Hello Doctors,
So last year, I shared my story with you guys about my struggle with chronic pain and disability. That post was titled " Kinesiophobia, Tendinopathy & Disability Situation; Interested in Pain&Rehab Consult". In that post I shared how your guys’ content had been immensely helpful in my journey to overcome chronic pain. At that time, I was self-managing my situation with what I had learned through your resources, but had mentioned that I was running into a lot of problems that I didn’t know how to address and therefore was interested in a pain & rehab consult. We concluded that that would be a good course of action and I got set up working with Dr. Derek Miles (who is awesome btw!). Derek and I had a great consult and he put together a solid rehab/training plan for me that I began working on right away. I’m very happy to say that I was able to make some amazing progress with his plan in terms of strength and functional ability. The chronic pain seemed to be improving. By all accounts, I was right on track to make a full recovery. But then, something happened…
I was making progress in the gym, getting stronger, building some muscle. But then I seemed to hit a plateau where even though I was getting stronger, my chronic pain symptoms were not improving anymore. At first, I figured this was just the ebbs and flows of training, understanding that progress isn’t linear. So I figured I’ll just be patient, keep sticking to the plan, make sure my load management and fatigue management are solid and we’ll be good to go. This was the Summer of 2022. At this point, I didn’t feel like I needed any additional help because I was very happy (and still am) with Derek’s plan and just felt I needed to give it more time. Then, I ended up having surgery - septoplasty and submucosal turbinate reduction. It ended up being a pretty brutal experience, I wound up in the ER twice for pain and bleeding complications. Thankfully, I’m all good on that front now. But it really knocked the wind out of my sails in terms of progress in the gym and overcoming my chronic pain/disability. As a result, I lost a decent amount of strength and my chronic pain had gotten a little bit worse. I thought this was probably normal and not a big deal, So I just slowly resumed the plan that Derek made for me and was trying to get myself back to previous levels and beyond. But around Nov-Dec of 2022, things really went downhill.
First, my chronic pain came back with a vengeance. But what I noticed is that my pain was no longer limited to my feet and ankles like before. I started feeling this sort of widespread aching and stiffness in other parts of my body like my knees, thigh muscles, my hip joints, my lower back, my neck, and of course my feet and ankles. Mornings have always been the worst for me. In order to get out of bed I have to use crutches because my pain and stiffness is really bad. Also, I started struggling with near daily fatigue despite having good sleep hygiene and sleeping through the night. I’ve been having some cognitive difficulties too, difficulty concentrating and remembering things (which was never a problem for me before). I also struggle with abdominal discomfort/pain and bloating almost every day, as well as an on and off struggle with constipation. From the end of last year until now, I didn’t really think that anything serious was going on. So I was just trying to train through it thinking that eventually things would get better. But things have not gotten better and now I’m convinced that there is something wrong with me. I am going to see my PCP hopefully soon to discuss all of this with him. Based off my own limited research, it seems like maybe I could have fibromyalgia because my symptoms seem to match that condition the most. I’ve researched other conditions that have similar symptoms such as hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, polymyalgia rheumatica, osteoarthritis, gout, psoriatic arthritis. Ultimately, I don’t know what’s going on, but there is something seriously wrong.
Ultimately, I really need some help and guidance. What do you think I should do? What steps would you recommend that I take to begin the process of figuring out what’s wrong? I’m going to see my PCP soon and he will likely refer me to a specialist, which I think will be a good start. Beyond that, could you give me some guidance on how you would approach this? Any guidance you could give me would be so appreciated, as I am obviously very discouraged, depressed and lost. I am more disabled this year than I was last year, which is tough to deal with. But I am a fighter at heart though, so I’m not giving up and I still have hope that things can get better.