Anita Webster is raising awareness about fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome she was diagnosed with 10 years ago. 25651 Picture: Meagan Rogers
By Lia Bichel
AFTER enduring a year of constant pain, sleep loss, lack of energy and memory lapses, Narre Warren resident Anita Webster was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
Ten years later, she hopes she can raise awareness about the rare and chronic pain syndrome.
Ms Webster, 37, said she never heard of the condition when a rheumatologist diagnosed her with it in 1998. She had continuous pain in her muscles and was constantly fatigued.
“It’s hard living with this. I have pain pretty much all the time,” she said.
“I work full-time and come home and am too tired to clean or cook. I forget things and have to write it down all the time. I get tired easily.
“The more pain I have the less sleep I get, and the less sleep I get the more pain I have.”
Ms Webster said some days she was depressed about her situation, but tried to be optimistic.
“I won’t die from it. Some days I feel like dying from it because I can’t stand the pain, but I try not to have too many of those days,” she said.
“Things could be worse. People get cancer or have to endure other horrible things, so instead of asking ‘why me?’ I just think that this is me and I have to live with it.”
In an effort to ease the pain, Ms Webster has tried different medications suggested by her rheumatologist but none of the medications she tried was made specifically for fibromyalgia.
“The medicine I tried was developed to treat something else but during trials it was found that it helped with pain or with sleep loss,” she said.
“There definitely needs to be more research on fibromyalgia.
“It is difficult to diagnose and no-one knows what causes it, which is one of the reasons it can’t be fixed.”
Ms Webster said she advised anyone who thought that they might have the condition to contact a rheumatologist.
Anyone who has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia can seek help at Australia’s first outpatient clinic at Monash Medical Centre, Clayton.
