Taming, naming and reclaiming yourself from a mysterious disorder

August 3, 2008

By Sandra Jordan Of the St. Louis AmericanThursday, July 17, 2008 10:57 AM CDT

Part of the problem Melanie Jenkins faced as she endured debilitating pain throughout her body was having a doctor who believed her anguish was not in her mind and really did exist.“I was fatigued all of the time no matter how much I laid and rest. I couldn’t sleep, even though I was tired. My body hurt all over as though I had been working out. I was a nurse, so I walked on a regular basis, but this felt like I had been to the gym pumping iron,” Jenkins said.She also kept flu-like symptoms most of the time. That was one of the main characteristics of her condition along with muscle fatigue and pain that at times made her skin hurt to touch.“Have you ever had a rug burn? That’s what my skin would feel like. Mainly my arms and legs—the limb part. My covers couldn’t touch—my clothes couldn’t touch,” Jenkins described. “I had one of the nurses cut me out of my sleeves in my uniform one day because my skin was hurting and burning and I couldn’t stand for it to touch. I started going into what they said was an anxiety attack from it.”Then the depression set in.“It made you think you was losing your mind, it’s kind of like when you take your car to the shop and it stops doing it—and they say, ‘Ah-Hah—sure, your car was doing it.’”

After five years of going back and forth for office visits, changing doctors and being told nothing was wrong, a trigger point examination by Dr. Jacqueline Howard Fairchild in Alton, Ill. gave Jenkins a name to attach to what ailed her - Fibromyalgia.

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