Camouflage

Greetings,

Ok, so the title of this one is cryptic as hell. Camouflage is the art of concealment and is most usually heard with regard to military matters or animals. Camouflage is about blending into your surroundings. For this blog entry I am using it in a medical sense one condition covering another.

My first experience with regard to this one with regard to fibromyalgia (FM) was interesting and put quite a few people into a state of panic, ironically I was not one of them. So the story goes like this... One day I wake up and my left shoulder was really aching a lot, so as per usual I ignored it as best as I could. Later on in the day the shoulder disapates, but my chest starts aching and making it a little hard to breathe, further down the track the left shoulder moves to the left arm. By this time I am in quite a bit of pain and really unimpressed with the world. So, I decide that this is beyond the joke. As far as I was concerned I had a developing chest infection and a muscle issue in my shoulder. Time to call an ambulance as I was not in a condition to be walking to my doctor. So I rang up the ambulance and gave them my symptoms, much to my surprise I had one around to my place about 10 minutes later. The paramedics ask me my symptoms and bundle me into the ambulance. I arrive at the hospital and they immediately get me in and put sticky things on my chest and hook me up to a machine. Doctor comes in later with a puzzled look on his face as he cannot find a reason, he asks me some questions and I answer him, eventually getting to the bit about having FM. He then smiles leaves, comes back with some aspalgin and gives it to me. It all begins to feel better a little while later on. Seems that going by the diagnosis I was having a heart attack, nope just the FM playing up and messing with people.

I can tell you that after that experience I have been a little more careful about tracking my symptoms, and also about when I do and do not call the ambulance. It was a little scary that the FM could cover up or imitate a heart attack and I decided that being aware of this was really important. In other ways the experience has made me a little more relaxed about things, and a little more attentive to my pain needs.

Now we move on to the present my right shoulder has always been a little dodgy. I have had a nerve pinched on that side and it often gets overworked while fencing. When I woke up one morning with a really stiff shoulder I smiled and went looking for the "Deep Heat" and a hot shower. It abated it a little but not as much as I would have liked. What did not make sense was this one did not miraculously go away like the previous. I sat on it for a week. Every day same shoulder same stiffness and soreness. So off to the doctor I went.

A week and an x-ray later the result is that there is actually a problem with my neck and not my shoulder after all. Seems that the pain in my shoulder is nerve pain as a result of the neck issue. As far as rthe neck is concerned Cervical vertebrae 3 and 4, or C3/4 are touching one another and causing the issue. I have looked at the x-ray myself and it is pretty spectacular. I had intentions of scanning the x-ray and putting it on here to show you but it was not to be. Anyway we looked at physiotherapy and turned out to be a bad idea so it is medicinal relief instead, an increase in the medication. I will say that it is, for the most part, holding up quite well.

The conclusion to this one, if it hangs around get it checked out, regardless. The best news that you can get is that it is nothing, or nothing to worry about. FM has the ability to cover up other issues with its total randomness and people with FM and those who care about them should both be aware of this.

Cheers,

Henry.