| The Ultimate Fibromyalgia Recource Center |
| Are you searching for answers about Fibromyalgia? You've come to the right place. There is help and you are not alone! |
| Fibromyalgia, CFS, Autoimmune and Chronic Pain diseases affect a large percentage of people all over the world and more are being diagnosed every day. Awareness about these illnesses is severely lacking as well as medical treatment options. Often we are doped up on narcotics to mask the pain rather than treated in an effort to cure our diseases because the medical community as a whole simply does not know how to effectively treat us. We have a disease for which there is no cure and is very difficult to manage. I hope you are able to find information here that will help you in your journey of treatment and healing. |
You may find this website useful if any of the things listed below apply to you:
| Our Fibromyalgia Forum Share your experience with others or read about how others with Fibromyalgia are coping with the disease. Forums are a great way to share with others and learn from their experience. I have just opened a new site forum here and although it is new, I hope that it will grow into a forum where people who suffer from fibro can come for help. So please, if you visit this site, take a moment to register in our site forum and share a little about yourself. You will not be bombarded with spam or anything, I promise. Remember, your comments may help someone else who is coping with Fibro and Lord knows we need all the help we can get! Join in our site forum. It helps to talk about what you are going through with someone who can empathize. |
 | You feel you may have Fibromyalgia, but haven't been diagnosed. | |
| You have recently been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and need treatment. | |
| A loved one has Fibromyalgia and you want to learn how to cope with the disease. | |
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| Upcoming Events and Site News First, I would like to apologize for all of the banner ads on the site. Unfortunately, with a basically non-existent advertising budget I am using all free marketing tools I can find to get visitors to the site. As the site grows, hopefully these banner ads can be removed. You can also help by referring the site to others! I have been working with a wonderful jewelry designer, Lisa of "Sparkle And Support", who has created a beautiful Awareness Bracelet that is now available exclusively here at The Ultimate Fibromyalgia Resource Center. The piece is made of Sterling Silver, lavendar Swarvski crystals, with a silver ribbon charm. In addition, this unique design also features a charm with a red Swarvski crystal to symbolize the pain that we FM sufferers endure and a pink Swarvski crystal to symbolize the fact that over 90% of those with FM are women. Lisa, of "Sparkle And Support" is a talented crafts-woman and her work is exquisite. You will want to tell your friends about this one. Although this site makes no profits from the sales of this bracelet, Lisa donates 10% of every sale to The National Fibromyalgia Association! |
| Fibromyalgia Medications You can find out more about these and other medications on the "Treatment Page" Recent FDA Approved Medications for the Treatment of Fibromyalgia Savella (milnacipran) is Approved By FDA Savella is an FDA-approved treatment for fibromyalgia. Savella is a type of medication known as a dual reuptake inhibitor (also known as a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, or SNRI). In clinical studies, (of which there has been only one, which included only 1025 people,) Savella helped relieve the symptoms of fibromyalgia, as much as 30% over the use of a placebo. Some patients who experienced overall improvement with Savella also experienced pain reductions one week after they reached a stable dose (the same dose every day). As your webmaster, I must tell you my own experience with this drug and it has not been promising and I am on the maximum dosage. A new "Pain Specialist" who supposedly treats FM put me on it, stating that the overall consensus in the medical community now is that using "opiates" to treat FM has caused more harm than good and their use is being discontinued. He refused to continue my previous treatment plan, took me off of all opiates except a 25 mcg Fentanyl patch, (which he says he will not renew after two months!), recommended that I find a facility to begin "water therapy" and prescribed Savella. When I complained that he had just basically "doomed" me to a life of pain more than I could