I’m Freezing! Or am I just really hot?

One of the joys of Fibro is a completely screwed up sense of temperature. Add to that all the fun aches and pains and you may not realize for days that you are really sick (at least that’s how it is for me). Yesterday, I spent all day chilled to the bone, aching in every muscle and feeling like I could barely move; but hey, that’s just a bad flare right? It wasn’t until late in the evening that I thought to check my temperature and realized it was over 101. No wonder I was freezing, I was burning up! I didn’t think to check my temperature because I figured it was just a bad day, a bad flare and it seems like I’m always either freezing or burning up. It wasn’t until my husband came home from work and complained it was cold in the house that I thought “maybe it’s not just me” (despite having spent the entire day under a huge pile of blankets).

I can’t tell you how often this has happened to me in the last year. I’m sure it’s happened to you, too, a time or two if you have Fibro (and maybe even if you haven’t). So, how do you know if you are really sick? I don’t have the answer to that and unfortunately, we’ve all, probably, also experienced the joy of being completely disregarded by the medical community. This leaves us in an even worse spot. Unless I have a fever or have been sick for days with something that I know isn’t a Fibro (a sore throat, runny nose, etc) I don’t go to the Dr. I just see it as a waste of time and money. However, the good Drs I have have told me before that that’s not the right attitude to have. If you have something that doesn’t fit your usual “flare” symptoms, it’s best to go to the Dr. It could be something worse, and allowing it to hang out in your system any longer than necessary is likely to just make you worse.

So, I guess the moral of this story is… if you have chills & body aches, check your temperature. There might be more to it than you think. In my case, the fever broke over night. I still feel crappy today, but I don’t have a fever or any other symptoms outside of normal Fibro stuff. Not to mention, all my good Drs are off on Fridays, so it really would take my fever returning to the point it was at least night for me to bother going to a Dr. However, if it does (and I’m keeping an eye on it today), I will go to Urgent Care just to be sure I don’t have the Flu or something else.