The Pain of Fibromyalgia

Constant pain, tenderness of the muscles, tendons, and joints and is usually characterized by sleeplessness, fatigue, and depression. These are some of the complaints of people who suffer from a condition called Fibromyalgia.

What is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is defined by people who experience it as a chronic pain disorder that causes pain not just in a specific part of the body, but all over. Your body may have some trigger points where you may feel like your muscles have been overworked even though you haven’t done any exercise. There are times where you will experience twitching, burning, or stabbing pain in your muscles, or aches around the joints in your neck, shoulders, back, and hips. Pain suddenly comes in, which may range from acute to severe pain.

Signs and Symptoms

• Chronic muscle pain, spasm, and tightness
• Difficulty concentrating
• Migraine headache
• Abdominal pain
• Fatigue
• Facial tenderness
• Tingling in the face, hands, arms, feet or legs
• Feeling of swelling in the hands or feet
• Insomnia
• Stiffness after staying in one position for a long period
• Anxiety
• Depression

Where Are The Tender Points?

Tender points are areas around your joints that gets hurt when pressed. These are not the actual joints, but are superficial areas that are under the skin’s surface. People who suffer from fibromyalgia usually have more than 11 tender points out of 18.

Although it may seem like these tender points are inflamed, researchers haven’t found any signs of inflammation on these areas. Fibromyalgia may cause sleep deprivation and frequent waking at night due to pain in tender areas as shown in the following image:

How Fibromyalgia Affects Your Life

In fibromyalgia, the pain may seem unending. And since it causes sleep deprivation, you may always experience fatigue, which may also bring anxiety and depression. Fibromyalgia, like in the case of arthritis, prevents you from doing even just a small activity like simple exercising or doing a simple household chore.

Frequent pain could also bring irritation and exhaustion, making it hard for you to deal with other people. The overwhelming pain the you’re experiencing may also cause you to isolate yourself totally even from your own family or friends.

Constantly living in pain takes lots of energy that it affects your daily life including your career and most importantly, your relationship with the people around you. It’s also frustrating to know that you will have to deal with it for the rest of your life.

Getting Relief

For a lot of people with fibromyalgia, conventional medicine is not an option as these drugs have some side effects and becoming more complicated. For this reason, more and more people are trying alternative solutions to treat fibromyalgia symptoms. With these alternative treatment for pain, you should be able to find relief and get your active life back again.