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Fibromyalgia - symptoms
So just what is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a syndrome, meaning that it is a collection of symptoms that occur together, and not all patients have all of the symptoms.
Women are affected more than men, and it also occurs in children.
Fibromyalgia means "pain in muscles and fibres”.
Diagnosis is made by the presence of tender swollen areas that hurt when a small amount of pressure is applied.
However, not all patients have significant pain, for some fatigue is the primary complaint. Other symptoms include headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, irritable bladder, vulvar pain, pain during intercourse, chronic infections, poor quality or brittle nails, poor hair growth or loss, and excessive tartar on their teeth, problems with memory and concentration, feeling ‘hung over’ most of the time, nervousness, depression, sensitivity to sound, light and odours, lack of co-ordination, balance problems. A subset suffers from hypoglycemia and weight gain. As the problem progresses, they become increasingly immobilised and depressed; in later years, they often develop osteoarthritis, diabetes, memory loss and other conditions.
There is a huge range of symptoms in this syndrome. Browse through this list – you may recognise some, or most of them – you may recognise things you had not linked to your illness (like poor hair / nails).
Central Nervous System: Fatigue, irritability, nervousness, depression, apathy, listlessness, impaired memory and concentration, anxieties and suicidal thoughts. Insomnia and frequent awakening due to pain result in non restorative sleep.
Musculoskeletal: Pain and generalised morning stiffness could arise from muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia of the shoulders, neck, entire back, hips, thighs, knees, ankles, feet, inner and outer elbows, wrists, fingers, and chest. Injured or old operative sites are commonly affected. Though fibromyalgia is described as a “non-articular” disease many know better: Joint pains with or without swelling, redness and heat are frequent. The litany includes foot or calf cramps, numbness and tingling of the face or extremities.
Irritable Bowel: (Often called leaky gut, spastic colon or mucous colitis). Symptoms include nausea (often brief, repetitive waves), indigestion, gas, bloating, pain, cramps, constipation alternating with diarrhoea and sometimes mucous stools.
Genitourinary: Common are pungent urine, frequent urination, bladder spasms, burning urination (dysuria) with or without repeated bladder infections and interstitial cystitis. Vulvodynia (vulvar pain syndrome) includes vaginal spasms, irritation of the vaginal lips (vulvitis) or opening (vestibulitis) and painful intercourse (dyspareunia). It typically mimics a yeast infection but without the cottage-cheese discharge. Intense PMS and uterine cramping are common. Symptoms of fibromyalgia are worse premenstrually.
Dermatological: Various rashes may appear with or without itching: Hives, red blotches, itchy bumps or blisters, eczema, seborrheic or neurodermatitis, and rosacea. Nails are often brittle and of poor quality and hair falls out prematurely. Strange sensations are common such as cold, heat (especially palms, soles and thighs), crawling, electric vibrations, prickling, super-sensitivity to touch, and flushing that is sometimes accompanied by sweating.
Head, Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat: Headaches (migraines), dizziness, vertigo (spinning) or imbalance; dry eyes as well as itching and burning with or without sticky or crusty discharge upon awakening; blurred vision; nasal congestion and post-nasal drip; painful, burning tongue, mouth and abnormal tastes (scalded, bad or metallic); ringing in the ears (tinnitus) or lower-pitched sounds; ear and eyeball pain; sensitivity to light, sounds and odours.
Miscellaneous Symptoms: Weight gain; low grade fever; lowered immunity to infections; morning eyelid and hand swelling from fluid retention that gravitates to the lower extremities by evening where it stretches tissues causing the restless leg syndrome.
What causes Fibromyalgia?
Dr St Armand (yes he is a proper doctor – working in America) believes that it is an inherited condition.
He thinks that the condition is caused by the gradual build up of phosphates in your tissues. The build up might completely stop at some times and you seem well. Usually there is some sort of ‘trigger’ (an illness, an accident, some sort of trauma) that causes the excess build up and the muscles to stop working and you get sick.
What is the difference between Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Chronic Fatigue is a symptom of Fibromyalgia.
