-held infrared heat applicator and put it on the area.  Oh yes, more relief, my pain got down into the 3 to 4 area.  phew.

For a couple of hours I alternated heat application with pressure and by 2:30 I was down to pain of about 2.  Although it was 2:30 in the morning, the sweet relief of almost no pain was so wonderful I was completely blissed out.  I got up and ate something so I could take two motrin and then I went to bed.  I was able to sleep.  wonderful.

The next morning, I had a tiny bit of pain when I moved certain ways.  I started a program of 2 to three times a day, rubbing the area with a tennis ball against the wall.  I also put thermacare-like heat pads on the area.  I started doing supported child’s pose and unsupported child’s pose at least twice a day and anytime after I biked.   Basically, I focused all my energy on this area, and started taking time in my life again to focus on my healing and health maintenance.

Now, three weeks later, I am still focusing on this area, and making incredible gains.  The knot of tissue is almost gone.  I can’t find many issues in my stomach at all.  This is so great.  Along with this tissue finally loosening up, I am feeling even more gains in my overall musclular health.  I can work all day if I like with NO pain.  I went skiing last weekend and felt great.

It is so worth it to learn to find your own trigger points and treat them yourself.  :)

AND, if your treatment for something isn’t working, maybe you are treating the wrong area!  Most times, if you can recreate your pain or issue by pressing on the muscle, you know that’s the right muscle.

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Filed under: Listening to your Body, Reversing Fibromyalgia, Trigger Points




Have you seen my book yet? I reversed Fibromyalgia in my own body. I think anyone can do it, no matter how long they've had Fibro or how severe their pain, fatigue, fibrofog, or tiredness. Click here to Start Your Journey Back to Wellness!

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