Hello all, I am new to this but was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 12 years ago by a DR that didn't want to do anything to help me. I recently went to an arthritis DR and he prescribed 75mg Lyrica to me. I took the first one Monday night and slept like a baby. I haven't slept more than 3-4 hours at the most for years and years. I slept from 9:30 that night till 5 am Tuesday morning. Next week I will start with 1 in the morning and one at bedtime, the next week 1 in the am and two at bedtime then the 4th week I will take 2 in the am and two in the pm . I fell much better at night, but the pain comes back during the day. I am hoping when I can take one in the morning that the day pain will stop also. I hear it doesn't work for everyone, I sure hope I am one that it works on…I am 49 years old white female and live in Northeast Louisiana.

I have had fibromyalgia for several years and they have tried just about everything on me. I have been to one specialist after another and finally found one at Toronto Western Hopspital who deals mainly with people who have fibro. This guy is fantastic he told me things that were happening to me that I didn't tell anyone before. This Doctor does a lot of research in fibro and has been written up in the docors journals. I told him all the meds I was on and his response was this Lyrica works for the pain it has to be taken every twelve hours to work effectively, As I have difficulty with depression (due to poor sleep) I take Effexor at night, this is also a sleep aid; because i have insomina I also take a sleeping pill. Now the result is these do knock me out for a good eight hours, however he also told me that because I have fibro no matter how long I sleep I do not get a proper or normal sleep, I find this to be very true.

I have found something that gives me energy and it is not a perscribed medication, now for me it works and it is finally nice to be able to do things on my own without help, it is called Flex Protex. If you want to give it a try they do have a web site. Now I live in Canada and I am 52 years old and have lived and fought this disease for almost half of my life. I have been diagnosed with Cronic Fibromyalgia, and with comes IBS, Insomnia, depression not to mention all that lovely pain. I have finally found ways to work with all of this. While there will always be some medication that I have to take there is also the holistic way that is much healthy for me. The less chemicals I put in my body the better I am.

I watch my diet very carefully, staying away from all processed foods and dairy and breads/pasta, incuding potatoes they are a killer. It's not always easy to do this but if you can avoid as much of these as possible I think you will find it will help you. Good Luck Karlynn.

Just taking a 5 min break from packing, we're moving again. How do you get a Dr or health care prof to admit you have Fibro? Every Dr I go to just fluffs me off. When I do get them to listen to me, they agree I have it, then skip over it. Telling me to "live with it", there's nothing they can do for me etc… I asked about Lyrica. That ended that, they jumped into something else. They tell me I have Osteo Arthritis and have me on Meloxicam for imflammation. It does work but I can't sleep at night at all. I fall asleep easily enough but wake numerous times during the night in extreme pain, mainly in my right hip, knee. I was told I had tendonitis in my right leg and only time would heal it. How long? Its been going on 3 months now. I will say I've improved some, at least can walk across a room without hanging onto chairs etc… I had been on Loviastatin for High Cholestrol but read the side effects which are all muscle related. Well, isn't tendonitis a muscle problem? So I took myself off the meds, I told the Dr I did this and he never said a word. Never said that could've been the problem in the first place. Years ago I was on Elavil to help me sleep and it did the trick, but I realized I was becoming more and more dependent on it to go to sleep (without it I would stare at the ceiling for hours on end). I also could not explain my weight gain,, which later I learned is a side effect of Elavil. I took myself off of it slowly, lost weight but now can't sleep a full night without constantly waking up. What to do? I need help. What sort of Dr should I be looking for? We are moving to SC end of the month and I will find a new Dr out there. Thanks for any help.