Another Fibro Co-Conditon? ..Imagine That!

I shouldn't have been surprised.  I really shouldn't have.  It seems that every time I turn around, I find another disease that's linked to having Fibromyalgia.  After blood work in February, I was told that I was pre-diabetic.  To be honest, I didn't really think too much about it.  I kind of just shrugged and went on about my business.  I did cut down on sugar.  I started dieting April 25th.  I've dropped roughly 20 pounds in the past five weeks.  

I had blood work done again a couple of weeks ago.  I've now moved into the diabetic category.  My numbers aren't horrible, but they are over the threshold to where they're calling me diabetic.  To be honest, the number didn't really phase me.  The fact that it put me into the diabetic category didn't really phase me either.  For some reason, it didn't really sink in until I had my meeting with the dietitian a couple of days ago. When she told me my doctor office had called and wanted me to take a diabetes education class, and gave me a testing meter, and made me check my sugar in front of her, ....then gave me a couple 5-day menu samples, ....it all sunk in and started bothering me a bit.  

What does a type-A neurotic do when they find that they have a new disease and it's eating away at them?  They come home and play Dr. Google, of course.  They search, and research, and research some more until their brain goes into sensory overload.  Then, all it takes is a 17 year old child to pose the question "Mom?  So many other things are connected to fibromyalgia, is diabetes a co-condition of fibro too?" to kick off a new Google search researching if there's a correlation between fibromyalgia and type II diabetes.   

Again, I should not have been surprised when my research proved that there is a correlation to diabetes and fibromyalgia.  In fact, "diabetes and fibromyalgia occur together nearly four times more often then would be expected." (Fibromyalgia Pedia, 2011-2012)  A study in the journal Rheumatology International, in 2003, showed that fibromyalgia occurs in 15%-18% of patients with diabetes.  

I researched a little further, and found that the higher the blood sugar level, the more severe a person's fibromyalgia symptoms are.  Diabetes.UK.Co. has a section on Fibromyalgia, and says that they are linked conditions.  The conclusion of a study published by the NIH states: " Fibromyalgia is a common finding in patients with types 1 and 2 diabetes, and its prevalence could be related to control of the disease. As with other diabetes complications, FM might be prevented by improved control of blood glucose levels."  You can read this study HERE.

As you can imagine, I'm not excited about making all of the dietary changes involved in a diabetes diagnosis. I'm not excited about the other health risks and worries associated with having diabetes.  Just as I wasn't (and still am not) excited about everything that goes along with having fibromyalgia.  In general, I feel pretty pissed off about it all.  I'm a 42 year old woman, who should be around half her life span.  Yet I'm trapped in the body of a 70 or 80 year old.  How many new diagnoses will I have by the time I'm 50??  What kind of condition will my body be in by the time I'm 50?  I won't lie, thinking about this causes me great pain and anguish mentally.  I'm an only child with aged ailing parents, and I'm single.  I have four children, but they're grown now.  My youngest has her high school graduation ceremony tomorrow.  They're all moving on with their own lives.  I'm essentially on my own now, and will be for the rest of my life.  With all of these health issues, that scares me for many different reasons.  

Hope.  Oh how I hope for a cure to be found for fibromyalgia.  The thing is, the more reading I do, ...the more research I do, ....the more I look into grant and private sector research donation numbers, the more hope slowly slips away.  There just isn't enough money, for enough real research to happen, for a cure to be found soon.  That's why educating people about this illness is so very important.  If people doesn't understand what all it really entails ...and boy does it entail a lot, then people won't be motivated to demand the funds so desperately needed for research.  Of course, I shouldn't say that there won't be a cure found soon, because even with the menial research being done "anything's possible", as the saying says.  That's where hope comes into play again.