Hope found its way to my doorstep, so I slowly opened the door.

So this one is #personal, but I wanted to share because it's been life-changing for me #pain/#health-wise and it might help someone else.

Let me start at the beginning. I'm 5 years old and I'm crying because I have a blinding headache, my dad sits next to my bed and holds a cold compress to my forehead while he tells me to breathe.

I'm 10 years old and I've just recovered from another bout of migrainous stomach-ache (Turns out migraines in kids often present with vomiting and gastrointestinal symptoms), and I'm sad because I'm going to my cousin's birthday and I won't be able to eat anything nice. But I know my birthday is coming up I'm doing my best to be good with food so I have a better chance at not feeling like shit on my special day.

I'm 18 years old and I've just started uni, but I also just started taking muscle relaxants regularly to deal with my neck pain that turns into headaches so bad I sometimes throw up.

I'm 20 and I schedule my life around my headaches, which begin every Thursday after I'm done with class and peak that very night, leaving me wiped out every Friday when I'll recover about enough to be able to go to my part-time job Saturday and Sunday.

I'm 21 and I see a neurologist who gives me meds that work to prevent and diminish the intensity of the migraines, I feel like falling to the ground and praying aloud in thanks. I still get sick, but I get to have a life that's not designed around it.

Then begins a period of trying different meds because the dosage I'm on becomes less and less efficient, and of getting doctors to test me in every way they can think of and failing to ever get an explanation for what's happening to me. One of those meds is anti-psychotic that I take for three days before having a panic attack in the shower and realising something is very wrong. The anxiety never goes away, like a monster that's been awakened inside.

I'm 30 and I start having bouts of dizziness... turns out being on beta-blockers for ten years has made my basal BP super low, so I quit the meds, and miraculously, things don't get worse.

I'm 32 and I'm told I have got fibromyalgia, defined as 'soreness and pain all over your body', the suggested treatment are 3 twenty-minute appointments with a physio who shows me a few strengthening exercises for my neck and shoulders... And talking therapy (so I don't decide my life isn't worth living if I'm always to be in pain? I think and don’t say because doctors have spent my whole life disappointing me). The therapy helps with the anxiety thing, but does not do anything for my physical pain. I decide I don't believe the diagnosis because I still haven't been told the cause and the diagnosis criteria is that I'm in pain so it's basically meaningless in the context of reality.

I'm 36 and I start learning about nutrition, trying different combinations that I hope might help (Glucose revolution anyone?), I learn a lot but I don't see any improvement by eating fibre first and carbs last except for not having my energy levels drop like a bomb two hours after eating. Pretty good discovery, but none of the inflammation goes away. I keep borrowing library books about extreme diets for health... and don't read them (because I know they will tell me I should do hard things to overcome hardship, and I'm not ready).

Not ready to choose myself over sugar and bread and the deliciousness that has been the way I have regulated my moods all my life. Or not really, since I begin to pay attention to what I'm eating and I realise that I'm enjoying anticipating nice meals and treats, and the first couple of bites... and then I'm on my phone or a book and away and I could be eating pretty much anything.

I'm 36 and I surrender, I open one of those books, I do a quiz to check my inflammation levels across 7 different types. I cry because the numbers are so high and I realise the diagnosis was right, I can say it: I have got fibromyalgia. Because I know there is a way forward that is not suffering and is not pretending everything is okay and taking more meds.

Not perfect, and most definitely not easy. But in a way a little magical, like unlocking a door I hadn't even seen before. The door leads inside, to a conversation with my body, which has felt like my enemy for so long, one I have to pacify with meds and massages and beg to keep functioning.

I start the AIP diet, giving up everything on the list for eight weeks. On week 4, I do the quiz again, my two highest inflammation types have dropped by half. I knew it, of course, because I hit my elbow against a wall and there was no pain, and because I got a root canal and the only pain was a mild irritation in my gum even though the dentist warned me I'd need medication for five days, and because I haven't needed a hot water bottle under my neck every day to be able to sleep, and because I'm no longer getting bloated after nearly every meal, and because I have discovered that I can get mentally fatigued without being physically fatigued so that once I'm out of the environment I've had enough of, I get a second wind to do things I love.

I don't need the quiz to tell me, but I just did it again and out of the seven, 6 have gone down by a few further points, the other one went up by 1 (which still leaves it at half of the original value). The numbers make me feel safe, real proof that I'm on the right path, a very rocky one, but the right one.

Today is the last day of those eight weeks and I woke up to a light migraine. I did all the right things and today I got pain anyway so I took meds. I'm okay with that, because I know I'm working towards a future where taking meds will be rare and that I haven't quite found all the tricks to my wellbeing yet, but I have discovered a major key.

I invite you to do the quiz and see what messages your body has been sending you.