We Have a New Advocate at NIH!

Having chronic pain is a lot like having a bleeding heart. It's not enough to kill you, but it sure puts the brakes on lots of activities you used to do or would like to do. People with FMS or CFS know.

A new physician, Dr. Bushnell, is joining the NIH under the NCCAM (for alternativ medicine) to study about the mechanisms, brain changes, and what forms of both alternative medicine/treatments and medications can be used to help people with chronic pain conditions. It's amazing the statistics in the article linked below concerning cost and lost work days due to victims of chronic pain disorders.

Please read: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jul2012/nccam-12.htm

Make any comments you wish on this blog and share the above page with others who have chronic pain.

Yours,
Dr. Linda B. Greer

Sharing the Burden of Over Five Million

The Bible tells us not only to be concerned with our own problems, but to share the burdens of our brothers and sisters in Christ and do good to those of us in God's family. There is always time for sowing good seeds. (Galatians 6: 2-10). For over two years I have volunteered in Spartanburg as a support group leader for the National Fibromyalgia Association. The NFA is one of the largest world-wide groups to assist and educate the public, medical professionals, and people afflicted with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) and/or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), the most common comorbidity to FMS.

I had suffered chronically for about 10 years before proper diagnosis and couldn't make sense of the fatigue and achiness I would feel. Even my orthopedic doctor, a graduate of UNC-CH, misdiagnosed me as having tennis elbow with my first bout of FMS. In 2001, at the Pain Clinic at Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC, I heard the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia for the first time. It relieved me knowing there was a name for all the symptoms I was having.

When I returned to my home in Florida, our support group was a real life saver for me as my symptoms escalated with the murder of my elder of two daughters in 2003. I was already a widow of 15 years at the time. I was unable to provide a godly father figure for my children. As each year ticked away and they grew up without their own daddy, I acutely grieved the hole in their lives.

After moving to South Carolina as an empty nester, I started a group because there wasn't one. We meet on the secon Saturday to share and care about each other. We have a light, healtht lunch together with decaf bevrages. You can probably imagine how difficult it is to encourage people who don't feel good to dress, drive, and come to a meeting in my home, but I believe it is a necessary part of getting some social, spiritual, and medical networking done.

The Spartanburg Christian FMS/CFS Support Group is a tiny part of a community of chronic pain sufferers nationwide and deserves your support, especially since doing so is free! Please use the igive portal for online purchases. They have hundreds of stores available. You can even forward this link to others.
This is the link:

http://www.igive.com/welcome/

The igive team has made many improvements to their search engine recently, so they want lots of people to try it out and put it to the test. If you keep on searching or shopping after testing it out, so much the better for the Spartanburg Christian FMS/CFS Support. The search engine is http://www.isearch.igive.com/
Blessings and Agape,

Dr. Linda B. Greer

March 13 Christian Support Meeting

Hello FMS Friends,

I hope you are staying warm and out of the cold weather this winter. Perhaps it will let up for Spring soon. It makes me want to hibernate like a bear! As you know, our nutritionist chose wisely not to brave the snow from Seneca, so we will see her at our April Meeting.

I am attempting to reschedule Dr. Randy Kale for our Saturday, March 13, meeting at 12:30 PM. Dr. Kale was scheduled for January but had to cancel. He had asked about 8 months ago to come and make a presentation. I still don't have a confirmation yet, but I have it on my calendar to call again tomorrow. I left a message last Friday on their main number.

If you have suggestions on who you'd like to have for a guest from a medical or licensed therapeutic profession, please send that to me by email at drgreer@charter.net .

 

If you haven't visited the NFA http://www.fmaware.org/ web site yet, please try to do this periodically as there are new research articles and information updated each week on this site. It's a great resource along with others listed on this blog site. If there's an informative and reputable web site you'd like added to our blog, be sure to send that to me, too.

Your Volunteer Leader,
Linda B. Greer

Nutrition Talk Postponed until April 10 Meeting

Mother Nature decided to give us a break for two months before we got the lowdown on what foods we should stop eating. Nancy did not want to make the long drive from Seneca with snow on the roads. Can you blame her?

Our March meeting is still being finalized, but I am hopeful Dr. Randy Kale will fit us into his busy schedule on Saturday, March 13. Will let you know more later. In the meantime, stay warm, get lots of rest on these long winter nights, and dream about Springtime.

Your Support Group Leader,
Dr. Linda B. Greer