I plan on telling how this all began with a normal healthy young guy. I lived in the L. A. area and I hiked and mountain climed in my spare time. I swam daily and I was in great shape at this time. I had no medical problems at this time. I was not having any symptoms of Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue. I worked long and sometimes many hours at a time and with some rest I was up and ready to go again. I was 19 and I joined the Air Force right at the end of Viet Nam. I went to boot camp in San Antonio Texas at the end of October. I had it planned this way because of the heat. I knew that the late fall/winter would be the best time to go through boot camp. Things were going along kind of like I expected. I was in an open double bay dorm that was brick with air condition so it was comfortable while we were inside. It got hot outside and we were told to take lots of salt tablets. Each day was a new experience; we arrived on base on a Friday evening so we spent the weekend as freaks because we still had hair. They solve that problem on Monday morning. We also got our clothing and hair cutout Tuesday or Wednesday we were taken to a med center.
We all had to remove our shirts and as we moved through a line there was two medics that held air powered guns with medication in them. We were not told what these shots were but as I stood still with one of these guys one each side they shot me with their mix of medicines. I was told that this mixture was just the normal shots that they give every enlistee.
Soon I began to have problems sleeping, I had pain and I was kind of foggy. I thought that it was from the workouts outside in the heat. Finally I went to the medical building and the doctors were good about writing down my symptoms but had little answers. These problems continued through my enlistment.
The problems were not all the time, only when I stressed my body with being up for a long time or working hard. Then the symptoms would hit me. From 1975 till 1994 I was diagnosed with many different things but they were not correct. Finally in 1995 I told my wife that I had to find out what was the problem. I was unable to remember the codes to program. I had been programming since I got out of the Air Force. I attended college and got a computer science degree. The programming they taught me was soon obsolete. Once the personal computers came out how we programmed really changed. I had been making my living programming along with our stores and furniture factory. I went to a psychologist and talked to him. He suggested that I be given a number of tests to see if there was something wrong with my mind. At the same time I was seeking medical answers to the problems I was having. I was sent to several specialist and they all came to the same conclusion. I had Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia. Interesting enough the U S Government had given Fibromyalgia a name in 1994.