bare that would cause me to be bedridden, he stated that, "I would just have to realize that my quality of life would not be what I wanted it to be any longer." (Need I say that I am looking for another "Pain Specialist"? First, I should state that this drug works like Cymbalta and is first, an anti-depressant, not a pain medication. It's approval is based on the common belief by many practitioners that FM sufferers have a low tolerance for pain, (which in many cases is simply not the truth!) I have been on this medication for almost two months now and see no improvement in pain levels at all. In addition, my kidneys are on "overdrive", I have more frequent headaches and severe mood swings. I encourage you to do your own research and decide if you should take this medication for the treatment of FM and have included links below where you can begin. The Savella Home Page About Savella at MedicineNet Information from The Mayo Clinic About Savella at WebMD Information From Drugs.com Forest Laboratories, The Manufacturer of Savella Yahoo Finance Press Release from Forest Labs Lyrica is one of the newest medication for the treatment of Fibromyalgia. Click on the graphic to the left for more information on this drug. (I took this drug twice a day.) If you watch TV or spend any time on the internet you have probably seen advertising for it as it is being heavily advertised by the manufacturer, Phizer. I only took this medication for three months and I could not see a difference in my pain levels at all and still relied heavily on my methadone for pain relief. It has minimal side effects; however, one of them is weight gain. (I personally gained 37 pounds while taking it.) There are members of the site forum who take it, with good results. Phizer offers assistance for those who cannot afford medications manufactured by their company after completion of a simple application process and even provide a discount card to use while waiting for your application to be approved. You can click on the link below for more information about Fibromyalgia and the drug, Lyrica. I have included Phizer's banner for the Assistance Program below. |
| Things You Should Do 1. Start a daily journal about how you feel. 2. Learn all you can about vitamin supplement therapy. 3. Find a Neurologist or Rheumatologist who treats Fibromyalgia. 4. Read everything you can find about FM and CFS. 5. Try different products to see which works best for you. 6. Use an exercise program that stretches your muscles but does not over-tax them, like yoga or swimming. 7. Have an ATP screening and check hormonal levels. 8. Eliminate all possible causes of your symptoms, THEN, see a doctor about a diagnosis of FM/CFS. |
| The Symptom Checker at Revolution Health This site has a lot of great information about Fibromyalgia, treatment, an overview of the symptoms, as well as a Symptom Checker. Of course, this is not intended to be used as a substitute for visiting a licensed physician but it can help you decide if you need to seek treatment for Fibromyalgia, CFS or outtoimmune disorders. Knowing what the symptoms are is the first step towards a diagnosis. |
| Cognitive Dysfunction Medications Individuals who suffer from "Complicated Vertebral Basilar Migraines, (with aura)" often suffer cognitive dysfunction due to damage caused by TIA's or "transient ischemic attacks". These are commonly known as "mini-strokes" and although most people recover from their effects, some do not. Many neurologists, including my own, prescribe Verapamil to help control these migraines, thus reducing the number of TIA's suffered. Also, Aricept is a common medication used for many years for Alzheimer's Disease and is now being used in the treatment of Fibro patients for Cognitive Dysfunction. Click on the graphic to learn more about this medication. |
| Search Within This Site To search for a specific keyword, just enter it in the search below. |
| The "Fog Blog" Click on the little, green guy to read my daily Blog at it's new location, Fibromyalgia and maintaining this site! For Yahoo 360* Archives of past posts, Click Here |
| A Letter To The Healthy World From The Land Of Chronic Pain And Fatigue A must read for "Normal" people!!! |
| Here you will find two very good but different symptom checkers, one at WebMD and the other at Revolution Health. Try them and see if you have FM symptoms. |
Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com
I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not. Also, you can hover your mouse over a link to see a screenshot of the site link.
Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.
| Important Site Information This site is owned and operated by Tammy E. McPherson and is updated daily. CFS and other chronic pain or Autoimmune diseases. Information provided is not intended to endorse or recommend any particular product or treatment and should not be used as a replacement for a consultation or treatment with a licensed physician. All information is provided free of charge unless otherwise noted and is presented here with permission. Any personal information or email addresses, we receive will not be sold, traded or used for any purpose other than stated when requested by this site. If you find this site useful, please support it by referring it to people you know or by using our affiliate links to do your web shopping! If you would like to receive our Monthly Newsletter, please leave me your email address before you go and don't forget to bookmark the site for future use. Thank you...Enjoy the site! |
| If you have FM/CFS, then you can probably relate to this graphic. Just a little humor, LOL! |
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| The website is growing and receiving traffic from all over the world! To see an awesome map of the most recent visitors to my site, click the button below. (This is really cool!) Your browser's back button will return you here. |
| Comic Relief Feature! Introducing "Fibro Fanny"! (An original comic character and strip for people with FM) Follow "Fibro Fanny" as she goes through every day life just as the rest of us do with FM. I bet there is a little bit of her in each of us. Visit Fanny's Page |
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| Webring Information Webrings can be a great source for FM information and this site is a member of several. Please click on the links below to visit some of these sites. |
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Break The Cycle of Dysfunction Fibromyalgia/CFS, together is a continuous cycle of dysfunction caused by a hormonal imbalance which creates Mitochondrial Dysfunction. (UH, cough....in ENGLISH please!) OK, Hormones basically tell our body when to manufacture ATP, a chemical which generates energy. In CFS, our bodies have an "energy crisis" because our hormones don't cause our body to make the needed amount of energy and do not create new energy, so what little bit we have is all there is. This is referred to as "Mitochondrial Dysfunction". This is often worsened by the fact that most FM/CFS sufferers do not reach Delta or REM sleep, which are the two stages of sleep where "the house gets cleaned and we take out the trash", then dream. Since these levels of sleep produce HGH, which improves ATP production, sleep deprivation further complicates the Mitochondrial Dysfunction. It seems that FM/CFS patients get all the breaks, huh? LOL! It seems that so much is known about the causes and effects of these diseases, yet medical science still has no cure. All we can do is approach each individual case and apply symptomatic care to their disorder in an attempt to balance the system and improve overall health. As it is becoming more and more apparent that the hypothalamus, thyroid and adrenal glands all play an important role, the first step in stablizing the symptoms and balancing the hormones would be to have these levels tested, yet standard testing methods are by design, of little use. Mitochondrial enhancements can be administered if numbers are low and in studies, have shown to improve health in FM/CFS patients. Also a treatment regiment for sleep deprivation would assist the patient improve HGH levels through the ability to reach deeper sleep. Many physicians encourage FM/CFS patients to have these hormomal levels checked and then take appropriate action to correct low levels or imbalances through the use of nutrient iv's, injections or supplements, depending on the seriousness of the imbalance, in an effort to stabilize their symptoms. Resources include The Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers Inc., Dr. David Mikel and Wikipedia |
| Mitochondrial Dysfuntion and other adrenal related topics as presented with FM/CFS, please see the following links: Dr. Mikel's Website Mikel Therapy Dr. David Mikel Explains FM on Video Download Presentation of Recent Webinar ...or visit our page about mitochondrial dysfunction. |
| You can bookmark this site, add it to your blog, MySpace, Google or other pages by grabbing this easy to use snippet. It also can be inserted into email to share with your friends! Help spread FM Awareness and support this site easily with "Addthis.com". |
| Finding reliable and useful information about FM can be difficult and frustrating! If you find this site helpful please show your appreciation with a small "tip". I'll make ya famous! LOL! |
| Read Reviews of This Site and see what others are saying about it! |
| Study ALERT! Liquid CMO seeks osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia patients for pilot study in Phoenix |
| News and Story Feeds I am very pleased to bring both the news articles and the news videos here on this page from a site called, of all things, "The News Room". They have a huge selection of articles, videos and pictures for webmasters to embed into their sites and by doing so, offering their visitors news on just about any published topic. Here, I will try to keep my articles and videos related to the discussion to FM, CFS, IBS, etc. If it related to these illnesses I will put it in the list. The video presentation on this page is different than the one in the "Video Room" as the one on this page is "News based". Be sure and check them both out! Both the News Articles and at the top in full view with a list of other topics you may also view underneath. Just pick an article or video from the list and click on it to view. Enjoy! |