Notes

Symtoms:
- have pain around most of my joints
- Especially the knees, hips, spine and shoulders
- Extreme stiffness and sore/painful tendons and muscles
- Cannot walk on my own for more than 30 meters at a time without a lot of pain and needing to rest. Need a cane for longer distance travel but not much greater than 30m. wheelchair when pain flares up too much. Never used wheelchair alone due to shoulder pain. (Mom pushes me on wheelchair since I only leave house to travel to hospitals)
- Always tired and in pain and extremely hard to keep in a right posture. When trying to be in right posture I pull a muscle and stretching/physio always end up with injuries that disables me for a while(due to musculoskeletal imbalance)
- Difficult concentrating due to pain and bad posture
- Pain so bad I can’t fall sleep many times during a week
- Extremely hard to get anything done and takes a lot of mental/physical energy and time
- When pain gets bad I have a hard time getting out of bed and taking care of hygiene like brushing my teeth
- very depressed and anxious and stressed out easily. no motivation to get out of bed sometimes
- Extremely painful and tired after doing simple task like making breakfast and have no energy left for other tasks


Summary:

•past:

- Believe the pain stemmed from 1️⃣childhood trauma(anxiousness and depression from long term in abusive home since 2002, escaped to shelter in 2003 but left shortly), 2️⃣musculoskeletal imbalance(left side body always felt “tighter” than right side) The imbalance caused a lot of “wrong” movements which caused injuries overtime. Pain then started building up plus pain amplifies with stress/anxiety
- chronic pain progressively developing since around 2012. More recent years have developed mild arthritis in the joints and mild scoliosis.
- Have depression and anxiety stemmed from childhood trauma and chronic pain. Saw psychiatrists in UofT 2014/15 Tried medication (prestiq)since 2014, stopped using due to nausea, drowsiness, fatigue, and stiffness
- always had a gait that my weight would always be on my left side and when swimming my head would be able to turn over my left shoulder but not the other. Over time I would attend dance lessons and I would feel pain on my right side which were dull. These dull pain spread and never left.
- Pain started from neck to hips to rest of body (mostly near bigger joints), widespread pain got more and more intense over 2014-2017
- After walking for a while I would limp and there would be pain so I would have to stop and rest. Difficulty sitting down.(more symptoms on “recent symptoms” page)
- Had many tests done and medications tried since 2014 with UofT Dr. Farquharsen. diagnosed with fibromyalgia around 2017/2018


•Particular causes for worsening of condition right before covid:

-trail hike with uneven grounding
-physical fight/assault

•current situation:

-musculoskeletal imbalance that causes me to not be able to do exercises or regular walking without injuring myself. The injury is the same every time and gets worse every time. Doesn’t heal. The injuries themselves are becoming part of and adding to the chronic pain

- Main concern now is I want to be able to move and do exercises without hurting myself. I can bare and endure the duller/lingering/widespread pain for now as I’m used to it and not doing much(school or work etc)
- When I try to stretch/exercise(e.g. squats) I’m unable to be balanced or be in the “correct form” as I feel the left side of my body “folding” inwards. So when I do these movements I try to get into the correct form but when doing so, I feel an intense pull and pain coming from the right side of the body (bigger joints). Over time these injuries don’t heel and I’m afraid to move.
- Want to be able to get stronger physically and not just take pain medication and continue injuring myself causing more pain. The intense “injured/overstretched” pain that comes with specific movements doesn’t diminish with medication and lasts a long time. Over time the lingering pain (which makes my joints feel weak) doesn’t go away.