After more than 20 years of undiagnosed chronic pain, inability to sleep, and overwhelming fatigue, going through several MRIs, CT scans, countless x-rays and blood work, even a nuclear scan over a span of 20 years, the official diagnosis a few months ago was fibromyalgia (FM), severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or better known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and possible Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).
Up until now, I’ve had doctors who told me I was crazy and I should see a psychiatrist because there was nothing wrong with me and the pain was all in my head. Essentially, if these people didn’t know what was wrong with me, then the problem is with me! Wow, little wonder that so many FM/CFS people suffer from depression when their own doctors refuse to acknowledge their suffering.
Fortunately, the GP I have now has a few FM/CFS patients and she is familiar with all the symptoms and resources to make available for people like me. But at a time when there is such a dearth of healthcare workers in Canada, it’s scary to think of people without a family doctor and no resources to help them with their pain and suffering.
A few months ago, x-rays revealed one of my molars had broken off at the root and the dentist referred me to an oral surgeon to have it removed. The surgeon prescribed a strong painkiller for me, telling me to expect inflammation and pain for several days after the surgery. Looking at all the potential side effects of the drug, I decided to try the M1 instead.
Several hours of applying the coils on the cheek outside of the wound site and voila, never had any pain after surgery! Only some spotting and slight inflammation overnight when I didn’t use the M1, but otherwise, no issues at all.
Even so, the surgery triggered FM flares so I had pain everywhere else: aching joints on shoulders, lower back, buttocks… tingling pain on fingers, headaches and severe IBS because of the antibiotics, and of course, pure exhaustion.
I was going to post about how successful I was able to prevent occurrence of any pain from the tooth extraction with no analgesics aside from the M1 when I came across an old post that Bob wrote of treating his own FM with the PEMF-ICES. This took me by surprise, since I thought I read somewhere in another post that PEMF-ICES could not work on fibromyalgia when pain can migrate to different parts of the body?
So now I have a few questions for you, @Bob regarding treating fibromyalgia with the M1: I know intensity can vary depending on the locality of the pain but just so I have an idea of the intensity levels for different parts of the body when experiencing these flares which can last anywhere from a few days to several months: on the hip joint near the groin? lower back? elbow? buttocks? fingers? forearm? knees?
Do I just apply the coils at the site of the pain? You also said to keep treating the pain even after it goes away – for how much longer after the pain has already disappeared?
I know that FM and CFS are largely a problem with the central nervous system, so the coils may work only on peripheral pain which is why it seems sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn’t for my FM flares. However, I don’t just rely on the M1 alone, but on other modalities as well – qigong, exercise, vagal nerve stimulation, etc. I’m sure that regardless, all of these contribute to some degree in treating or preventing FM/CFS pain.