Fibromyalgia and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I knew very little about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when I was diagnosed with it by my psychiatrist after a full-body memory that was so intense and so disturbing it took me days to cope with it. I had experienced body-memories like it before, but never anything that disturbing. I did not know at the time that body-memories were a symptom of PTSD, nor did I realize that the disturbing memories would cause me to go into fibromyalgia flares.

Unfortunately, the only way to learn about these issues was to go through them, as there was not a lot of documentation about the combination of these two illnesses. I struggled through the nightmares and anxiety of PTSD, which made my fibro worse as it effected my sleep. I struggled with memories, and separating the real from the anxiety inspired daymares. My psychiatrist gave me anti-anxiety medication, and that helped greatly. He also suggested talk therapy, and that helped more.

Unfortunately, I still struggled with nightmares, and the nightmares and memory-episodes were causing major grief with my fibromyalgia. The flares were then causing me to be very emotional, which was then triggering more trouble with the PTSD. I felt locked in a bad spiral, and I spoke to my therapist about it. She suggested sleeping pills, and sent me to my psychiatrist.

He prescribed me some, as a stop-gap measure, and they did help. I was able to sleep deeply, and without nightmares for the first time in a long time. I was able to get my fibromyalgia under control, and then deal with the trigger issues that were causing the major PTSD problems. Once I got past the trigger issues, I was able to go off the sleeping pills, to see if the nightmares recurred. They did, on occasion, but not with the overwhelming frequency that they had been previously. Once the nightmares were under control, I moved on to trying to discover the causes. I am sure I have not discovered all the causes, but I have certainly made a great deal of progress in the years that I was in therapy. I gained a great deal of control over the things that triggered my nightmares and PTSD flashbacks. I no longer have to fear unexpected flashbacks or body-memories. I now know the signs that precede them, and know what to do if I am about to experience them.

I also know how to handle the nightmares, and what to do if they start occurring with frequency- I know what to look for, what parts of my life to examine to figure out what's out of control and causing me to trigger.

I am not naive enough to think I've "conquered" my PTSD- but, like the fibromyalgia, I have done what I can do to work with it, to learn to control what I can control, and to set up "airbags" so that when I start falling because of its foibles, I fall into a soft landing rather than a crash.

It's not easy, but if I can do it, you can, too.