Question
I have had FMS for 17 years. I am a hairstylist, I also have swollen muscles arms,legs that have very painful knots in them. I have been to several rheumatoligist and no one seems to know anything about this. My MD said he thinks I have some underlieing rhumatic because of the swelling and an elevated sed rate for all these years. The hightest was 57. I have tried every medication for arthritis,steroids,elavil,paxil and wellbutrin. I understand that sometimes it the correct mixture that will help. I am on wellbutrin 300xl, paxil 2o mgs, and 5 to 10 mgs of ambem. I take darvacet for pain, I have also been on pain patches for several months,not a lot of releif. This time I have been down for a month. I also have the fibro fogs for several days at a time. This has gotten progressively worse over the years. I have done water arobics, curves, walking (seems to do best). I am at my witts end because I was working to try to forget the pain and then it caught up with me. Do you have any sugestions?
Answer
If you’ve been to several rheumatologists and they all come up with fibromylagia (FMS), then this is likely the diagnosis. I agree that swollen muscles are not a feature of FMS, but localized tightness (knots) in the muscles is common.
