When Things go Right...

I am becoming such a big fan of lovely!doctor (aka new private GP). He takes me really seriously, explains things, spends a lot of time with me and is generally marvellous. He draws these fantastic little charts and diagrams, which I love because it's exactly the sort of thing I do on the board in the classroom :) Today he drew me a tiny picture of the brain to explain how paracetamol works on a different area from codeine, which I found ridiculously exciting. Anyway, things have been getting more difficult and more painful recently, and codeine has been doing nothing for me, so I went to ask about pain management as well as to chase up referrals. Lovely!doctor actually listened to this, and now I have Tramacet (which is sort of a stronger relative of codeine with generally fewer side effects). Compare this with the NHS doctor who just told me to keep taking the codeine at a lower dose... Unless it's for benefits stuff or emergency prescriptions, I am just going to avoid my NHS GP entirely from now on. Grr.

The really good news is that I am finally getting a referral to a fibromyalgia specialist. The plan was that I would see a CFS specialist first, but the wait is long (even privately - I dread to think what the NHS waiting list is like). So I asked if I could see the fibromyalgia specialist now. And amazingly, lovely!doctor had already decided to refer me to exactly the person that an online friend recently recommended to me. This only increases my confidence about lovely!doctor, because he clearly knows which specialists to refer to. I'm going to ring the specialist on Monday, once the referral is through, and get my appointment. With any luck, it will be soon.

Of course, I am now getting nervous that he won't find fibromyalgia, meaning that I will have to go through more and more testing to find out what's wrong. (Lovely!doctor mentioned connective tissue disorders for the first time today, which is something that has been lurking at the back of my mind for a little while.) But I am hopeful, because I know my symptoms well, and if I can finally get a diagnosis of something then it will be a huge weight off my mind.

It's good to know that CFS referrals are being processed, too, and that I will eventually get treatment for that. Apparently, the CFS expert that I'm being referred to is a big fan of CBT. I'm up for that, if it helps me cope with pain, but I hope that's not the *only* thing they offer. I really think that things like physiotherapy would be helpful. Well, we shall see. At least stuff is happening. At last!