A great thing has happened- a new and different back pain.
 
A great thing has happened!
 
I have a new and different back pain!
 
I am so totally stoked!
 
My ever-present backpain has moved, and shifted places.  
 
I can only imagine this means I have finished cycling the worst of my backpain, (for me, it is my T4/T5 area), and now I’m moving on to another area.
 
It is also possible that I just finished a major cycle, and this is a break between cycles-- like the lull between storms-- or the quiet in the eye of a tornado.
 
Either way, something feels different.
 
And, things have definitely changed.
 
I can now raise my arms above my head, and keep them there.  
 
For years, this ridiculously simple maneuver was uncomfortable.  It dates all the way back to childhood.  I loved playing softball, but I remember there came a point where I started to feel my shoulder “catch” when I threw.  It was as if there was an invisible something stuck in my shoulder that prevented my arm from fully extending the way it should, and the ball kept falling short of its mark when I threw overhand.  It was frustrating, because I’d played softball since I was in second grade.  My very first midget league team had gone on to win first place in the town championships.  
 
I still have that trophy.
 
My team the next year was runner up in the championships.  I seem to have the luck of always being on good teams.  
 
I played intramural softball in college, and played on a city league in New York City when I worked in Manhattan after college.  We used to play on Riker’s Island next to the world’s largest penal colony, (also called “Riker’s Island,” right under this three-lane bridge.)  Yeah, a weird place to play ball, but, it was New York city.
 
My shoulder was already doing that weird catching thing at that point, so the only position I could play was pitcher.  I could still throw underhand, as it didn’t involve having to fully extend my shoulder.  So, I focused on becoming a really good pitcher.  
 
I always kept my eye exactly where I wanted the ball to go, took a deep breath, and stepped into my pitch as I released the ball.  And, I was actually a decent pitcher.  Thankfully, the ball rarely came to me, so I didn’t have to throw it.  It was easy enough to catch, when the catcher tossed it gently back to me, so no one really knew that I had some weird thing going on with my shoulder.  And, I didn’t want to tell anybody, because I didn’t understand it myself.
 
I continued to play on company softball teams, even after I moved to California.  But, then, another strange thing happened.  I started to develop anxiety.  And, that was totally out of character for me.  I’ve always been ridiculously overconfident.
 
So, this whole anxiety thing was new to me.
 
But, suddenly, even though I could still pitch dead center over the plate, I developed a terrible fear that the ball was going to slam into the side of my head.
 
And, its not that I hadn’t been hit by the ball over the years.  In corporate leagues, you play “slow pitch” softball, and the teams are co-ed.  So, any guys who grew up playing hardball on all-boys teams can basically slam the stuffing off of that slow pitch ball.  And, some of these guys were like 250 pounds.  And, couldn’t aim.
 
So, I’d been hit in the head.  I’d been hit in the cheek.  I’d been hit in the kneecap, shortly after recovering from a knee surgery- hit so hard you could see the stitching from the ball.  So, it wasn’t like I hadn’t taken a few for the team over the years.
 
Each time I’d been clobbered, I always laughed it off when everyone came rushing around: “Are you alright?!”  Sure, it hurt like hell, and always left a mark, but, whatever, it never broke anything.  Even with the blow to the knee, no permanent damage was done.  So, whatever, no harm done.
 
So, why this sudden fear?
 
The anxiety was paralyzing, and I couldn’t control it.  I would hear the “CRACK!” of the bat and I would actually put the glove to my head and duck.  It was humiliating, and I couldn’t make it stop.  
 
I had to stop playing softball.
 
That was 15 years ago.
 
Too bad, because I could really pitch.
 
I now know that anxiety is part of fibromyalgia, so this was just another warning sign that the disease was progressing in my body-- as was that weird “catch” in my shoulder that I never told anybody about.
 
Many people with fibromyalgia have had surgeries for “frozen shoulder” years before they’ve ever been diagnosed with fibro.
 
And, I’m betting there are many, many people out there who have been diagnosed with “frozen shoulder,” who in actuality have fibromyalgia.
 
After all these years, my weird shoulder thing is completely and absolutely gone.
 
I can now raise my arms up and pull a dish off the high shelf, and it doesn’t hurt.
 
I can also blow dry my hair now.  I think that is so monumental I may have to devote a whole blog entry to that, as it is something that will make no sense to people without fibro, and a huge amount of sense to those that do.
 
Suffice it to say, things are changing in my body, and the changes are for the better.
 
The Guai Protocol is a long and painful process.  Very long.  Very painful.  
 
But, it does work.
 
 
Now, this is progress!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008