Every time a doctor finds something wrong that could explain the fibro, I get excited that this might be the final piece that gets me back to 100%. When I started the B12 treatment I was very excited because of how much better I felt, how much harder I was able to push myself. I may have pushed myself a little too much. Today I woke up in a flareup, the pain is intense at times.

Yesterday was a hard day for me, physically and mentally. I woke up with digestive issues, most likely triggered by an ingredient in a packaged food I ate the night before. I stopped buying and eating that brand of packaged food before of the digestive issues it would cause, but I was out at friends’ the night before and thought “I will only have a small amount, I will be fine.”, I wasn’t. By late yesterday morning I had mild nausea and dizziness issues, this eventually turned into a stomach ache that nothing would cure. Bad digestive issues like that never come alone, they always bring anxiety. This was anxiety that could almost be ignored, until something unexpected happened. Even something as small as someone bumping into me in the hall without apologies, or a car running a stop sign, is enough to trigger a full panic attack.

I eventually made it home, anxiety untriggered. The stomach ache eventually became extreme and I had a minor IBS episode. This left me drained, but I was able to eat some dinner. Even though I did pass out immediately after dinner, I ended up going to bed by 9pm. I was hopeful that as long as I got some decent sleep I would wake up okay, after all, I may have been tired, but I wasn’t fatigued like I was before the B12 treatment.

When I woke this morning the first thought that came to my mind was “wow, I still feel like butt”. Today unlike yesterday, I ache; the joints ache, the muscles ache, the hands and fingers ache. It is too early in the day to know if I will have continued digestive issues, but I am definitely in a full fibro flareup. I am hoping that this will not be a long flareup and that the B12 will help give me the energy I need to exercise through it.

Even though I have been exercising regularly, the fatigue attacks continued to occur. At seemingly random intervals I would suddenly become extremely fatigued and chilled.  Naps would occasionally help, sometimes letting me warm up. For the longest time I assumed this was because of fibro and it would either improve or never change. Then I had bloodwork done and received the results.

Initial glance at the results and everything looks fairly healthy. Started to look at the results over the past six years and at the values that are at the upper and lower end of ‘healthy’, and I started to see a pattern. Based on my current results my red blood cells were not forming correctly, a slight megaloblastic anemia. This was confirmed this with my doctors.

Many people with fibromyalgia have a B12 deficiency, usually managed with supplements or injections. When I was last tested for B12 I was taking vitamins and a B Complex supplement, which kept my levels high enough to be healthy.

I eventually stopped taking those vitamins and supplements, letting my body detox of everything. At the time my digestive issues were bad, supplements such as B complex would upset my stomach. I had been on so many prescription pills and supplements that I wanted to start fresh, give my liver a chance to recover, stop taking pills that upset my stomach.

Over time I added basic supplements such as Vitamin D, turmeric, quercetin, and magnesium back into my diet. Last fall I added supplements suggested by one of my Doctors. Since I was doing better than I had been in years, I never considered that I was missing a key vitamin. I started looking over my supplements and dietary intake. B12 was missing from all my current supplements and my diet was not high in it. There were days where I would get sufficient amounts of B12, but most days I barely took in more than half what I needed, some days almost none. My body would deplete its store of B12 I would have anemic episodes.

The day I started taking a B12 supplement my body stopped crashing. I’m feeling better, but being anemic damages the body, I’m not sure how long it will take to fully recover. Since I wasn’t completely deficient, hopefully only weeks, but even if it takes months, I’m getting stronger.

It has been a month since the infected tooth was pulled and while I am recovering very well, it is slower than I would like. Over the past weeks my energy levels have started to return, and while I get fatigued later in the day, it has not been as severe. I still experience chills, muscle and joint aches, digestive issues, and brain fog, but less severe than I am used to. My digestive problems improve a little each week. My fevers are not as severe, barely even register as a fever, that has been one of the biggest changes. I’m optimistic that I will continue to improve. It has been a couple of weeks since my last fever and weeks is a major record for me.

Feeling better could not have come at a better time, there were two sudden deadlines at work and I need to be a rockstar programmer for another week. Being a rockstar programmer means I let myself hyperfocus for hours, working from 9am until after 6pm each night without more than bathroom breaks. I will accomplish days worth of work within hours. Without ample breaks this will burn me out, the fibro doesn’t help. I’m going to need a good rest once I’m done with these projects, I need to recharge for the next time they need me to rockstar it at work.

Fibro has completely changed my life, yet I still try to live my old limitless life. I was having a really good streak the other week and pushed myself until my body basically shut down Saturday afternoon. It has never been unusual for me to crash on a Saturday afternoon, but I used to be able to recover from those crashes. This latest one I partially recovered from the following day, but I overdid it again, leaving me out of commission for a couple of days.

Fatigue loves to come around a corner at full speed, crashing me when I least expect it. It starts off with me feeling tired, I start to feel slow, then I start to get cold. If I keep on pushing through it I will eventually end up chilled with heavy brain fog. It is the chill that usually forces me under the covers, even if I try to stay awake, I’ll usually pass out. Waking up is not pleasant, usually involves headaches and fog, but there is one good thing, I usually wake up warm. Napping helps me break chills, sometimes it is the only way I can warm up.

I have searched for alternative methods of staying warm. I’ll bundle myself up in blankets, gloves, cardigans and sweaters, but not everything always works. Spirits will only warm me when I’m not drinking to warm up. I’ve tried various alcohols, some work very well at helping with pain and sometimes they’ll warm me up, but it’s not worth the physical or mental damage drinking can do. Alcohol and fibro don’t always mix well, in some people they trigger flareups and hangovers are nightmareish.

My body temperature seems to be in a constant flux, some days I will stay warmer than others. There are times when setting my AC to 80 leaves me freezing under blankets, yet I’ll be outside in shorts and a tee in 72f weather. My bedroom temperature stays relatively static, but I will go to totally comfortable, wake up freezing or boiling, constantly throwing blankets on and off trying to find an equilibrium. Some days I will wake up nice warm with only one blanket on me, other days I’ll wake up freezing with all the blankets on me.

The constant flux in body temperature limits what I can comfortably enjoy. Restaurants often feel freezing cold to me, even the office I work in is too cold for me. The constant exposed to the cold causes my hands and fingers to become stiff, I have trouble typing or writing. It is not unusual for me to leave an air conditioned business shivering. It makes me not want to go out, makes me want to head immediately home. In the mornings it can actually be hard for me to motivate myself out of bed because I will get a chill in the few feet between my bed and bathroom. Changing into exercise clothes can leave me frigid, even if I’ll be sweating in the same temperature an hour later.

I’m trying to find the patterns, but they’re hard to identify. I am working on software that I believe will help me identify the patterns. I believe that finding the patterns are key to getting fibro under control. I have kept health and food diaries, inconsistent and paper based. It has allowed me to identify some health patterns, such as the fatigue/chill link and fibroflu and rain links. I’m certain there are more patterns, complex patterns that require excellent monitoring and pattern matching to identify.

I hypothesis that monitoring/recording the mix of activity (or lack thereof), diet, sleep, weather, and medication will reveal patterns which contribute to flareups. Over the past months I have been designing the software to accomplish this. I have recently began programming the backend, which will accumulate and process the data. Soon I will start work on the frontend user interface. I look forward to blogging more about this as I progress on the project.