My chronic pain has been with me for going on 18yrs now.  After reading Bluesman's post about chronic pain & bi-polar, it  gave me the courage to also speak out about my other issues, one also being bi-polar. Thank you Bluesman for your courage in openly admitting to all us practical strangers, such a personal disease!

I also have Bi-polar, chronic depression, anxiety/panic disorder, seasonal affective disorder (a.k.a. - SAD), fibromyalgia, osteopinia (the beginnings of osteoparosis), osteoarthritis (knees),  cronic migraines. I'll stop there because I would just bore everyone if I kept going on with all my diagnosis.  In my early 20's I was diagnosed with the chronic migraines, and in my early 30's with FM.  My diagnosis of bi-polar came almost a year later. My doctors seem to think my FM was caused due to an automobile accident I had been in, the bi-polar was inhererited. Thank God above I was the only one of my siblings to have this DX. It comes from my Daddy's side of the family.  My wonderful Daddy commited suicide on May 1, 2000. That is why duing the early days of this month I seem to go iinto a bad "funk" , or as my doctors call it a "downward spiral". I'm sure I have completly bored anyone that reads this, so I'll go for now. Just really wanted to thank Bluesman for giving me courage to talk to total strangers about such personal problems, and thanks to Healthconnection.com, for providing this web site.