I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until becoming such close friends with Megan that I found out what Fibromyalgia is. The name of the condition alone doesn’t give much away! So I thought I would start with a small paragraph to help educate us all on this, before getting to Megan’s story and why I have chosen to raise money for FMA UK.
Fibromyalgia, also called fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), is a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body. Symptoms of fibromyalgia vary from person to person, with the main symptom being chronic pain all over your body. It was formerly classified as an inflammatory musculoskeletal disease but is now considered to be an illness that primarily affects the central nervous system.
As well as widespread pain, other symptoms of fibromyalgia include difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep, which can make you feel very tired (fatigue), problems with mental processes (known as "fibro-fog"), such as difficulty concentrating or remembering things, headaches, and feelings of worry, frustration and low in mood.
There's no cure for fibromyalgia and it’s not clear what causes fibromyalgia. It’s believed it can start after a stressful event like an injury, illness, or the death of a loved one. Treatment for fibromyalgia includes medicines such as pain killers, anti-depressants, exercise programmes and relaxation techniques, and in some cases talking therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) have been known to help. However, having seen first-hand how this condition has affected my friend, there doesn’t seem to be any one treatment method that helps enough. Megan is constantly in pain, and though she takes six different medicines daily and tries her hardest to exercise and remain positive, things are really hard for her at the moment.
This leads me on to Megan’s story and her personal journey with fibromyalgia.
Megan’s Story
In 2015, Megan suffered an injury after falling off a trampoline on to her back. She went to the hospital for X-rays and was given codeine for 6 weeks, and this would appear to have been the trigger. In 2016 the pain had spread to her legs and hips and continued in her back. Things then spiralled through the years and Megan visited her GB and doctor’s surgeries around 100 times explaining that something was not right with her body and that the pain from the injury was no longer the only issue. After years of hospital visits and physio appointments, Megan was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2022, meaning Megan had been without the correct care and treatment for seven years.
Living with this chronic pain has completely changed Megan’s life and as a person. She feels as though she has had to grieve her old self and is still coming to terms with what her future will now be like. She is consistently unable to work, spending days at a time unable to move. She feels as though her life has been taken from under her feet and she can’t do half the things she wants to do or had ambitions for in the future.
I have seen her struggle so much recently and seeing her in that much pain breaks my heart, it’s such a misunderstood condition with so much more research needed to find better ways to manage the pain and maybe one day even find a solution to the cause. That’s why I have decided to take on the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge to fundraise for FMA UK.
The Charity
https://www.fmauk.org/ is the biggest and only national charity for Fibromyalgia. They provide medical information for health care professionals and operate a national helpline. The helpline is there for both people who suffer with the condition themselves but also to offer support to those who have friends and family with Fibromyalgia and want more help in understanding the condition and how to care for their loved ones.
FMA UK create information packs for patients and medical professionals, run social media campaigns for awareness, work with journalists to write articles and case studies and publish in papers, run presentations for UK employers, run support groups, have a monthly newsletter and also probably most importantly help research facilities to recruit people to take part in projects for medical research and studies.
As you can see, they do an awful lot, and I want Megan’s journey and story to make a difference by raising money for this charity to help them continue providing such needed support and to assist in funding further research.
On the 7th of September I will be taking on The Yorkshire 3 peak challenge with my best friend Sarah. The Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge is a gruelling 12 hours and 24-mile hike, with an ascent of a whopping 4,531 feet, starting at 6am in the morning and finishing (hopefully) at 6pm that evening! The hike requires 6 months of training in order to prepare for the physical endurance required to complete this challenge. It is certainly not an easy trek and will definitely be taxing and hard work.
Please show your support by donating anything you can to this cause and standing beside me and Megan, let’s get something positive from this! Hopefully the research being done will soon be able to offer greater insights into this condition and a better understanding on how to treat it, maybe even cure it one day.
Thank you
Comentarios