Fighting fibromyalgia

16/12/2025

BBC Morning Live's resident doctor has issued a stark warning to those taking omeprazole - and warned of one red flag symptom to look out for.

13/12/2025

Lady Gaga's Netflix documentary puts front and center.

So Lady Gaga an international pop icon known for her music, her art, and her raw authenticity who stepped forward and revealed to the world that she was living with fibromyalgia ..……… see 🔗 in 1st comment⬇️

13/12/2025

Why am I always exhausted… is that from endometriosis? 💛😴🎗️

GENTLE REMINDER: I’m a husband learning behind my wife, who lives with stage IV endo and fibro. This is not medical advice but my own research and a wish to understand. Please share your real-life experiences so I can write more accurately for the next woman. Your lived truth matters more than anything. Tell me what I get right or wrong so I can keep learning and spread better awareness. THANK YOU.

If you’re reading this while feeling like your body is made of wet sand, I want to say something gently but clearly: chronic exhaustion can absolutely be part of endometriosis.

And it’s not the cute kind of tired where a nap fixes it. It’s the heavy, bone-deep fatigue where showering feels like a marathon and you have to “prepare” mentally just to leave the house.

So yes, endometriosis can be a reason. But what makes it cruel is that the fatigue is rarely just one thing. It’s usually several layers stacked on top of each other, and doctors don’t always explain those layers.

One layer is inflammation. Endometriosis can trigger ongoing inflammation in the pelvis and sometimes beyond it. Your immune system stays busy, like it’s stuck in “fight mode.” When the body spends energy fighting all day, it leaves less energy for living.

Another layer is pain. Constant pain is not only painful, it is draining. Pain interrupts sleep, tightens muscles, raises stress hormones, and forces your nervous system to stay alert even when you lie down. Your body can be exhausted but still unable to truly rest.

Then there’s bleeding. This one is rarely talked about properly. If your periods are heavy, or you spot for many days, you can become low in iron. And here’s the detail many women are never told: you can be iron deficient even if your “hemoglobin” looks normal. Ferritin (iron stores) can be low first, and low iron stores alone can make you feel breathless, weak, dizzy, cold, or like your brain is wrapped in fog.

Another layer is digestion. Many women with endometriosis live with bloating, bowel pain, nausea, reflux, constipation, diarrhoea, or food sensitivity flare-ups. If your gut is inflamed, you may not absorb nutrients well, you may eat less, or you may fear food because of what it triggers. All of that can quietly starve your energy.

Another layer is stress and emotional survival. Not “stress” as in “you’re imagining it,” but stress as in living with a body that can betray you at any moment. The constant planning, cancelling, apologising, pushing, masking, and pretending you’re fine is an energy leak people don’t see.

And sometimes there are “hidden partners” to the fatigue. Endometriosis often overlaps with things like adenomyosis, IBS-type symptoms, bladder pain conditions, migraines, and for some women fibromyalgia or other chronic pain syndromes. If more than one condition is in the room, fatigue can feel unstoppable until each piece is recognised.

If you’re exhausted all the time, here are some practical things many women told me they wish they had checked earlier. These are not cures, but they can uncover treatable contributors:

Iron studies (especially ferritin), not just a basic blood count
Vitamin B12 and vitamin D
Thyroid function
Inflammation markers if your doctor thinks it’s relevant
Coeliac screening if you have gut symptoms
Sleep quality (snoring, waking unrefreshed, insomnia, waking in pain)

And something else that’s rarely talked about: medication fatigue. Some pain meds, some hormonal treatments, and even some anti-nausea meds can make you sleepy, flat, or foggy. It doesn’t mean you should stop them on your own. It just means your exhaustion deserves a full, honest medication review instead of being dismissed as “just endo.”

Now, gentle solutions that can actually help day-to-day, even if they don’t “fix” endometriosis:

Stop using a healthy person’s schedule
If your energy is limited, spending it like you have unlimited supply is a guaranteed crash. Many women do better with an “energy budget” mindset: plan one demanding thing a day, not five.
Create two versions of your day
A low-energy version and a better-day version. If you only have one routine, you’ll fail it on flare days and feel guilty. Two routines lets you still feel like you “did life,” even when you’re running on fumes.
Treat sleep like pain management
Not as a luxury, but as a medical tool. Darkness, cool room, gentle wind-down, and protecting your bedtime can matter more than people realise.
Eat for steadiness, not perfection
Many women find they do better with protein early in the day and regular meals that keep blood sugar steady. Not “a perfect diet,” just fewer rollercoasters.
Micro-movement instead of forced workouts
If exercise wipes you out, the answer is not shame. It may be smaller movement: a short walk, gentle stretching, or pelvic-friendly mobility that calms the nervous system rather than punishing it.
Track fatigue like a symptom, not a personality trait
If you track sleep, bleeding, pain, bowel symptoms, food, and stress for a few weeks, patterns often show up. That evidence helps you advocate for yourself without having to “prove” your suffering with emotions.

And please hear this part, because I think it’s the part that makes women cry in that quiet way: you are not lazy. You are not weak. You are not “unmotivated.” You are surviving a condition that can drain a human being from the inside out, and you’re still trying to be kind, productive, present, and normal. That is strength people don’t recognise.

If you ever need a soft place to land emotionally, my FREE 130+ page eBook “You Did Nothing To Deserve This!” was written for moments exactly like this. You can find it in my profile/bio section.

