Understand chronic diseases, their causes, common symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve long-term health and quality of life.
You’re Getting Older As you age, your cartilage — the spongy material that protects the ends of your bones — begins to dry out and stiffen. Your body also makes less synovial fluid, the stuff that acts like oil to keep your joints moving smoothly. The result: Your joints may not move as freely as they used to. It sounds a little crazy, but the best thing you can do is keep on trucking. Synovial…
A research project focused on developing an objective measure of pain-related interference with cognitive performance in people with fibromyalgia is one of three awarded research grants recently by Purdue Pharma. An independent steering committee oversaw the competition and selection of the three recipients of Purdue’s research grants to study chronic pain and the assessment of pain. Robert R. Edwards, Ph.D., of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, will lead the project…
The media can’t look to get its stories about Prince right. As the news feed overflows with stories with the word Prince and drug addiction in them, not many of them feature the word chronic pain. Multiple reports show that Prince had suffered from years with Fibromyalgia pain and Severe Chronic Pain in his hips due to injuries racked up during when his performances started. His body was wracked with pain, Prince relied on opiate pain medications to provide him some relief.…
Patients with Fibromyalgia Disease may have reduced volume of the olfactory bulb, a key structure in how we perceive and distinguish smell, a study found. That finding may help explain why some patients report impairments in olfactory perception. The study, “Decreased olfactory bulb volumes in patients with Fibromyalgia Disease,” was published in the journal Clinical Rheumatology. Olfactory perception, including being able to identify and distinguish different types of odors, is a feature often reported to…
When you are first told that the pain and tiredness that you have is due to having fibromyalgia, it can be devastating. You are going to find that this new diagnosis could mean that you have to change the way in which you live your life. Everything that you do, even the most mundane of activities, can make a difference in how you feel later. Even a shower could be something that causes more pain…
Osteoarthritis is the most common musculoskeletal condition, followed by fibromyalgia. More often than not, fibromyalgia is misunderstood and misdiagnosed. Characteristics of this disorder/condition include muscle and joint pain/tingling, fatigue, and many other symptoms. Quite often, individuals who have fibromyalgia also experience social isolation and depression. Many also experience both swelling and fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is very difficult to diagnose. The main reason for this is that the symptoms of fibromyalgia are often in line with the symptoms…
It is a chronic condition that renders sufferers so sensitive that even the lightest touch triggers waves of excruciating pain. Fibromyalgia is thought to affect up to a million Britons, commonly women over 40, and experts have likened the debilitating sensations to ‘death by a thousand needles’. Other symptoms include lack of concentration, memory loss, headaches, and muscle stiffness. And for a long time, there were little doctors could do to help quell the agony.…
A leg cramp is a pain that comes from a muscle in the leg. It is due to a muscle spasm which is when a muscle contracts too hard. It usually occurs in one of the calf muscles, below and behind a knee, but painful spasms can occur in the ankles, shins, and quads (the big muscles of the thigh). The small muscles of the feet are sometimes affected, usually starting with curling your toes…
“I have a problem—unexplained excessive sweating, like just stepping out of the shower, hair dripping wet, clothes soaked! … It has put a big damper on my lifestyle.” “My limbs get so cold and painful … and yet my face will be sweating from the heat inside.” “What exactly causes the excessive sweating? … I don’t bother to wear makeup in the summer because there is no point—it just melts off.” These are all comments…
So much has been written about the opioid epidemic, but so little seems to be out there about what living with true chronic pain is like. My husband, the Jay, lived and died in incredible pain at the age of 58. As his wife, I lived that journey with him. Jay is no longer here to tell his story, but I want the world to see what I saw. I want you to know how…