People who have undergo a lot of stressful events in their life usually develop all sorts of autoimmune disorders, as well as sydroms and illnesses.
Those who have met with fibromyalgia claim that the best description for it would be – ”the irritable everything syndrome”. This means that if you are having numerous different symptoms for a while, and doctors still haven’t found your diagnosis, it may be worth digging more into fibromyalgia.
According to Mayo clinic, fibromyalgia is described as a chronic condition that causes widespread body pain.
What happens in the body is that our central nervous system is abnormally pressing different pain signals. Yet, the pain isn’t the only symptom – it usually comes with a chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances, as well as cognitive – brain fog.
While I was in the first stage of the grieving process – shock, I had different unexplainable pain all over my body, mostly arms and legs, and it was followed by extreme fatigue. I read a lot and that is how I learned about fibromyalgia, while trying to help myself. Luckily, it wasn’t it, but I didn’t know what grief can do back then. Anyways, because I learned about it, I wanted to spread awareness about different symptoms it causes – trusting and hoping it can help someone.
- Pins and needles. You’ll experience different sensations all over your body. This happens due to emotional trauma and prolonged stress.
- Migraines. Your brain can hurt as well and you wouldn’t be able to explain why. Fibromyalgia is more common within women, as well as within middle aged people.
- Brain fog. Feeling lost and not being able to concentrate even on the simplests task is common. You may even catch yourself not being able to remember a word.
- Nerve pain. Probably most common symptom of fibromyalgia. It can be more common within people who developed lupus as well.
- Spinal burning. If you cannot explain that your spine is feeling weird, it’s a good thing to mention being worried about fibromyalgia to your doctor.
- Dysphagia. Different sorts of gut issues will occur as well, together with not being able to digest food properly.
- Shortness of breath. Is it a panic attack or is it fibromyalgia?
- Restless legs. Restless legs can be a part of our nervous habits, but if you feel that they are moving somehow on their own, it can be fibromyalgia.
- Hand pain. As said, I experienced hand pain in my grieving process, and was tested for arthritis – luckily labs came out negative.
- Irritable bowel syndrome. I already wrote a blog post about this issue, which you can read more about here.
- Hip pain. Hip pain is a common symptoms of fibromyalgia as well.
- Irritable bladder. The same as it goes for the bowel movement.
- Muscle spasms and twiches. Probably one of the most common symptoms of this syndrome.
- Tender joints. If you feel that your leg are somehow wodden and cannot control your joints as before, it can be related to fibromyalgia.
Besides emotional trauma and prolonged stress, fibromyalgia can be caused by physical injuries as well, together with infections.
Treatement includes anti-seizure and pain relief meds, together with anti-depressant – when or if needed.
CBT therapy is also useful for this syndrome, together with making some lifestyle changes, such as practicing low-impact exercises and focusing on your sleep hygiene.