All pain is diagnosed by a subjective scale - "Does this hurt?" If a person has a high pain threshold, "this" wouldn't necessarily hurt. Yet CFS patients have all the cognitive symptoms and many others of classic fibromyalgia. They don't fit the usual FM classification because pain is a minor rather than major complaint. It doesn't however make their illness different than ours.
NEW ITEM
6 Strange Signs of Fibromyalgia
Sensitivity to touch, feeling disoriented – these and other mysterious symptoms are often related to fibromyalgia.
If you have fibromyalgia, you're undoubtedly familiar with the chronic pain and fatigue that often accompany this disorder — which affects about 5 million Americans, primarily women.
But feelings of pain and exhaustion aren't the only symptoms of fibromyalgia. Other signs that aren’t necessarily visible to others can affect you and make the condition even harder for those around you to understand.
Here are some of the lesser-known signs of fibromyalgia that you may experience:
Allodynia. You might not give a second thought to rubbing a loved one’s shoulders or patting a friend on the back. But for someone with allodynia, being the recipient of these simple gestures can result in excruciating pain. Allodynia is a heightened sensitivity to touch, which results in pain from things that normally would not cause discomfort.
“This increased skin sensitivity and pain from touch is hypothesized to occur for a number of reasons,” says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, medical director of Fibromyalgia & Fatigue Centers. “Over one-third of people with fibromyalgia develop a small fiber neuropathy caused from the chronic pain. In addition, the chronic pain causes amplification of pain signals in the brain itself, as well as changes in three key neurotransmitters related to pain.” Dr. Teitelbaum says medications known as NMDA receptor antagonists — memantine (Namenda) is one — can help.
Allodynia is also related to a lack of restorative sleep, so standard treatments for fibromyalgia — such as physical therapy, exercise, stress relief techniques, and practicing good sleep hygiene — can also help ease allodynia.
Sensitivity to fragrance. This fibromyalgia symptom is almost directly tied to allodynia and occurs for many of the same reasons. “Increased light, sound, and smell sensitivity are all common,” says Teitelbaum. “We have an enormous amount of sensory input coming in, and it takes energy to sort through all of this to separate the noise from the static. Fibromyalgia predominantly represents an energy crisis, and as the body has trouble sorting through the signal from the noise, it reflects as increased sensitivities.” In addition to whole-body approaches to treating fibromyalgia, Teitelbaum says the anti-seizure medication gabapentin (Neurontin) can often help decrease these sensitivities.
“Fibro fog.” Also called “brain fog,” this is a very serious fibromyalgia symptom that leaves many people in distress. “Brain fog or fibro fog is a classic component of the energy crisis we call fibromyalgia,” says Teitelbaum. Some of the common signs of fibro fog include a difficulty with word finding or substitution, loss of short-term memory, and occasionally even episodic disorientation that lasts for about 30 to 60 seconds. "With this disease, calling one’s husband by another man's name is not a Freudian slip," Teitelbaum notes. He explains that there is no single cause for fibro fog; rather, it can be caused by a combination of many factors including low thyroid levels, poor sleep, hidden infections such as Candida, and alterations in blood flow to the temporal lobes of the brain, which regulate speech.
Stephen Soloway, MD, a rheumatologist in private practice in Vineland, N.J., attributes much of the difficulties with fibro fog to sleep issues affecting people with fibromyalgia. Practicing good sleep hygiene and getting help from a sleep specialist may be useful.
Paresthesia. Paresthesia is an unexplained feeling of tingling and numbness that people with fibromyalgia may experience. Often it's related to anxiety or nervousness over the disorder and can be accompanied by rapid, deep breathing. This in turn can lead to acroparesthesia, a tingling in the hands and feet from lack of carbon dioxide. Considering that anxiety is a major player in parasthesia, the stress relief techniques recommended for fibromyalgia patients can help. Exercise can also play a role in treatment.
Lipomas. These benign fatty tumors that can appear as lumps in various parts of the body are not directly related to fibromyalgia, but they may cause you to experience more discomfort than the average person does. This may be related to where the lipomas develop — parts of the body that are susceptible to the excessive or inappropriate pain that patients experience, explains Elliot Rosenstein, MD, director of the Institute for Rheumatic and Autoimmune Diseases at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, N.J. “Alternatively, these may be fibro-fatty nodules or localized areas of muscle spasm.”
