It's a pain in the arse!

No, I mean it... it really is a pain in the arse!

Just a little background on the way Fibromyalgia (or AUSRRIWCP as it will forthwith be known (NOT)) affects me from a pain perspective.  I ache, everywhere from the tips of my toes to my hair follicles, it's a base line low to middle level pain that is OMNIPRESENT!  Things hurt all the time and they hurt more when they are moved, flexed, stressed, touched, pushed, pulled, caressed and generally whenever there is any kind of stimulus  either from the interior (me asking my body to do something) or from the exterior.  If you know what it feels like when you have the flu and you ache all over and your skin hurts then you have some idea of the constant baseline of pain.  Then there are the floating sharper more insistent pains and these ones wander around my body with no rhyme or reason.  It might be one hip flames up and walking becomes excruciating (I would use a cane but that hurts my hands wrists and shoulders), it could be a shoulder (can't lift my arm), neck (can't turn my head), back (let's not go there) etc.  The regular offenders in this area for me are hips, ankles, back, shoulders, knees, wrists and hands.  Right at this moment, in spite of the fact that I am relaxed and as comfortable as I ever get (and have taken pain medication), my left hip, my right shoulder and MY ARSE are in substantial pain.  Yes my arse... Not like haemorrhoids (I have given birth and I fully appreciate the epee up the butt joy of that kind of pain - but that isn't it) no it is my coccyx - lucky me!  This insignificant, ignored little joint, that has the range of motion of a steel girder at rest, has decided to assert its need for attention.  It's been extra insistent for the last few days and I know it was not helped by waiting over two hours to see the doctor this morning.  So if you see me walking even more strangely than usual or sitting delicately sideways on a chair you know it's just my resident pain in the arse!

Now the doctor .... hmmmm....what a frustrating morning...  I need the doctor to fill in a form for the government - he won't fill it in until I am assessed by a pain clinic - the pain clinic has a twelve month waiting period.  I can feel a catch 22 coming on here...  My alternatives:-

• Get another doctor
• Get the current doctor (please don't make me wait another 2 1/2 hours!!!) to give me a referral to a different pain clinic and hope their wait list is shorter, OR
• Give up.

Now anyone with Fibromyalgia knows how immensely appealing it is to just give up.  Lots of people who have Fibro suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and I'm not sure if I do or I don't.  Certainly I don't have much energy and my vim (whatever that is) and vigour are probably rating about 20 % or what they were even five years ago - so maybe I do...  What I do know is that being in pain is really tiring, it wears you out. I could spin that in a more exciting way and suggest I am constantly on an adventurous quest for a more comfortable position and it is exhausting - no that didn't work... looks like my marketing skills are abandoning me.  But if I give up... well, that will cause other, perhaps more serious, problems.

I've decided to try and get the doctor to give me an alternative referral and in the mean time - if I can summon up the energy I will look for a better and more helpful doctor.  

All in all - the whole thing is just a giant pain in the arse!