How to Live with Fibromyalgia: Discipline Yourself, Don’t Play the Victim, and Get Up Even When It Seems Impossible Sometimes

I am Adriana Niño de Rivera Mejia, Mexican, 52 years old and I have a degree in Communication Sciences. Literal, From the day I was born, I faced adversity: I was born six and a half months premature, but I clung to life.

I never had the health I wanted, neither as a child nor as a teenager, but when I entered university, the Way of the Cross began. I started the first semester and I started having pains in my left neck, very severe, I was 21 years old. To be honest, I have always had a cheerful nature, I am an optimist and, above all, I do not give up so easily, so I continued to live my life, but soon I had even more discomfort.

The first thing I went to was an orthopedist and they sent me prescription drugs, anti-inflammatory, both topical and oral. Nothing helped, and over time it became unbearable. For the story is not so long I began to feel stiff and over time I had episodes where I couldn’t even get out of bed due to fatigue, muscle pain (what I called inflammation) and various symptoms. like watery eyes, chills, intense anxiety, insomnia, depression due to the same situation and I didn’t want to continue because my body wouldn’t let me. He suddenly had good days, but other fatal ones.

So I went to the doctors again to ask them to send me another study that would show what was happening to me, and the MRI showed absolutely nothing, as well as laboratory tests, and more specific tests. I did gymnastics from 5 to 13 years old and thought that maybe it was an injury from such physical exertion, but neither.

The doctors sent me to take a large number of medications, such as antidepressants, anticonvulsants, anxiolytics, and ibuprofen.which I have been taking for years (later I found out that it had a big effect on my gut microbiota and had serious consequences).

The Painful Path to Finding Fibromyalgia

So time passed, and between the drugs (which I eventually refused, as they never brought me relief), I somehow could continue, even trained, but the pain in the neck, stress and general malaise remained. At the age of 27, I started working as a reporter for Tele Guía magazine and then for Geomundo magazine. The loads were strong, after three years I had to leave this job and quit forever, as my physical and emotional health no longer gave.

This time I went to every medical specialty imaginable and I I discovered something that really surprised me: the doctors didn’t believe me, or they said that I was a hypochondriac, or it was just stress.. I’ve always been someone who cleans up, puts on makeup, wears shoes, or likes to dress up, even on the darkest of days, so adding that the medical tests didn’t reveal anything, they always accused me of what I was imagining or what I wanted. note. And so years passed until someone told me to go to a rheumatologist.

And finally, in my late thirties, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

That day, I thought, “I finally know what I have, and it even has a name.” But my happiness did not last long, and after serious gynecological problems (bleeding from fibroids, because of which I almost lost my life), other consequences came that brought me to the limit. But I kept clinging to life and thinking that if I survived being born, then I should continue and draw strength, although I could no longer, since I had been facing this hell for more than thirty years.

So when the pandemic hit, and when I saw that no one could do anything for me, and doctors, friends, family, and even those who were my partners still didn’t believe me, I set myself the task of doing research in order to have a quality of life and, above all, to understand exactly what was happening to me, although I already knew that it was fibromyalgia..

I searched on the Internet how to contact the associations of diseases in Spain, since I had already found out that this country has a high percentage of this disease. Very excited, I took on interviews with doctors, patients (specialists in this field), nutritionists and experts, which led me to
understand that this is a real condition (and that I am not going crazy, as many people told me), but also thanks to the research that was done on fibromyalgia in Spain, there was a way to cope with the disease, despite the fact that there is no cure.

Fibromyalgia has its own global day

This is such an unknown disease that only in 1992 WHO recognized it as such, and it is on May 12 that his day is celebrated all over the world. In conclusion, I want to say that I have made it my mission to explore more of this musculoskeletal condition in order to have a better quality of life, and I have outlined my vital signs, medical interviews, and what led me to a better quality of life. life in a book.

It should be clarified that for For those who suffer from fibromyalgia, it is very important to see a rheumatologist for diagnosis, as it is confused with other conditions.and never self-medicate.

With my book, I don’t pretend that they do everything to the letter, like me, that’s my experience.
life and the changes that I made in it, and they have served me well. My top piece of advice is, whether you’ve already been diagnosed or not, never lose faith. Nothing in life is easy, but you can live with fibromyalgia, you need to discipline yourself, not play the victim and get up, even if sometimes it seems that you can’t go any further. And as I say in my book: “If I can do it, everyone can.”

Adriana Niño de Rivera is a Mexican television presenter. His book My Fight with Fibromyalgia is available on Amazon.com. Twitter: @pildorin / Instagram: @adriananderivera / Email: [email protected].