"Post" Partum

The idea of blogging came to me last Christmas. Two weeks or so after my first post, I found out I was pregnant and the first horrid symptoms came along. Blogging was now no longer something I could fathom doing; all I could muster was going to work and dragging myself home. Baby girl Arielle now a month old, I have decided to write my second post (hopefully with more to come) on my coping with fibro whilst pregnant. I am hoping that it may just help somebody out there!

Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia
Each and every pregnancy is different and this post won’t be truly complete until I have compared my first pregnancy with the other(s) – yes I do want another child- but this is at least a start. The first few months (4 in fact) were burdened by “morning” sickness. Really, it was all day sickness for me. Nausea and vomiting are not associated with fibromyalgia but fatigue seems to worsen nausea and THAT is definitely on the symptom list. In my case, I think this is really THE number one symptom that was worsened by pregnancy. It is common for pregnant women to feel very tired in their first trimester but it usually seems to go away at the second. For me, the fatigue was debilitating. I often had to leave work early and when I got home, I would often fall asleep on the couch or cry whilst my poor husband cooked us supper. I was in bed by 9 and up at 7 and didn’t do much in between. Once the nausea passed, the workdays were more bearable but the intense need to sleep and the lack of concentration made many afternoons completely unconstructive.
Then came the acid reflux months, which continued to limit what I wanted and could eat. The irritable bowel syndrome aspect of fibromyalgia was obviously worsened by the bad food habits taken up during pregnancy but that could probably have been avoided had I been strict with myself. The last months were also burdened by lower back and leg pain as well as water retention. The pain felt from fibromyalgia simply added to this characteristic pain. Since exercise was difficult from time being scarce (from sleeping so much), the pain got worse and worse. Only thing that helped me during those months was my weekly massage; a must if you can afford it. As my rheumatologist puts it, a healthy diet, sleep and exercise is what makes fibro manageable…no excuses!

What the professionals say
Well I really have not found much info on the matter, but what I did find is more or less summed up by my own experience; more fatigue and more pain. These three websites mention the possibility that fibromyalgia symptoms are LESSENED by the hormones produced during pregnancy, and I have heard of cases where this is actually true. No such luck for me, however, symptoms seem a little better now post partum than they were pre-pregnancy. If this is hormonal, a change in perspective since my difficult pregnancy or a real improvement is impossible to say. I will have to keep you posted! No studies done apart from one in Sweden… I can’t read Swedish! In the mean time, here are three of the numerous websites.

http://www.pregnancy-info.net/fibromyalgia.html
http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/fibromyalgia_pregnancy.html
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/guide/fibromyalgia-and-pregnancy

Baby needs feeding...peace out!