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[Guest guest]

I was diagnosed with FM last year. Of course, the other assorted

diseases that come with FM are present and accounted for. I quit my job

as a medicare/medicaid billing clerk before I was fired last year

because the stress added to the severity of the pain, the headaches, and

lack of concentration. The total lack of understanding of the lay

person and also medical staff of this disease is unbelievable. My

supervisor blamed my headaches and pains on the fact that my daughter

and grand-daughter lived with us. At the present time, our local

clinic/hospital only has two PA's on staff. Neither of them understand

FM and have no intention of learning anything. The closest facility,

that has medical staff that knows much about anything, is 300 miles

away.

I have applied for disability but hear nothing but negative feedback on

that. I hear that they don't consider FM and attached problems a reason

to request disability. I am 59 years old, morbidly obese with chronic

depression on top of the rest of the problems. This whole episode

started with polymyalgia rheumatica in 2003 and changed over to FM. I

was given prednisone to combat the PMR which helped with the pain as

long as the dosage was above 20 mg. I was finally able to quit that

medication after more than 3 years. Of course, the weight that I gained

with this medication didn't help with the rest of the crap. I have lost

26 pounds since I quit the med which helps a lot on the joint pain. I

could go on and on about this last year of my life but I know that most

of you know what I am writing about so I don't feel I need to go any

further on this. Thanks for listening to me whine. Tally