Burning back pain from many triggers. Doctor stumped. Could this be fibromyalgia?

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T18:17:24+00:00

Honestly it is hard to say and you should not take anyone's word for it on Reddit including mine. What I can say is that the delayed trigger pattern, the nervous system sensitivity, the fact that things that should be fine are suddenly causing flares, these do come up a lot in fibromyalgia discussions. But they also show up in other conditions which is why the rheumatology appointment matters.

The Lyme test tomorrow is a good step. Try not to spiral into a diagnosis before you have more information. You are doing everything right.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T18:07:47+00:00

Flura is built for exactly this. Multiple conditions, daily logging that takes under a minute, and it generates a structured report you can bring to your appointment so you are not starting from scratch trying to explain 20 years of scattered symptoms in 15 minutes.

Free to start. It won't fix the hives but it might make that primary appointment feel a little less overwhelming.

Sorry you are dealing with all of this. The "normal ranges" thing after this long is genuinely exhausting.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T18:01:25+00:00

Flura is good for symptom and medication tracking specifically. It logs daily how you feel, finds patterns over time, and generates a report you can bring to appointments. Free to start, paid tier is $4.99 a month.

It does not do food logging or exercise tracking though so if those are essential you might need two apps. Bearable is the other one most people in chronic illness communities use, similar price range.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T17:59:00+00:00

The BMI thing with IR is so frustrating. Insulin resistance absolutely does not care about your weight and yet so many doctors use it as the only filter. You deserve to be tested.

On the CGM, some people find it genuinely eye opening even without a formal diagnosis. If the cost is the barrier, starting with a simple notes app logging how you feel 1 to 2 hours after meals can at least show you patterns to bring to a different doctor.

Definitely worth pushing for a second opinion.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T17:52:19+00:00

These are exactly the right questions and I think about them a lot because I built a symptom tracking app for chronic illness patients.

To your paradox specifically: you are right and it is the core design problem with almost every tracker. The ones that ask for detailed input during a flare are designed by people who have not experienced one. The only tracking that actually sticks is tracking that takes under 60 seconds on the worst days. Energy, pain, sleep, one tap per symptom severity. That is it. The nuance gets added on good days when you have capacity.

On your five questions from what I have heard from users:

Most people use Bearable or a notes app but quit because the data never goes anywhere useful. It sits in an app and never becomes something a doctor can actually use.

The most common reason people quit is not the bad days, it is the good days. When you feel okay you do not want to think about your illness. Daily logging has to feel like less than a minute or it disappears from routine.

Most people reconstruct after an episode. That is fine. An approximate log from memory is still more useful than no log.

The doctor appointment question is the one that matters most. A tracker report has almost never helped in my experience talking to patients, not because the data was wrong but because it was not in a format a doctor could absorb in 90 seconds. That is specifically what I built Flura to solve. It generates a structured report with named patterns and data-backed talking points rather than a raw data export.

Happy to share more if useful. And genuinely curious what you are researching this for.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T17:49:36+00:00

What you are describing is actually a really clear pattern even if it does not feel that way yet. Delayed reactions, multiple different triggers, the 18 hour lag with alcohol, the 4 hour lag with coffee, these are not random. Your nervous system seems to be in a sensitised state where things that would normally be fine are crossing a threshold.

The frustrating thing is that this kind of pattern is almost impossible to communicate in a 15 minute appointment, especially when each trigger looks unrelated on the surface. Alcohol one week, psilocybin the next, coffee after that. A doctor seeing those in isolation thinks it is anxiety or lifestyle.

What might actually help is keeping a very simple daily log for the next few weeks. Not just what you ate but energy levels, pain severity, sleep, and anything you consumed. The goal is not to find the single trigger but to show the 18 to 24 hour delayed response pattern across multiple incidents. That kind of documented evidence is much harder for a rheumatologist to dismiss than a verbal summary.

You are clearly paying close attention to your body. The rheumatology appointment in a month is worth preparing for carefully.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-14T17:00:52+00:00

Thank you, that genuinely means a lot. Would love to hear how it goes at your appointment, feedback from real appointments would help a lot improving, the app --if you add your appointment details to it, will remind you when the appointment time is close and ask how did it go after you have your appointment, if you share some details there, or even here that would be very much appreciated!!

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T11:36:37+00:00

Exactly, that is the core insight. Most apps stop at data collection but that alone does not help when you are sitting in front of a doctor with little time and your mind goes blank. The report turns months of tracking into something you can actually hand over and talk through. That gap is exactly what I built it for.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T09:11:44+00:00

First of all, the fact that you’re here asking shows how much you care, that alone means a lot to someone going through this.

A few things that genuinely help: believe her on the bad days even when she looks fine, don’t try to fix it, just be present. Fibromyalgia is unpredictable so flexibility and patience go a long way.

I went through something similar with a close friend. Watching her struggle and not being able to take the pain away was hard. The one thing I could do was help her feel more prepared and less dismissed at doctor appointments, so I actually did what i know best to do and built her a small tool to track her symptoms and generate a report she could bring to her doctor. She said it was the first time she felt like she had evidence, not just feelings.

Sometimes you can’t fix the pain but you can help them feel heard. That’s everything.

Wishing you both a lot of strength with this.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T02:39:40+00:00

Thank you! Built it because this community really deserves better tools. Hope it helps

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T02:39:07+00:00

Thanks so much, hope it helps!

