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So You Feel Hit By A Truck? Welcome To Fibromyalgia · When Life Gives You Lemons

• 0:00
  Speaker: Another day in room is gonna build for me.
• 0:02
  Speaker: The sidewalk flows at a different speed.
• 0:05
  Speaker: Feels like I'm watching my own movie through a hazy sunlit filter.
• 0:10
  Speaker: All the little signs are invisible lines that only make sense in my own time.
• 0:16
  Speaker: There's a quiet strength in adaptation, a soft hum of my own creation.
• 0:21
  Speaker: Yeah, a soft hum of my own creation.
• 0:32
  Kevin: Well, hello everybody, and welcome to our podcast when life gives you lovements.
• 0:38
  Kevin: I'm Kevin.
• 0:40
  palmi: And I'm Palmi.
• 0:42
  Kevin: And this time we're gonna be talking about fibromyalgia.
• 0:49
  palmi: Beyond the invisible pain.
• 0:54
  Kevin: A lot of people talk about fibromyalgia, and people assume that they're big, big deal out of nothing purely is something.
• 1:10
  palmi: So imagine waking up every day feeling like you ran a marathon, you're exhausted, and then you've been hit by a tra uh truck, and that and yet you go to the doctor, you get lab tests, x-rays, blood panels, and the doctor says everything looks normal.
• 1:30
  Kevin: Oh, I forgot.
• 1:32
  Kevin: I need to add this disclaimer.
• 1:35
  Kevin: Palmi has fibromyalgia.
• 1:39
  Kevin: So, yes, I asked if we pulled through the internet.
• 1:44
  Kevin: We're also gonna try to get more personal experiences from her, kind of like an interview, yeah.
• 1:54
  Kevin: So, um, okay, you've been through that before where people don't believe you when you talk about your symptoms, right?
• 2:07
  palmi: Yeah, it's the typical fibromyalgia of symptoms, um uh burning pain, aching, throbbing, uh stabbing discomfort throughout the body, in your muscles, and your joints.
• 2:19
  palmi: Um it's the um fatigue, um, they call it fibro f fog, where your brain doesn't seem like it's working, you're exhausted all the time, memory lapses, trouble focusing, mental sluggishness.
• 2:36
  palmi: Um, when this started happening to me, um, it was in the middle of your diagnosis.
• 2:42
  palmi: We were trying to figure out what was wrong with you.
• 2:44
  palmi: So this was about 25 years ago-ish.
• 2:48
  Kevin: Yeah.
• 2:50
  palmi: Um, I had a five-year-old.
• 2:52
  palmi: My husband had just been diagnosed.
• 2:55
  palmi: Well, not diagnosed yet.
• 2:56
  palmi: We were trying to figure it out.
• 2:57
  palmi: He they thought he had um uh MS.
• 3:02
  palmi: MS.
• 3:03
  palmi: But they weren't sure.
• 3:04
  palmi: They were just treating him for MS.
• 3:06
  palmi: You were on the had you were kind of working, kind of not working.
• 3:12
  palmi: Uh, I was working, I took a job um because we needed the insurance, because we thought something was really, really wrong with you, so we needed really good insurance.
• 3:22
  palmi: So I took a job with that we knew we'd have really good insurance for, and it was a working 12-hour shifts.
• 3:29
  Kevin: And she did have a job with really good insurance.
• 3:33
  palmi: Yeah, and we had no, we didn't pay for anything basically back then, and you were having lots and lots and lots of labs and all kinds of stuff.
• 3:43
  palmi: And so, um, but I was having this happen to me.
• 3:47
  palmi: Like I was exhausted, and so I kept going to the doctor saying, I'm really just I'm all these complaints, I'm exhausted.
• 3:55
  palmi: Um I and they kept saying, Well, it's just stress, your husband's going through all this, you know, it's understandable.
• 4:01
  palmi: You're just stressed.
