Possible fibromyalgia?

[cthorne111]

My husband is quite sick and the health care system here is terrible. I'm just trying to figure out what is wrong with him so he can get some quality of life back. Here are his symptoms:

31 years old, 310 lbs, current known conditions are sleep apnea (uses a CPAP which works well) and GERD (on Nexium which eliminates the symptoms), carpal tunnel

His carpal tunnel started getting very bad on one wrist, then his elbow, about 6 - 8 months ago. He bought a new ergonomic keyboard and chair for his office which helped a lot.

But the bouts of pain continued, then becoming more generalized to his neck, shoulders, back, legs, etc. This was a different pain, not the typical carpal tunnel type pain localized to one area.

For about the past three months, he has been occasionally unable to handle any exertion (i.e. cooking a turkey dinner sends him into a several day period of constant pain). Once for a period of about four days he was completely bedridden. Some days he is ok, and others unable to function due to the pain.

For about the past month, he has started getting pronounced swelling of his neck (and possibly other areas). His neck actually increases in circumference by 3 - 4 inches at times. Often he wakes up in the night feeling like he's being strangled (this is not the sleep apnea). He can't lie down for any length of time without getting an uncomfortable sensation in his neck/chest.

The doctor ran kidney, liver, lupus, rheumatoid factor, B12, thyroid, and some other stuff. All apparently was fine (except for blood and protein in the urine which apparently they thought weren't significant). The only result they got was that ANA was "positive".

At this point the doctor is saying, basically, he is fine. He is trying self-medicating 1000mg of naproxen sodium/day to see if that helps at all with the pain to try to get some quality of life back.

Could this be fibromyalgia and if so what treatment could he try, to deal with it? Any ideas?

[oilmart]

carpal tunnel syndrome can be a symptom of thyroid dysfunction so I believe. Also, it could be he has infection of mycoplasmas.

[cthorne111]

It sounds like he is being referred to an internist shortly. His uric acid is also up, not sure what that signifies. At least hopefully we will get some answers.

[cthorne111]

Ok thanks for the suggestion. This is a fairly new doctor (doctor turnover rate here is extremely high, I doubt he will last a year anyway) so he's just learning the ropes. As soon as he gets some experience in a practice in this country, he will move along to a higher paying job somewhere else like all the other doctors. I think he has a bit of a hard time reading English based on his very studious examination of the chart for some seconds before he announced that he also had some protein in his urine (apparently the first time he really examined his test results). The doctor who practiced in his office for the year before him actually admitted to one of his patients that he could NOT read English. Inspires confidence.

[TrudieC]

I see that you are in Canada as well.  It has been my experience that if you are in bad shape (and it is important to keep your primary doctor updated) that they can push to get you moved up in the queue.  Push your doctor to help if the wait is too delayed.

[cthorne111]

He has just been to his family doctor. He has another appointment this week, I think I will ask him to refer him to a rheumatologist if he doesn't decide to do that already. The frustrating thing is that it often takes months to get a referral. When his carpal tunnel was diagnosed back in February he got a referral to a neurologist, he just finally got his appointment this week so that's a 6 month wait.

[TrudieC]

I'm so sorry he is suffering and having to go through the frustrating journey of getting a diagnosis.  

Can you tell me what kind of doctor did his testing?  A rheumatologist is the best one to diagnose and treat.  And if you are seeing one and he left it like this then you need a second opinion.  

A positive ANA does not indicate fibromyalgia.  However, fibromyalgia often does go hand in hand with some auto-immune diseases.  My ANA was positive one time and negative the next.  My rheumatologist continues to test me as there is clearly something auto-immune going on on top of my fibromyalgia.  Because of other symptoms he feels it is developing lupus and he is treating me for that and it is helping.

If it is fibromyalgia it would often be treated by one of the drugs Lyrica (I have had great success with it), Cymbalta or Savella plus an anti-depressant.  I also take vitamin D3, a good multi vitamin, selenium, magnesium (really helps the muscle pain), fish oil capsules and D-Ribose powder.

Keep pushing forward and find a doctor that will work to find a solution for him.  Good luck.