Woman (47) lives with constant pain

GEORGE NEWS - She was a ballet dancer all her life, but now Monica Maas (47) is unable to walk 100 metres without experiencing excruciating pain. Maas, a single mom of two sons, started feeling ill in 2013.

But it would take two more years for someone to diagnose her correctly with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and auto nervous dysfunction.

Fibromyalgia is a non-curable disabling neurological pain disease of the central nervous system.

"I was practically living in hospitals where tests were done non-stop to find out what was wrong with me," she explains. The main symptoms were pain in her legs and neck. She also had trouble staying awake and slept all the time.

"In January 2015 I woke up screaming with pain in my legs and was unable to walk. I was flown to Cape Town and seen by a well-known rheumatologist, Dr David Gotlieb. He only took 30 minutes to make a diagnosis," says Maas. "I was in such pain by then that I ended up in a wheelchair and was put on morphine for a year."

Constant pain

Maas is a patient of the George Hospital where she receives pain medication and goes for physiotherapy. "The disease has completely taken over the body I used to know. I never know how I am going to wake up in the morning," she says.

"Some days the pain is so bad and disabling that I am unable to walk or lift my arms, or I am in bed for weeks on end, unable to function. There is no cure for the non-stop severe pain throughout my entire body. I have lived like this for six years now and can't carry on living in a body of constant pain.

"There are many days when I wake up with severe migraines and pain in every bone of my face. It breaks my heart to see a woman of 80 walking faster than me. I still cannot clean my home or do anything physical.

"The slightest movement of trying to sweep the floor with a broom leaves me in tears as the pain in my arms is overwhelming."

In her research Maas found that there is a new laser therapy machine on the market that has just been launched, the coMra 980 delta.

"The laser therapy machine will be able to make my life a bit better so that I can manage the pain, as no pain medications help," says Maas. The machine costs R25 000, which is out of Maas' financial reach.