• 4:02
  palmi: You're a new mother, five years old, the child was five years old, you're just stressed out.
• 4:07
  palmi: Well, it wasn't just stress, I could tell it wasn't just stress, something was really wrong.
• 4:12
  palmi: Because I knew from one point it was like a breaking point where it just one day I felt normal, and the next day I didn't feel normal anymore.
• 4:23
  palmi: And um no one could give me answers.
• 4:27
  palmi: It was frustrating, and yet I still had to do everything I had to do.
• 4:31
  palmi: So um they thought at that point when back then they thought it was depression.
• 4:38
  palmi: And so they gave me antidepression pills and which does that did nothing for the the pain, the physical pain.
• 4:47
  palmi: Um it probably cleared up my head a little bit, but it did and maybe helped with the stress and the ant and there maybe was a little bit of depression there too.
• 4:57
  palmi: So maybe that solved some of that problems, but it still didn't fix anything.
• 5:01
  palmi: Um and we were having to make some major life decisions at the same time.
• 5:07
  palmi: So um Kevin was having to decide well, at one point he just just he couldn't see anymore to drive, so he had to give up driving.
• 5:19
  palmi: So I was the only driver, so I was driving back and forth to um doctor's appointments.
• 5:25
  palmi: We were considering going from one house one income to from two incomes to one income, what that would would happen, how we would handle that.
• 5:36
  palmi: And we had just bought a house, I think, at that point.
• 5:39
  palmi: Wasn't that when we we just bought signed a mortgage on for a house?
• 5:43
  palmi: So that was pretty scary.
• 5:45
  palmi: And so it was a lot going on.
• 5:48
  palmi: So in other words so, anyways, I finally went from doctor to doctor to doctor.
• 5:53
  palmi: Nobody could give me answers.
• 5:54
  palmi: Finally, this other this doctor I came to finally said Dr.
• 5:58
  palmi: McNabb, I'll always remember his name.
• 6:00
  palmi: He said, It's fibromyalgia.
• 6:03
  palmi: He goes, You have the same, there's no way, there's no test to test you.
• 6:06
  palmi: He said, but it's the lack of other symptoms.
• 6:10
  palmi: And he pushed a trigger point on my it was my on my leg, and I flinched heavily, and he said, Oh yeah, that's fibromyalgia symptoms.
• 6:22
  palmi: He goes, Do you do you have have you ever had TMJ?
• 6:24
  palmi: And I said, Yeah, I was had TMJ when I was in um Hawaii.
• 6:29
  palmi: I was being treated for TMJ.
• 6:30
  palmi: They were grinding my teeth down for TMJ, and he said, Yeah, these are all symptoms that come with fibromyalgia.
• 6:38
  palmi: Um he put me on a muscle relaxance, they didn't work for me, they just put me to sleep, and I was working a 12-hour shift, and that just didn't work with a 12-hour shift.
• 6:49
  palmi: Uh, and taking care of a child and taking you to all your medicine doctor appointments and all that stuff.
• 6:55
  palmi: So the only thing I've ever found that does work for me is aquatherapy and hot water.
• 7:02
  palmi: I have a whirlpool tub downstairs that I use quite often.
• 7:06
  palmi: And I before all this movie and stuff, I I worked out three days three days a week in an aqua warm pool that really helped with the fiber maga.
• 7:17
  palmi: Um, and then also massages.
• 7:20
  palmi: I would do two to one two one to two massages a week um just to maintain um the pain, to keep the pain down.
• 7:30
  palmi: And that really hel helped um with and also keeping mobility, light massage light uh exercise.
• 7:38
  palmi: Uh as long as I walk kept walking slowly, um stretching my muscles out, even though it hurt to do that, it eventually would uh lessen the pain eventually.
• 7:51
  palmi: So those were the my three things that I figured out in the long term.
• 7:56
  palmi: This didn't happen all at once, but this is over a 10 year, 10 to 15 year period.
• 8:01
  palmi: I figured out what works for me.