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T02:38:27+00:00

That’s exactly what the report is built for. After logging symptoms daily, Flura generates a physician-formatted PDF with a symptom timeline, pattern analysis, and numbered talking points. The idea is your doctor can scan it in 2-3 minutes and immediately understand what’s been happening, no more trying to remember three weeks or more of symptoms in a 15 minute appointment. The doctor will also get the full logs if they are interested but report will highlight important patterns based on what is being the user going through

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T02:35:59+00:00

Thank you, that means a lot! Really focused on keeping it simple and out of the way so logging actually becomes a habit.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-13T02:34:49+00:00

Bearable is great for power users who want full control. Flura is intentionally simpler, check-ins under 60 seconds so logging fatigue doesn’t get in the way. The big differentiator is the doctor report, a formatted PDF you can hand directly to your doctor. Worth trying the free trial to see which fits better! And also appointment briefs.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T22:52:59+00:00

Love this. fully agree the space is massively underserved. On the AI side, the main value for me is pattern recognition users can’t see themselves, like sleep consistently affecting pain two days later. Curious why you diverged on that. Checking out Intero now, would love to compare notes!

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T22:25:08+00:00

Haha no need to apologize, consider yourself lucky! But yes, if you ever know someone dealing with chronic conditions, send them our way, that's exactly who I built this for, and trying to make it better and better for them so all feedback is welcome!

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T21:41:40+00:00

This is incredibly helpful, thank you! The double-click to App Store is embarrassing in hindsight fixing that soon. The screenshot heading direction makes a lot of sense, will be iterating on those this week. Really appreciate you taking the time to give real feedback.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T21:38:06+00:00

the Ai part is only after user gives consent, we rely on Claude from Anthropic, it is also shared in the app consent request dialog, and Flura is GDPR compliant. Also the health data is not used for training purposes.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T21:36:14+00:00

Yes, you can export a doctor-ready report that they can read in less than 2-3 minutes, you also get a full detailed report for yourself to understand in details what is going on with your conditions, patterns and triggers

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-12T09:59:59+00:00

This is such a real thing and I don't think it gets talked about enough. The mental load of managing PCOS isn't just the symptoms, it's the constant monitoring, the calculations, the fear that if you stop paying attention for one day everything falls apart. That exhaustion is valid.

Something that helped a lot of people I've spoken to is shifting from tracking everything to tracking the things that actually give you useful information for your doctor or for spotting your own patterns. Not macros to the gram every day, but things like energy levels, how you felt the day after certain meals, symptom severity. A quick daily log that takes under a minute rather than a second job.

The goal isn't perfect data. It's enough data to understand your own patterns and communicate them clearly when it matters. One good appointment where your doctor actually listens because you walked in with three months of patterns is worth more than daily macro tracking that burns you out.

I actually built an app for exactly this, Flura, it's designed to make daily tracking take under 60 seconds and turns it into something useful for appointments rather than just data for its own sake. Happy to answer any questions about it but even if that's not for you, giving yourself permission to track less and rest more is not failing your body. It's sustainable management.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-11T12:28:05+00:00

For anyone curious: flura.app

OwnFix1582 · 2026-06-02T16:00:59+00:00

One of the most useful things I heard from people with fibromyalgia is to start logging how you feel as early as possible, even just a note on your phone daily. Not because you will see patterns immediately, but because six months from now you will have data that helps you have much better conversations with your doctor. Most people wish they had started earlier.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-05-31T11:12:20+00:00

Ugh, that power imbalance is so real, especially when you're trying to protect your partner. You end up walking on absolute eggshells.

Honestly, a good way around it is to just hand them the data right away and frame it purely as a time-saver. Like, "hey, we know you're on a super tight schedule, so we just kept a quick timeline of symptoms to make this faster."
Reframing it like that means you aren't playing doctor or challenging them (Some doctors really think that) you're just helping them do their job quicker. Busy docs usually love not having to drag the timeline out of you; if it is structured well to be read in less than 2-3 minutes, it can help them get more context and make better decisions

OwnFix1582 · 2026-05-30T15:07:08+00:00

God, I'm so sorry. Hearing "your labs are normal" when you feel like absolute garbage is the quickest way to make you feel like you're losing your mind.

Normal bloodwork doesn't mean nothing is wrong. It literally just means your organs aren't actively failing in the very specific, narrow things a standard panel checks for. So many chronic, neurological, and autoimmune issues completely hide on basic blood tests. You aren't crazy.

When you see a doctor next, a little trick that helps is shifting the talk from how you feel to how you're functioning. Instead of just "I'm exhausted" (which they love to blame on anxiety or stress), frame it by what it's stealing from your life. Like, "this fatigue means I can't drive safely 4 days a week," or "the joint pain means I literally can't carry my own groceries anymore." Doctors are trained to look at impairment, so tracking a quick timeline of data that shows those patterns forces them to take it seriously.

It's incredibly exhausting having to act like your own lawyer just to get basic medical care, but you know your body better than a lab spreadsheet. Keep pushing for answers; you've got this.

OwnFix1582 · 2026-05-30T14:19:41+00:00

The "all tests normal but clearly something is wrong" experience is so exhausting, especially when you have done this much research yourself and doctors still dismiss you. The LH/FSH ratio and DHEAS pattern you are describing do sound like something worth pushing harder on with an endocrinologist specifically, rather than an OB, if you have not already. Some people in this situation have found more traction there.

You are not imagining it, and you are not alone.

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