I'm dealing with daily pain in my hands, which is sometimes crippling and sometimes just annoying.
My fingers are stiff and painful, and I also have pain in the back of my hand, wrists and sometimes elbows.
One symptom that perplexes me is a sort of a "burning skin" sensation. The skin on a part of my hand will be very sensitive and when I touch it with a feather-light touch, it will hurt. Sort of like when you have sunburnt skin. It even feels uncomfortable to have the sleeve of my top graze the skin.
Right now, the whole side of my left hand feels like this, from the forearm through the wrist to the beginning of the little finger. Is this fibromyalgia or something else? Is this something the rest of you are familiar with and what can be done? :confused:
Thanks for all your replies. I think I'll try ice-bags or something similar next, like Passion flower mentioned, since I did feel better when I tried to "cool" my hand on my glass table or the leather couch, which feels a bit cool to the touch.
I have this sort of heat and ice pack for pain relief that you can put in the freezer and I've sometimes used it when my shoulder hurts, but I never thought of using it on my hands when the skin acts weird. So that's one thing I can definitely try. Thanks!
I'm really curious about Lyrica, but I'm not sure we have it over here. I just switched rheumatologists since I moved, and the new one wants me to stop Neurontin and start me on Amitryptyline (Elavil), which he claimed was the "only medicine" which helped in fibromyalgia.
I'm afraid he's a bit old-fashioned and not following up on the latest medications, since I know Elavil is something that was used on fibromyalgia years ago and now there are so many other drugs, at least in the U.S. it seems.
Has anyone tried Elavil and did it help? I know someone who gained 20 pounds on it in a very short period, so I'm not very keen.
