Explore the conditions associated with Fibromyalgia, their symptoms, and how to manage them for improved well-being.
When we are talking about the poor cognitive function we have to be precise and not confuse it with just being absentminded but studies have shown there are real cognitive dysfunctions occurring with fibromyalgia. What is the cause of the cognitive dysfunction seen in the syndrome though? Is the brain aging faster? Is it due to depression or anxiety? Or is it correlated to pain or lack of sleep? There are many areas where people with fibromyalgia can point…
Anyone who lives with fibromyalgia has struggled to try to explain the chronic pain and fatigue they experience to their friends and loved ones, and even to strangers. Explaining fibromyalgia is no easy task. Sometimes just putting into words what you feel is difficult enough, as fibromyalgia often takes your words away. But, even when you can find the words, trying to explain something so foreign and seemingly abstract to someone who has never (and…
Fibromyalgia comes with three major types of pain sensations. Hyperalgesia: this is our major pain as part of the syndrome itself. It is an abnormal sensitivity to pain. The crux of our pain dysfunction. Allodynia: With allodynia, there is a triggered pain response from stimuli that do not normally cause pain. In this case, it causes a great deal of skin pain. The skin burns to the touch and is often described as a sunburn sensation…
I am in a Fibro Flare. The pain arching through me right now is difficult to describe, to be honest. It is a deep, bone-deep, throbbing ache that is at around an 8 on the pain scale. It is extremely distracting. It is gnawing. Grating. And that is when I am not moving. Moving is another story altogether. In this particular case, it is from weather changes. We have been having hot weather and flash…
New research indicates that a disruption of brain signals for reward and punishment contributes to increased pain sensitivity, known as hyperalgesia, in fibromyalgia patients. Results published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology, suggest that this altered brain processing might contribute to widespread pain and lack of response to opioid therapy in patients with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a chronic, musculoskeletal syndrome characterized by widespread joint and muscle pain along with…
Fibromyalgia is a chronic syndrome defined by widespread muscle pain, fatigue, sleep dysfunction, and cognitive dysfunction. Fibromyalgia pain dysfunction involves increased sensitivity to pain known as hyperalgesia. People with Fibromyalgia can experience what is referred to as ‘flares’ where their symptoms get more severe. The flare study A survey in Pain Medicine recently looked into the nature of flares to ask people with Fibromyalgia the nature of these flares. They asked open-ended questions to determine…
Brain fog is a symptom of many chronic illnesses and chronic pain. Just seems that when we get ill and our bodies get fatigued or are fighting pain, or both, add in some lack of sleep… you get brain fog. Symptoms include: I listed some of them there but really there can be more. For example, transposing numbers is also transposing letters so we can spell words wrong frequently. As well as of course forgetting…
Paresthesia is one of the nerve symptoms of Fibromyalgia that causes the ‘pins and needles sensations, an itch, tingling, prickling, and numbness. In general, Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition, as once it starts it isn’t going away but this isn’t always the case. There can be ways to manage and reduce it at times. At least I had some luck with this but that isn’t saying much, I know, FM being the fickle beast that…
The Flare-up (see here for my article on it) is one of the worst fibromyalgia experiences. I fell into it sometime last night and woke up with the most unpleasant pains. In the hips, shoulders, and back, not to mention all over aches. I was very fatigued yesterday and perhaps that was some prediction of impending doom. Here is the thing we can pace and moderate but we cannot avoid all flares. Sometimes they just…
Fibromyalgia has some pretty distinctive sleep disturbances associated with it not to mention comorbid sleep issues. It is one of the key factors in the syndrome… our inability to attain refreshing sleep. I wrote a post about it here. So it interests me that they have done some recent research in this area. One of the important things about our sleep dysfunction is that since it isn’t presenting like regular insomnia the treatment likewise has…