• 8:04
  palmi: So getting back to um the actual disease.
• 8:11
  palmi: A lot of people when they go there, people don't under a lot of doctors just for in early, and this was in the what do we say, 2000s.
• 8:19
  palmi: A lot of doctors thought this was, and then this is what I got from a lot of doctors telling me it was all in my head that it was mental.
• 8:27
  palmi: And um, there just was a recently a study that came through, even you know, they gave me antidepressants for some of this fibromyalgia pain, and a recent breakthrough in fibromyalgia research offers new hope for understanding and treatment for the chronic pain condition.
• 8:47
  palmi: And according to the study published in July of 2026 through the National Um Nature Neuroscience Research at the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research has developed a personalized brain imaging model that can decode factions in sporadic pain intel tension tensions in individuals with fibromyalgia, and it has led to more efficient pain managements and strategies.
• 9:20
  palmi: Um basically it has concluded that it is a associated with the central nerve system, not mental.
• 9:34
  palmi: It's not not a mental case, um, meant a mental illness like they thought it was originally.
• 9:40
  palmi: Um a massive genetic study has also shed light on the biologistic basis of fibromyalgia.
• 9:52
  palmi: Say it for me.
• 9:55
  Kevin: Fibromyalgia.
• 9:57
  palmi: There you go.
• 9:58
  palmi: Suggesting that it's not solely a psychological condition.
• 10:02
  palmi: The study findings confirm that fibromyalgia is has a clear biological framework and further research into triggers and neural tissue may lead to new treatments.
• 10:16
  palmi: Other research focuses on immune triggers for fibromyalgia treatments, exploring the connection between gut immune dysfunction and autoantibody production.
• 10:29
  palmi: The American Fibromyalgia Symptom Syndrome Association is investigating potential therapeutic approaches based on these findings.
• 10:40
  palmi: So now there is a connection between the genetic research and the chronic pain.
• 10:48
  palmi: So that's a that's a good thing.
• 10:51
  palmi: And we talked earlier that it's kind of the same situation as ataxia, where they didn't know a lot in the very beginning, and now and they kind of lumped separated out all the ataxias, and now they're putting them all together and learning a lot more.
• 11:10
  Kevin: Lump them all together because they all have things in common.
• 11:17
  Kevin: Right.
• 11:18
  Kevin: And uh basically, when they diagnose you via observation now, they're looking for things that are different from the norm that put you in that category of number six or number seven.
• 11:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 11:39
  palmi: So pharmaceutic basically the definition is widespread pain.
• 11:44
  palmi: Um, and it's great, it breaks down widespread muscular pain definitions on pain on both sides of the body, above and below the waist, lasting more than three months.
• 11:57
  palmi: This is those are the symptoms that Dr.
• 11:59
  palmi: McDabb was looking at when he was describing um what my symptoms were.
• 12:04
  palmi: Uh just describing the sensation is deep aching, burning, throbbing, and stabbing discomfort.
• 12:12
  palmi: Um, the sensor volume knob basically has been turned up permanently turned up.
• 12:21
  palmi: So there's just no relief from it whatsoever.
• 12:25
  palmi: Um, it's also causes um a ripple effect, which is the fatigue that I mentioned, the fibro fog, the non-exist coexisting conditions, um, ex the exhausted beyond sleep situation, when they have found that fibromyalgia sufferers do not get the regenerative sleep that most people get when they fall asleep, their muscles don't regenerate as as other people's have or do.
• 12:59
  Kevin: Yeah, right.
• 13:00
  Kevin: I think uh in this particular write-up, uh, because we had asked you about fibromyalgia in the query, uh they came up with this term of fibrofog, but I think that is similar to other conditions or described as brain fog.
• 13:29
  palmi: Yeah, yeah, that's similar.
• 13:31
  Kevin: I just think that uh for this particular query, they thought that term was a little bit more appropriate.
