I get fibro fevers a lot, usually weekly. When I’m active, exercising, and eating health, they’re much easier to manage. I caught my boyfriend’s cold last week, I recovered from it Thursday, here it is Saturday and I have a 100.1f fever. I don’t always notice them, I’ll be at the doctor’s for a checkup and the nurse will say “Did you know you have a fever?”. That fever is always low grade, usually upper 99fs, rarely above 100. Today is a bad one, not sure what triggered it, but it reminded me of when I would get sick growing up.
My parents and I bought my first modern computer in 1997, the year prior relatives gave me an old Mac Plus and I was hooked. I figured that even if I was sick, I could still work on the computer and I tried. My pattern of illness was almost predictable, major sickness at least once a season, and sick during every major school vacation. I’ve gotten sick during many major vacations and trips, sick in the Bahamas more than once, sick in Ireland and Holland, had to push myself to keep on going during a trip to South Africa, and most recently had an intense IBS attack and vasovagal episode during my first night in Orlando for a InfoSec conference. Sickness during the holidays are the ones I remember the clearest.
Sick during Christmas isn’t much fun. You have to force yourself out of bed ignoring the aches and stiffness, wrap yourself up in robes and blankets while struggling to stay warm, and pretend to be well enough that no one else notices. I would sit in front of the computer, open a computer game, try to work on a project, minutes at best, but it would end up exhausting myself and I would have to rest. It was no different during college and no different as a young adult. I hated that sick feeling, quickly putting those memories out of my mind as soon as I was better.
When I have these fibro fevers I feel the same way, I’ve made this connection before on many occasions, but I keep on putting it out of my mind. This makes me wonder if I’ve always had fibro. Either the fibro or the fever makes the joints and muscles ache, often times the muscles feel like they’re burning, and I have more of those electrical like shocks. Being idle makes it worse, it’s why constant exercise is so important.
I’m still not sure if there’s a link between the fibro fevers and caffeine, but I did have a thai iced tea yesterday, first caffeinated beverage in almost a week. The caffeine may have been too much as I crashed last night, then had intense fatigue late this morning. I’m going to keep an eye on my temperature over the next week or three, I’m avoiding caffeine for many reasons and hope it reduces the number of fevers.