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I have been in pain for years! My Dad called it being "Muscle Bound". The muscle soreness symptoms fit all the markers for Fibromyalgia. Sports journals identify it as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). My natural doctor said my body was inherently tight and suggested that I increase my yoga, we also identified several foods that were increasing inflammation (nightshades and wheat) and causing pain. The physical therapist said the surgery scars and scar tissue were impeding natural movement and that was creating imbalances throughout the body.
They were probably all right but none of the above totally captured what was going on and neither did a single article on the internet (that I could find), so I here is the story and the surprising way I've received relief.
I begin at the beginning for a couple of reasons, first to demonstrate that this goes back a very long time, second because my Father and Grandfather had the same symptoms so no one thought this was out of the ordinary, finally in all of the possible causes above most of them are adult onset, so we had a mystery. This aspect is particularly troubling because both of these fine men died in their early 60's of heart failure, could there be a link? This study raises the troubling possibility.
At about 5 years old, I began having terrible pain in my legs at night. My Dad called them shin splints and growing pains, he'd rub me down with Ben Gay and put a heating pad in the bed so I could go to sleep. When I was about 8 years old, I had a particularly hard gymnastics workout. Two days later I could not straighten my legs and could barely walk. My Dad put me in a super hot bath and then made me "jog it out".
Exercise regimes were difficult because they caused disproportionate muscle stiffness and soreness that lasted upwards of a week and required massive doses of ibuprofen to function. The older I got the worse it became. An hour of light weeding in the garden = one week of pain. Five Sun Salutations = three days of back pain. It is almost impossible to motivate yourself to exercise when the result is such agony.
Was it hormonal? I began looking at "relaxin" the hormone produced largely to relax muscles while you are pregnant. One researcher has focused on this in relation fibromyalgia pain but his results have been inconclusive. Hormone research is in infancy so breakthroughs on that front are still to be discovered.
Years ago, Bill Phillips developed a product called Phosphagen Elite and it worked amazingly well for me, but alas Bill sold his company and the product is no longer available.
Was it allergies? Avoiding nightshades and wheat certainly, plays a role. This is especially true for a body at rest but it was not the full story.
How about lactic acid? Most experts think this is the cause of DOMS. I made an off-hand comment to my natural doctor, "Is there some vitamin that you can give me to make the mosquitoes stop eating me alive?" He said, well, there actually is a product that will control the lactic acid which is what they are attracted to. Takesumi Supreme. I took it prior to going into my garden and noticed that not only did the mosquitoes leave me alone but the debilitating muscle soreness seemed to be reduced. I mentioned it to him on the next visit and he confirmed he saw a decrease in his muscle soreness. This offered some relief but it wasn't the ultimate answer.
Vitamins and suppliments - there is no doubt in my mind that three years of loving care by my natural doctor helped to bring my body into balance. Of note, two suppliments seemed to make the biggest difference - Magnesium Citrate and CoQ10. Those are integral parts of my daily regime but neithere were they the magic element.
At the end of the day, the solution and the "cure" or at least the symptom manager came from the most unlikely place, amphetamines. Given to my Mother while she was pregnant with me to keep her weight down. Yes, dear friends, many of your Moms and Grandmothers were given speed to help them keep their weight gain to a minimum in the 1950's to the 1970's (read here). The implications of this go well beyond what tradition science tells you - it goes deep into the epigenome. As I began my weight loss journey and my medicine regime I noticed immediately that I could exercise like a normal person. A small dose of phentermine changed everything.
Gone was the debilitating muscle pain, gone was the post work out stiffness, gone was the need for dozens of ibuprofen pills after a simple work out. Perhaps it is my specific biology, my specific situation, maybe it is just an answer to years of prayer but since I was never able to find anything online to help me, I thought it was worth a post. Peace and Love, Friends.