• 13:41
  palmi: Yeah, which addresses the cognitive symptoms, which is the memory loss, trouble focusing, and the mental slug slugly slug slug slugglessness.
• 13:52
  palmi: Can't can't talk tonight.
• 13:54
  palmi: Um, exploring why uh fibromyalgia frequently travels with other conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, which I also have, anxiety, depression, which I have, and TMJ.
• 14:09
  palmi: Um they haven't figured that out yet, but they do connect that all together, that they have a connection there.
• 14:21
  Kevin: Well, see, that is promising in that they've recognized there is a connection or not their thing.
• 14:30
  Kevin: It's like um with a taxia, everybody in the ataxia area that is hoping for a cure is basically well hoping that somebody finds a cure.
• 14:51
  Kevin: It could be one, it could be six, it could be number seven, but uh you know they have so much in common that even the treatment for one might help a little bit from all the others, yeah.
• 15:06
  Kevin: Well, if nothing else, it's like um uh I think uh you know this, the uh drug I take for my tremors in my spasm, my muscular spasms, is really intended for epilepsy patients.
• 15:29
  palmi: Right.
• 15:30
  Kevin: But it works well on me.
• 15:32
  Kevin: I just have to take over the amount of them.
• 15:36
  palmi: Yeah.
• 15:37
  Kevin: Where they take like one pill a day and they're done with it.
• 15:43
  palmi: Yeah, I think I mentioned to you that uh one of the current um treatments for fibromyalgia is what is the drug that you were on for diabetes?
• 15:55
  Kevin: Uh metformin.
• 15:57
  palmi: Metformin, yeah, they're using metformin as a fibromalgia um drug.
• 16:01
  palmi: And that also was used for irritable bowel syndrome.
• 16:07
  palmi: So the two, I don't know why it works for fibromyalgia, but must have a side effect.
• 16:14
  palmi: Well, we're just talking about how fibromyalgia is linked to other things like migraines and IPS and all that stuff.
• 16:25
  palmi: When I had to take metformin, it kind of gave me IPS symptoms.
• 16:32
  Kevin: Right, maybe somehow it's connected, like it just didn't go away.
• 16:36
  Kevin: So obviously, that is you know a sod effect, and probably uh the majority of pyromyalgia sufferers get uh more of this, you know, that unwanted side effect, just not a factor.
• 17:00
  palmi: Yeah.
• 17:01
  palmi: Well, as far as um emphasizing um the fact there is no single cure, like I said, my I found that the medicines didn't seem to help.
• 17:11
  palmi: Um, I found external um things to fix, like the aquatherapy and the um massage therapy.
• 17:20
  palmi: Um, those seem to help me more than the drug, um, because I have severe side effects of the medication.
• 17:28
  palmi: So um, but FDA has approved pharmaceutical options designed to adjust the brain chemical, uh, like the serotonin and the non-receptic or to calm the overactive nerve cells, basically um calm them down so they're not so active.
• 17:51
  palmi: Um, they also have lifestyles, uh lifestyle treatments, which is like I said, I found that if I did low in impact uh exercising like walking or swimming or yoga, it was very effective in keeping the pain at a bearable level and cognitive behavior therapy uh and stress management and coping with the cop um the chronic pain.
• 18:21
  palmi: In conclusion, uh, as always, we suggest that if you have if you think you would have fibromyalgia, you go to your uh health professionals and um let up let them figure out what you got because again, we're not doctors or don't have any medical advice for you other than what we've gone through ourselves.
• 18:43
  Kevin: Hey, for once I'm not having to tell everybody we're not doctors points for me.
• 18:52
  palmi: And I think that's about it for it.
• 18:55
  palmi: You can live with it, you have to live with it since there is no cure.
• 18:59
  palmi: And you just get by.
• 19:01
  palmi: Um, I think I took a lot of um insets.
• 19:11
  Kevin: Okay, I have to tell a story here.
