So yeah, this is how you know its an anonymous blog. Because I am actually admitting ‘outloud’ that I have fibromyalgia. I’m not sure why I’m writing this, but I think I just needed to put it out there.

My fibro journey started in 1998 at age 16, my sophomore and junior years of high school are to this day a blur of sleeping, hurting, and doctor’s appointments. Many many tests and procedures in, I was diagnosed with juvenile-onset fibromyalgia. I slowly recovered, and by my senior year of high school I was able to start college classes at the nearby community college, and by the time I graduated I considered myself symptom-free. But in the back of my mind, always, was the nagging fear that even though it was juvenile-onset, it could come back.

And it did, six months ago. After a decade of being pain-free, its back.

Its different this time. I have joint pain and stiffness instead of muscle pain, but thankfully not the utter exhaustion. I’m optimistic. I have an appointment with my new primary to talk about my options, because even after six months of self-management, my at-home pain relief methods aren’t cutting it.

I still don’t talk about it, because in my mind its still a stigma. I used to say that I had an autoimmune disorder, to avoid the judgemental eyebrow raises or condescending ahh. The Fibromyalgia Center is in the psych building at the local medical center. I don’t care that they have ads on TV and FDA approved drugs, I still feel the stigma.

It makes me wonder about TTC and getting pregnant. Will it be harder to be pregnant with fibro? I’ve only read sad stories about pregnancies of fibro pain, not a happy story in the bunch. Its definitely changed achieving things on the Baby Bucket List, such as exercising- I’d never cared about yoga now, but it seems to be the only thing that my poor joints can stand. I did an exercise DVD a few weeks ago, and it took me almost a week to recover.

Days like today are hard to deal with sometimes. All I’ve done is tweet and blog, all freaking day, because my hips hurt so bad I can’t get around to do anything else. Damn.

So yeah.. Now its out there.