Sit down and have a heart to heart talk with your spouse:
Your husband may not really understand fibromyalgia. Some people are ignorant when it comes to fibromyalgia. They don't know much about it and what they do know, makes them think that fibromyalgia is not real. Your husband needs information!
Pick a night when the two of you can sit down for a couple of hours, uninterrupted, and just talk. Before you schedule this talk, go online and print some good, easy to understand information about fibromyalgia. Get your information from legitimate sites such as government or medical sites. Medical and government sites are far more legit than are blogs and article sites (better to convince your spouse that fibromyalgia is a real condition).
Take the kids to a sitters or relative to ensure you and your spouse are uninterrupted during your talk. It is very important for your marriage that your spouse understand how fibromyalgia makes you feel, why it makes you feel like you do and what fibromyalgia is. Treatment methods should be discussed also...let him know what you are doing to make your fibromyalgia symptoms better...knowing this will help your husband accept your diagnosis better (It is scary for a husband to think he is going to lose his wife to a condition that causes pain, fatigue, depression, decreased activity and many other symptoms).
Have your spouse go to the doctors' office with you:
Most husbands have many questions about fibromyalgia once you've talked to them about it...questions best left for your health care provider. Invite him to your next doctors' appointment. Have him write all of his questions down before the appointment. Doing this will ensure he doesn't forget anything once he is in the office.
Find a support group that he can attend:
You can almost always find a "spouses of fibromyalgia sufferer" support group in your area. Sign your spouse up for a support group so he doesn't feel like he is alone. Being with people who are going through the same thing he is will be a tremendous help to him. The support group will also allow him to voice his frustrations among others who have the same frustrations he has. The biggest thing he will find out is that he is not alone...It is very hard for the spouse living with a person who has fibromyalgia because fibromyalgia tends to be a "silent disorder".
It is difficult for a spouse to cope with your fibromyalgia symptoms because it is an invisible disease. Doing things that will help your husband understand what fibromyalgia is and why you feel the way you do will go a long way in saving your marriage. The divorce rate is high among couples where one has a chronic disease or disorder. Helping your spouse to understand what you are going through may help save your marriage.
The main fibromyalgia signs and symptoms include deep muscle pain, painful tender points and morning stiffness. In order to make an accurate diagnosis, your doctor will need to review your symptoms and signs of fibromyalgia.
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ReplyDeletecharlieoliver...The characteristic symptomologies of fibromyalgia include: widespread chronic body pain for at least 3 months, flu-like pain that can be severe and constant, chronic exhaustion, headaches, recurring infection, muscle stiffness and pain, sleep disorders, specific tender points on the body, cognitive “fog”, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome.
ReplyDeleteThere is currently no treatment for fibromyalgia. Generally fibromyalgia can be controlled with exercise, deep massage, ice application, heat application,medications and other natural remedies.
It can be hard from the outside to understand fibromyalgia but, like you said, it's important for your marriage so both parties need to make every effort to understand and come to terms with the condition.
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