• 19:15
  Kevin: Earlier, I believe it was season one.
• 19:20
  Kevin: We talked about dancing plague, um Gulf War Syndrome, and long COVID.
• 19:31
  Kevin: Long COVID.
• 19:32
  Kevin: And it was basically three diseases where there was something there, but everybody would just assume it's all in the individual's head.
• 19:47
  Kevin: Well, it was until it was proven that there was such a thing, yeah.
• 19:51
  Kevin: And in some cases, like with the dancing plague, they don't really know what the cause was, but they could speculate on a couple.
• 20:04
  Kevin: So yeah.
• 20:06
  palmi: So keep the faith, yeah, and be an um advocate for yourself.
• 20:13
  Kevin: Well, whenever your uh healthcare provider or whoever is gonna uh yeah, just dismiss your uh symptoms or problem you have.
• 20:31
  Kevin: You have to have enough confidence, nobody knows what you're going through exactly but you.
• 20:40
  Kevin: Uh my doctor nowadays changes frequently.
• 20:48
  Kevin: They don't know what a taxi is because a taxi is a legitimate medical term, but it's not the term for what I have, it's just the people that have it.
• 21:04
  Kevin: It's the symptoms, yeah.
• 21:06
  Kevin: They have the same spy this big long complicated sounded name and doesn't make any sense to anybody but them.
• 21:17
  Kevin: And it's like um, for example, with cerebral palsy, uh Alexis was telling me that oftentimes people with cerebral palsy just abbreviated the TP.
• 21:34
  Kevin: It doesn't really mean anything to anybody but other TP sufferers.
• 21:43
  Kevin: You know, it just people get tired of saying cerebral palsy over and over again, and uh we get tired of saying spinocyl ataxia over and over again.
• 22:01
  Kevin: And just call it ataxia.
• 22:04
  Kevin: Ataxia means it's movement disorder.
• 22:08
  Kevin: Yeah, fancy uh medical that means something isn't working right, which is okay.
• 22:17
  Kevin: Pretty nondescript.
• 22:20
  Kevin: That's why a doctor usually will kind of like, huh, you've got a taxia, huh?
• 22:28
  Kevin: Because he hasn't heard that before and he doesn't know the you know short name that people use of it, so we're so I make sure to tell him well it's called spinal cylindrical ataxia.
• 22:45
  Kevin: Is my specific and but nobody knows what the heck I'm talking about, so I just say ataxia.
• 22:53
  Kevin: Save myself a little bit of time and effort there.
• 22:57
  Kevin: I'm lazy that way.
• 23:00
  Kevin: Okay, so do we have any home uh house cleaning?
• 23:04
  Kevin: We do.
• 23:04
  Kevin: We've actually been running a sort of contest.
• 23:09
  Kevin: It's not really a contest, it's more of a challenge.
• 23:14
  Kevin: I gave you a picture, it asked you to identify who it was, and then I gave you a hint because you probably said, well, heck, it's a dog dressed up in a suit.
• 23:32
  Kevin: Well, if you go to our website, www.whenlife gives you lovers.net and go to the contributors pit tab, you'll see the exact same picture.
• 23:51
  Kevin: And that gives you his name and what he does.
• 23:56
  Kevin: So that's what I want to hear.
• 23:59
  Kevin: Just a name I looked at the website.
• 24:02
  Kevin: Makes us feel good that we didn't go through a bunch of typing for nothing.
• 24:09
  Kevin: Thank you very much.
• 24:12
  Kevin: And while you're there, you can look for older episodes under seasons one, two, and three.
• 24:20
  Kevin: The craft you weren't aware of, or pe curious and wouldn't mind listening to them.
• 24:29
  Kevin: Well, until next time, we'll give you that time wondered phrase when life gives you lemons, what do you do?
• 24:40
  palmi: Make the lemonade.
• 24:41
  Kevin: There you go.
• 24:42
  Kevin: So, till next time, folks, talk to you later.