'Lit up' Like Tron-Taking the 'Flare' Out of Fibro

When I try to explain to my friends how Fibromyalgia feels, I first visualize my pain. And as I picture it I go to one place, one classic reference that nails it every single time. Tron.
Now, I have friends who tease me relentlessly about the unfortunate term "flare" when the fibro is at its worst and in full effect. So, to avoid the jokes related to some terrible STD, and also to better illustrated my Tron reference, I have renamed being "in a flare" to being "lit up."

Lit up like Tron, to be exact. And frankly, I think it nails it perfectly. When I am suffer from a "flare" I feel LIT UP in my body. And my pain and lethargy radiates basically around the perimeter of my body (like the Tron suits), and u to my brain (hence the helmets), down my legs to my toes.

When, the pain is accompanied by the burning, the painful "dried out" feeling, I think of beef jerky. I know its weird. I am just very visual. But I feel like the best way to describe it is with food or images.

The beef jerky feeling is simple. My muscles feel dried out and twisted up, like when you give yourself a facial and wear a nice clay mask. You know, the green ones, and they dry up on your face and before you know it even speakimg is difficult because your cheeks are puckered together and your lips can barely meet to enunciate words, letters and such? Well, in the midst of being "lit up" you may also acquire the novelty of sensation of the good ole' fibro burn, where like your face with a dry clay mask sucking the life from your pores, your muscles are experiencing a similar "beef jerky" kind of sensation and any move, and stretch, the simplest walking or stroll and even rolling over is a burning, stretching, masky facial beef jerky kind of feel.

Oh its late and I am tired. I just wanted to share my thoughts on how it feels sometimes, and also how the flare invites giggles (as it should). So if you too feel like you are "lit up like Tron" on your bad days, or feeling a little "beef jerky", then by all means embrace the new terms.. Maybe your friends will understand it better and not attribute to a herpes flare up. Because that's weird and embarassing and totally easily misunderstood if overhead while chatting with friends at a bar. =)