There are a lot of things I wish people understood about Fibromyalgia I would like to share for fibromyalgia awareness. Here are a few… We have ambition. Just like all the ‘normals’ out there we have ambition. Career goals. Things we desired to do with our lives. It is just the syndrome with the pain, fatigue, and comorbid conditions interfering with that reality. We ended up making compromises and getting other jobs. Or we were…
There is this impression that a lot of people do not know about Fibromyalgia or understand it in the general public. I wrote an article in 2020 about How Much Awareness is Out There that suggested there was more than we think. I am going to post the reprint on that. I assume there is even more awareness now via all the 800 drug company commercials. Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much…
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…
I have been struggling with work lately. And by lately I mean always. Always struggling to function through the pain. Always not quite doing it. My psychologist said well I cannot compare apples to oranges. I cannot compare myself to people doing the same job perfectly healthy. Nor to myself when I was healthy-er. And it did occur to me that this job I am now doing wouldn’t even be a challenge to me when…
Back in the day. Like 20 years back in the day I had some expectations about what fibromyalgia is and then I learned the reality of what fibromyalgia is. We all have expectations of what it will be and mean for our lives in the beginning. Even before we are diagnosed since that can take 5 to 10 years. And sometimes we believe it will be horrible forever. And others, like me, believed it wouldn’t…
I have been having severe fibromyalgia–related chest pains. The way I can tell it is fibromyalgia is that a) they are enduring and b) my sternum is extremely tender to the touch and so it is quite inflamed. I am going to the doctor to discuss it. At the moment using anti-inflammatory creams and a heating pad What is costochondritis anyway? It is swelling in the cartilage between the ribs and the sternum and the…
Adolescents with fibromyalgia who are physically active report lower levels of pain and disability, according to findings of a multicenter study published in The Journal of Pain, published by the American Pain Society. Led by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, this study is the first to use actigraphy-based physical activity monitoring to measure the relationship between pain, perceived functional impairment, and depressive symptoms in adolescents with juvenile primary fibromyalgia syndrome (JPFS). For the research, 104…
Chronic muscular pain may be linked to a previously unknown principle for how pain signals are transmitted in the human body. This is shown by Umeå University researchers Tuija Athanassiadis and Karl-Gunnar Westberg, in collaboration with Canadian associates, in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much More…. Muscles have sensory organs called muscle spindles. Their task is to inform the brain of changes in muscle length. Muscle spindles,…
Pregnant women with fibromyalgia (FM) experience significant pain, fatigue, and psychological stress, symptoms that are often misdiagnosed or undertreated as a normal part of pregnancy, according to a pilot study by Karen M. Schaefer, D.N.Sc., R.N., assistant professor of nursing at Temple University’s College of Health Professions. Her research, the first to look at the impact of pregnancy on women with FM, was recently presented at the 2006 Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal…