A comprehensive guide on chronic pain, its causes, symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve your quality of life.
It is not uncommon to have hip flexor issues or pain in this area when living with fibromyalgia. The hips, hip flexors, and lower back correlate with fibromyalgia pain areas due to tender areas around the lower back, many more trigger point areas and other conditions that affect the surrounding areas.The hip flexor muscles allow your hips to move with flexibility. You are engaging these muscles whenever you move your legs, and that means your hips…
It’s a trickle at present, but the conversation around chronic pain between doctors and patients is no longer one way only. Over the past few months, the constant messaging suggesting chronic pain patients are dying in dramatically increasing numbers because of opioid overdoses has been questioned. Understand, the messaging was indeed clever. Chronic pain patients weren’t directly and specifically named, but the messaging caused listeners and readers to believe it was pain patients whose lives…
A recent study threw up an interesting notion on the root of fibromyalgia. The study suggests that fibromyalgia could be caused by malfunctions in two chief body systems – the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA). These two body systems are key in regulating the production of important hormones and managing stress responses by the body. Imbalance in the two-body systems can lead to sleeplessness, lack of energy, higher pain sensitivity, mood…
What happens when your life starts to unravel? For 23-year-old Peyton Connor, that happened last May when she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The long-term chronic condition can cause increased sensitivity to pain, extreme fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and memory loss. After collapsing at work at the end of 2015, several tests revealed she had the condition, which has changed her life completely. The condition can cripple, can cause people to fall into isolation. Some sufferers lose their social…
In fibromyalgia patients, music therapy can reduce pain, depression, anxiety, and improve sleep. The findings come from researchers at the University of Granada who found that music therapy combined with relaxation techniques can help improve many areas in the lives of fibromyalgia patients. With improved depression, anxiety, sleep, and reduced pain, a patient’s quality of life can greatly improve. Study participants were fibromyalgia patients from Spain who underwent a basal test prior to treatment, a post-basal test four weeks after the treatment,…
A low-quality sleep is a major issue cited by people with fibromyalgia. And, unfortunately, there are many factors that could be contributing to this, including your bed itself. Sleep is hugely important for everyone, but especially for those with fibro. Sleep is the time when your body relaxes and regenerates — that is if you’re actually able to sleep. Whatever causes your inability to get a good night’s sleep with fibromyalgia, choosing a good mattress may…
Another study is raising questions about the safety of the anti-seizure drug gabapentin, especially when it’s taken with opioid pain medication. According to research published online in PLOS Medicine, combining gabapentin with opioid painkillers is associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from an opioid overdose than opioid use alone. “Clinicians should consider carefully whether to continue prescribing this combination of products and when deemed necessary, should closely monitor their patients and adjust opioid dose accordingly,” wrote…
Fibromyalgia Treatment Alcohol Fibromyalgia Treatment: it’s time to bid adieu to alcohol. Well, not entirely. An occasional beer or wine indulgence isn’t a bad thing. Excessive alcohol consumption, though, is never good for anybody. Sugar is a part of alcohol’s chemical makeup. Prolonged alcohol consumption hinders the body’s natural detox processes — which is how liver disease happens — and it also impacts gut flora. Alcohol has other side effects, and alcoholism-related depression benefits nobody, especially the…
Sometimes all it takes is a simple gesture from someone you love to help you feel a little bit better. We asked people who live with chronic illnesses to share one (seemingly) small thing their partner has done for them that touched their hearts. This is what they had to say: 1. “[My partner] reminds me daily I am wanted and needed and not just a burden.” — Ally Small 2. “I often feel bad that I can’t do…
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently shared his idea for solving the opioid crisis: aspirin, sleep, and less marijuana. Speaking at an event in Tampa on Tuesday to celebrate Ronald Regan’s birthday, Sessions said his goal for 2018 is to see a greater decline in the number of opioids prescribed (he said last year there was a 7 percent decline). “We think doctors are just prescribing too many. Sometimes you just need two Bufferin or…