My symptoms

My symptoms vary daily. Very occassionally I get up and there is NO pain - I love these days even though they are few and far between. At the very worst I have pain from my shoulders down to my lower limbs. I have difficulty sleeping, its almost like a cramping which forces me to move my legs during sleep, but it isnt quite a cramp (more a pain but one I dont experience other than in this particular thing). I cant seem to stay in one position too long. I feel weak alot of the time to the point where I have to lie down.

Very recently my Knee joints are really giving me a lot of pain but I was told that Fibromyalgia doesnt affect joints but the muscles so I am thinking perhaps, its either my weight that is doing it OR its osteoarthritus.

I have been given Tramadol but I also take Sirtraline, which is abit risky because of the increased chance of seizures. But what else can I do??

I too have pain that goes from my neck all the way down. I have hip pain. Leg pain. Uncontrollably twitching of my fingers, sharp shooting pain in my joints, painful skin sensations, etc....I was given Mobic and Flexril. They work together for the most part. But, I do get to go to sleep. Which is soooo important, as you know. Hang in there!!!!

I too have pain in many areas of my body.

My lower back and hips are where I experience the most pain. MRIs show I have degeneration in my vertebra and ruptured or herniated discs. The spine surgeon would not touch me; he said I would need rods, screws and bone grafts and with my diabetes (not well controlled) I would not heal and would be worst off than before.

I have an extremely hard time sleeping at night. The pain in my back and hips keep me constantly repositioning to find a more comfortable posture. Most of the time, I just give up, go sit in a padded rocking chair with a hot pad on my back and eventually I do go to sleep (aro 3or 4am every morning). NOTE: watch out for dry heat burns with heating pads, I've burnt myself a couple of times and healing took a while. I did a sleep study and was told I had restless leg syndrome. I take Mirapex in the evenings to help that - and it does help the extreme antzyness of my legs if I remember to take them 3 hours before I try to sleep. I have some Ambient I can take too, but it makes me pretty groggy in the morning and if I need to drive during the morning I don't take it the night before.

For several years now (probably aro 10-15 years) I've found that overdoing (work, play, anything) will bring on severe pain in several areas of my body (back, shoulders, arms, hips, knees,etc) for up to 3-4 days after my overdoing.
I rarely can walk with an upright poster. I use a cane and tend to walk slightly bent over due to the pain.

My rheumatologist checked me out for fibro hot spots on my first visit with him and said I had many of the trigger points, but I was in so much back pain, he concentrated on exploring that with CT Scans and MRI's and a referral to a surgeon (who will not touch me). More recently the rheumatologist is emphasizing my losing weight. I am 100 lbs overweight and I know that is an issue too. Exercise is pretty impossible, so my rheumatologist has me doing swim theraphy 3x/week. This helps, especially with my range of motion; pain is greatly reduced when I am in the water, but returns in full strength when I'm out of the water.
I was taking only tylenol arthritis for pain, which helped not at all and I was so depressed that I finally went to my general physician and asked for something for the pain. He prescribed some mobic daily in the morning. That did help beginning the next day. He also gave me some pain pills with codeine to use when my pain is worse. I've used a few of them (mostly at night when I couldn't get to sleep), but it does take them hours to start to work.

After several months of the swim therapy and other treatments, I was beginning to feel much better and sometimes I didn't even use my cane to walk. But I shot a long photo session (I'm a photographer, forced to sell out my business in 2009 because of my pain) and then a wedding the next weekend and now I've have had a great setback. The pain is back full force the last two weeks.

So basically my symptoms are back/hip pain, pain when overdoing, major sleep problems, restless legs. I've experienced the foggy thinking before but at this time, that is not too much of an issue. I had a stroke after surgery a couple of years go and it took me about a year to feel fairly well recovered from that. (my stroke mostly caused confusion and forgetfulness and the inability to multi-task). Thank God I have regained much of my ability to multi-task, memorize and my math skills; nowadays I don't have much problem with my thinking unless I'm very tired.