Excessive sweating. Some people with fibromyalgia perspire heavily and may even believe they have a fever. This is due to what’s called an autonomic dysfunction within the hypothalamus, the almond-sized area in the brain that controls sleep and regulates sweating, bowel movements, and other automatic body functions. “The autonomic dysfunction causes the increase in sweating," Teitelbaum says. Some medications and lifestyle changes that can keep you cool and dry may help with this fibromyalgia symptom.
Many of these unusual fibromyalgia symptoms respond to general treatment approaches. If not, talk with your doctor about targeted recommendations that may help.
Fibromyalgia Pain During Your Period
As if periods aren't bad enough for some women, females with fibromyalgia experience even more aches and pains during that time of the month.
Women are 10 times more likely than men to get fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes fatigue and muscle and joint pain. And for some of these women, there’s one time each month when fibromyalgia symptoms and pain become worse — their period.
The part of your nervous system responsible for regulating your periods is sensitive to any changes that your body experiences, including symptoms associated with fibromyalgia and other conditions.
“Many women report an increase in fibromyalgia symptoms just prior to their periods and during menses,” says Sawsan As-Sanie, MD, MPH, assistant professor, department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Overall pain and sensitivity change during the menstrual cycle.”
Fibromyalgia’s effects on the menstrual cycle are individual, and not all women have increased fibromyalgia pain or other symptoms. However, any symptom that is really bothersome to a fibromyalgia patient, explains Dr. As-Sanie, may get worse during her menstrual period.
5 Fibromyalgia Symptoms That May Get Worse During Menstruation
Symptoms most likely to flare up during your period include:
· Widespread pain
· Fatigue
· Memory problems
· Headaches
· Difficulty sleeping
Fibromyalgia patients may also experience an increase in mood swings and dysmenorrhea, menstrual pain strong enough to disrupt your day-to-day activities.
While fibromyalgia symptoms may worsen during your menstrual period, menstruation does not directly bring on a flare-up of fibromyalgia. There is also not just one cause. “Many underlying factors drive fibromyalgia symptoms, not just estrogen or progesterone but other hormonal variations in the brain,” says As-Sanie.
Does Menopause Worsen Fibromyalgia Pain?
According to As-Sanie, many women whose fibromyalgia symptoms worsen during their menstrual periods experience a steadier pattern of fibromyalgia symptoms after menopause, though not necessarily a lessening of them. “Some women’s fibromyalgia actually gets worse during menopause, and for about half of all women with fibromyalgia, their fibromyalgia symptoms will stay the same,” says As-Sanie. “Overall, women’s fibromyalgia symptoms do not consistently get worse or better following menopause.”
How to Get Fibromyalgia Pain Relief During Your Period
To treat fibromyalgia symptoms during your menstrual period, As-Sanie suggests that you continue following your fibromyalgia treatment. She also recommends that you do not change or stop your fibromyalgia medication over the course of your menstrual cycle. “For fibromyalgia medications to work, they must be taken on a consistent basis,” says As‑Sanie.
Fibromyalgia medicationand treatments that can help include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin and ibuprofen, exercise, and cognitive behavior therapy, says As-Sanie. These may help women whose fibromyalgia worsens before or during their periods.
Another possible treatment path is birth control pills. “For gynecological problems associated with periods, such as severe cramping, the Pill may be beneficial,” says As-Sanie.
Getting plenty of rest just prior to and during your period may also help your fibromyalgia symptoms. Other remedies that allow you to better manage pain and other symptoms include:
· Massage therapy
· Heating pads
· Whirlpool baths
· Pilates or yoga
It is also important to avoid stressful situations during menstruation since stress can increase pain and other fibromyalgia symptoms. Meditation, breathing exercises, and other relaxation techniques may help you get your stress level under control.
If your fibromyalgia symptoms worsen during your period, talk to your doctor about treatment options. Because fibromyalgia symptoms vary among women, a personalized approach to treating your symptoms may be just what the doctor ordered.
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