And remember, needing rest is not a moral failure, and your exhaustion deserves compassion, not criticism.

Lucjan 🎗

12/12/2025

Many patients who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia also have a few of other co-morbid diagnoses that overlap; skin conditions can be included in this category.

In fact, those people who… See comment ⬇

12/12/2025

Why do I still have pain even after my hysterectomy? 💛✂️❓

GENTLE REMINDER: I’m a husband learning behind my wife, who lives with stage IV endo and fibro. This is not medical advice but my own research and a wish to understand. Please share your real-life experiences so I can write more accurately for the next woman. Your lived truth matters more than anything. Tell me what I get right or wrong so I can keep learning and spread better awareness. THANK YOU.

I wish I never had to write this post...

Because so many women go into hysterectomy clinging to one promise they were given: “This will finally fix your pain.”

And then they wake up months later, scarred outside and inside, wondering, “Why does it still hurt? Did I do something wrong? Is this all in my head now?”

You did nothing wrong. And no, you are not imagining it.

A hysterectomy removes the uterus. Endometriosis is tissue that grows outside the uterus.

So while hysterectomy can help if a lot of your pain came from heavy periods or adenomyosis inside the uterus, it cannot magically erase endometriosis on the bowel, bladder, ligaments, nerves, or diaphragm.

Large health organisations are very clear about this now: hysterectomy is not a cure for endometriosis, and pain can persist or come back even when the uterus – and sometimes the ovaries – are removed.

Hysterectomy may stop periods but will not treat lesions outside the uterus, so pain can still remain.

So why are you still hurting?

There are a few common reasons, and none of them mean you are weak or failing healing.

Sometimes, endometriosis was never fully removed at the time of surgery. If only the uterus was taken but the lesions were burned on the surface or left behind, the disease can keep causing pain.

Sometimes, the surgery itself leaves behind new problems. Scar tissue (adhesions) can form as you heal.

Those sticky bands can tether organs together, pulling and tugging when you move, bend, or go to the toilet.
Some women describe it as a pulling, ripping, or tight band sensation that never fully relaxes.

And then there is something more invisible: your nervous system...

If your body has been in severe pain for years, your brain and spinal cord can become “sensitized” – like an alarm system stuck on high alert. Research calls this central sensitization: the pain pathways start firing more easily, even when the original tissue damage has been partly removed.

Studies on hysterectomy and chronic pelvic pain show that while many women improve, a significant group still has persistent pain afterwards – some papers estimate between about 12% and 30%, depending on the group studied.

Those with higher signs of centralized pain before surgery are much more likely to continue hurting afterwards.

That can feel like the worst betrayal of all: you bravely chose a major surgery, and the pain followed you anyway.

On top of that, there are other layers...

Pelvic floor muscles that spent years bracing against pain and are now tight, overprotective, and tender.

Co-existing conditions like IBS, painful bladder, vulvodynia, or fibromyalgia that were never addressed.

Hormonal changes after removal of the uterus and/or ovaries that affect your sleep, mood, and pain perception.

None of this means hysterectomy was “a mistake” for everyone.

Some women feel it gave them their lives back, especially when done together with expert excision of endometriosis.
But it does mean you deserve honest counselling: surgery can reduce pain – and still not fix everything.

If you are living in that “after” phase and still hurting, please know you are not stuck or hopeless, even if it feels that way.

There are options many women don’t get told about:

Seeing an endometriosis-experienced specialist to check for residual or recurrent disease.

Working with a pelvic floor physiotherapist to release muscle guarding, scar tightness, and protect your back and hips.

Being assessed for central sensitization and treated with a whole-body approach that includes pain education, gentle graded movement, nervous-system calming tools, and sometimes specific medications that target nerve pain rather than just inflammation.

Addressing coexisting conditions like IBS, bladder pain, or fibromyalgia instead of assuming “it’s all the endo.”

Most of all, you deserve someone to look you in the eye and say: “No, you are not crazy. The surgery wasn’t some magic reset. Your story makes sense.”

Because this confusion and grief after hysterectomy is so common – and so invisible – I poured my heart into my FREE 130+ page eBook “You Did Nothing To Deserve This!” you can grab it by tapping the link in my profile/bio.

If you’re sitting there wondering whether your body has betrayed you or whether you somehow failed recovery, that book is my way of sitting next to you, putting a hand on your shoulder, and reminding you that your pain is real, your questions are valid, and you still deserve a gentle life.

I would love to learn from you...

Did your pain improve, stay the same, or get worse after hysterectomy?
Were you warned this might happen, or were you promised a “cure”?
What has helped you cope – physically, emotionally, or in your relationship – when the pain didn’t just vanish like everyone said it would?

Your story could be the one that helps another woman feel less alone in her “after” and push for the care she still deserves.

Lucjan 🎗

04/12/2025

Yes 🙌 to domestic survivors

04/12/2025

This powerful sentiment about a dog's insight is universally true for dog owners everywhere. Their ability to perceive and respond to our deepest emotional needs is a beautiful mystery of the natural world. On the days when our own perspective is clouded, they serve as a grounding force, reflecting back a simple truth: we are loved and understood. Cherish these incredible creatures who act as quiet guardians of our emotional well-being.

04/12/2025

04/12/2025

Angelina Ballerina