Family conditions and diagnosed with fibromyalgia

[aclarkwhitman]

Hi! I’m Ashley from Georgia and a new member. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia around 2014. In 2005, I had encephalitis after a brain biopsy in 2005 and was hospitalized for around 4 weeks. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with spinal meningitis in 2008 and hospitalized again. My Father has Primary Progressive MS. He was diagnosed about 13 years ago. Also, my paternal uncle has Lupus. I do wonder if it’s all connected. Currently on Cymbalta, klonopin, and various supplements. I do manage to work part time, thank goodness, so I have good health benefits and they’ve worked with me on accommodations during a flare up. I’m excited to interact with others on the forum and hopefully learn new information and make new connections!

 

[Dooi]

Welcome @aclarkwhitman. I do sometimes wonder whether there are links between conditions that, given certain exposure, may exhibit differently in different parts of the family tree.

It may seem far fetched, but I think in time, maybe 20, 50, or 100 years from now, with machine learning (ML) and some targeted AI, sifting through millions of anonymized health records, what links may be uncovered.

For now, it's likely a tedious task or requires some focused luck to find what exposures lead to what conditions or health problems.

I'm not trying to be dismissive of all the wonderful work that's been done in healthcare in the past few decades. But in dealing with fibromyalgia and similar chronic issues it's rather obvious that there's a lot left to be uncovered and discovered.

 

[aclarkwhitman]

Yes! Thank you and nice to meet you!

 

[Jemima]

Welcome, Ashley!

 

[CreativeOne]

I definitely identify. I thought I was going to be the lone wolf with a severe pain inducing condition in my family. My nephew about 8 years after my diagnosis, pulled his back and triggered a severe antibody reaction. His Rheumi called it "Reactive Auto-Arthritis. But they also think having an STD infection could have acted as the first trigger.