Insomnia... why do you bless me with your presence again?

It's 2:15 in the morning, and I am not sleepy.

I got up at 9ish this morning, so it's not as if I slept in late. I have class at 9:20 tomorrow morning...well, this morning, and I don't know how I'm going to get up. But I know if I went to lay down right now, I'd just be staring at the ceiling.

Something I may not have mentioned before is that I (as well as the majority of my family) has fibromyalgia. Wikipedia defines Fibro as...

Fibromyalgia, meaning muscle and connective tissue pain (also referred to as FM or FMS), is a disorder classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain and a heightened and painful response to gentle touch (tactile allodynia).[1] Other core features of the disorder include debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness. In addition, persons affected by the disorder frequently experience a range of other symptoms that involve multiple body systems, including difficulty with swallowing,[2] functional bowel and bladder abnormalities,[3] difficulty breathing,[4] diffuse sensations of numbness and tingling (non-dermatomal paresthesia),[5] abnormal motor activity (i.e. nocturnal myoclonus, sleep bruxism),[6] and cognitive dysfunction.[7] An increased prevalence of affective and anxiety-related symptoms is also well known.[8] While the criteria for such an entity have not yet been thoroughly developed, the recognition that fibromyalgia involves more than just pain has led to the frequent use of the term "fibromyalgia syndrome".[9] Not all affected persons experience all the symptoms associated with the greater syndrome.

Huh, didn't know half that stuff! I have never been officially diagnosed, but I have all the symptoms that goes along with it. Both my Mom and my Uncle have it, along with a lot of other members on my Mom's side.

So what does having Fibro mean?

It means pain. It means being or getting tired very quickly. It means intolerance to hot or cold. In talking to my Mom today, I decided on a theory... when the weather changes, our bodies can't cope as quickly. Mom and I, living an hour and a half apart, have both been having difficulty getting warm. I chill so easily it's not funny. This morning, I was asking Carl what the temperature outside was, and he responded "It was comfortable" and I go "Comfortable for you, or for me?" and he goes "I have to dress you like a baby. If I'm comfortable, you have to have 1-2 more layers on." This would make sense if I were skinny, but I am most certainly NOT a skinny minny.

Fibro also includes extraordinarily sore muscles and fibrospots (that's a very technical term coined by my mom and I). There are certain spots on your body, mine are mainly my back and legs, but Mom has them on her arms as well,that if you are touched there when you're having a fibro attack, you literally feel an electric shock go throughout your entire body. We have cats back at Mom's house, and I swear to you, they have Fibro sensors. They can find those spots and manage to step on them with ALL their little cat weight and make mom and I scream. I think they enjoy it.

Mom and I manage our fibro pain with ibuprofen and a skeletal muscle relaxer entitled "Skelaxin." It's not a muscle relaxer that weirds you out, it merely relaxes your skeletal muscles. Mom also takes a non-narcotic pain killer when her's is really bad. I seem to get a lot more joint pain with my attacks than Mom does with hers, which I think comes from my abnormally loose tendons and ligaments.

Carl and I probably conceived Peanut around October 2ndish last year. On October 9th, I "threw" my back out worse than I ever have before and took an humongous amount of pain killers and muscle relaxers in the course of the next week. I had no idea I was pregnant, and on top of Skelaxin and Ibuprofen, I took a ton of Tylenol with Codeine. I KNOW that the miscarriage was in no way my fault, but I am trying to ween myself off all drugs. When I was pregnant and had an attack, I was literally in h-e-l-l. There were many days I would come back from class and just cry. I hurt so bad all over and I was so tired I felt like breathing took to much effort. What was hardest was that I would normally pop some pills, and viola! Everything would be bearable.

I'm trying to wean myself off everything I can. I also have a skin condition, which I THINK is called atopic dermatitis. It's a build up of histamine under the skin. If my arm starts itching, and I scratch it... it doesn't stop itching, it just spreads. Very quickly this will drive you insane. Whatever is itching breaks into raised welts. I also get those raised welts from clothes and, well, anything that touches my skin, really... It is very, very annonying. Once I found out I was pregnant, I stopped taking that medicine as well... and that was also a HORRIBLE ordeal. So, I'm trying to wean myself off that as well.

Neither of these are easy. Every night I take a HUGE handful of pills, but none of them are harmful to my body. I take a prenatal vitamin, a magnesium tablet (that helps the fibro and your bowels), a soil based mineral (pro-biotic) and 8, count them 8, vegetable fiber tablets. I still have bowel issues.

Well, It's 2:44 now, and I feel a tiny bit sleepy. I'm going to take some children's benadryl, and try and get some sleep. Cross your fingers I make it up for class in the morning!