Fibromyalgia Symptoms
Every Person is Different
Fibromyalgia means widespread pain, but it causes a slew of other symptoms. Some are debilitating, while others make it difficult to get through the day.
Your symptoms will fluctuate in tensity from day to day, and everyone experiences fibromyalgia differently. No two patients are alike. In addition, many symptoms come and go. Unfortunately, trying to figure out what triggers symptom flare-ups often proves futile. Fibromyalgia is an unpredictable and variable disease.
Top Ten Symptoms
Pain All Over – People describe fibromyalgia pain as deep muscular aching, throbbing, shooting, stabbing, or intense burning. The more you use a muscle group, the more it will hurt. In addition to body-wide pain, you also experience regional pains (such as headaches, pelvic pain or abdominal pain). These regional pains can worsen your fibromyalgia symptoms.
Fatigue – Exhaustion is probably your most incapacitating fibromyalgia symptom. You feel as though your arms and legs are weighed down by concrete blocks. Consequently, simple everyday tasks require a lot of effort.
Sleep Difficulties – This symptom doesn’t just pertain to problems falling asleep. Repeat arousals prevent you from reaching deep, restorative sleep. As a result, you wake up feeling like you have been hit by a Mack truck. An overnight sleep study might show repeat arousals, but it may not identify a specific sleep disorder.
Brain Fog (fibrofog) – Trouble concentrating, retaining new information, and word-finding are common fibromyalgia symptoms that interfere with everyday function. As a result, you are easily distracted, and this symptom appears to correspond to the severity of pain. It’s as though the brain is consumed by the pain, limiting your ability to perform cognitive tasks.
Morning Stiffness – Aside from waking up sore and achy with fibromyalgia, your muscles are stiff. This symptom creates an uphill battle just to get moving in the morning. Your whole body is tight, as if your muscles turned into dried leather overnight. Warm water and gentle stretching often help relieve this symptom. However, if you stop moving during the day, your muscles will freeze right back up again.
Muscle Knots, Cramping, Weakness – No matter how much you try to relax your muscles, they feel tense. Rope-like knots in the muscles called myofascial trigger points contribute to this symptom. Trigger points cause more fibromyalgia pain and lead to other problems, such as muscle cramping and weakness.
Itchy/Burning Skin – Your skin looks normal but might feel as though you have a bad sunburn. Or your skin may have itchy red bumps like hives. Elevated levels of immune system irritants have been found in the skin may explain these symptoms. Alternatively, an area in your brain that regulates “itch” might not function properly in fibromyalgia, causing of your skin symptoms.
Sensory Sensitivities – Lights, sounds, odors, and other sensory sensations annoy you and worsen your painful symptoms. It’s a case of sensory overload. Interestingly, researchers have found a logical reason for why your senses are on edge. Just as the pain signals entering your central nervous system are amplified, researchers believe these other inputs (lights, sounds, etc.) are magnified as well.
Exercise Difficulties – Moderate intensity exercise can make your pain worse, at least in the beginning. This symptom is often referred to as exercise intolerance. Reduced muscle blood flow partly causes this issue, compounded by the presence of painful, knotted muscles. Thus, finding a level of activity that does not flare up your fibromyalgia symptoms is truly a balancing act.
Balance Problems – People with fibromyalgia experience greatly reduced balance confidence. The inner ear control balance, and its function appears to be impaired. Additionally, ringing in the ears and dizziness are also common yet related symptoms. Walking patterns and dexterity are altered, increasing the odds of falling. These latter symptoms may tie to malfunctions in the spinal cord.
Associated Conditions
If the key symptoms of fibromyalgia are not enough to drag you down, you probably have other associated conditions as well. Recognizing these other conditions is helpful because treatments targeting them are often beneficial.
Headaches/Migraines – Recurrent tension headaches or migraines affect 50 to 70 percent of fibromyalgia patients. Headache symptoms are usually severe, occur at least twice a week, and often have a migraine component. Moreover, trigger points in the shoulder, neck, and head muscles partly cause this head pain.
Digestive Disorders – Irritable bowel syndrome occurs in 40 to 70 percent of fibromyalgia patients. Symptoms include constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, gas and bloating. Additionally, acid reflux and slowed digestion also occur.
Pelvic Pain – Irritable bladder affects 40 to 50 percent of fibromyalgia patients. Other commonly occurring conditions associated with pelvic pain include interstitial cystitis, endometriosis (in women), and prostatitis (in men). All these pelvic area conditions involve abnormal pain processing in the central nervous system, similar to what goes on in fibromyalgia. The complexity of the bladder function (muscles must relax and contract for this organ to work) and the hormonal changes controlling the uterus and prostate, make the pelvic region more vulnerable to developing chronic painful conditions. In addition, immunological factors may contribute to disorders in the pelvic area as well.
Jaw Pain – Temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome causes tremendous jaw-related face and head pain. This associated condition affects one-quarter of people with fibromyalgia. Typically, the symptoms are related to the muscles and ligaments surrounding the jaw joint and not necessarily the joint itself.
Orthostatic Intolerance – A subset of patients with fibromyalgia become lightheaded when they change positions from sitting to standing. The heart struggles to pump blood to the brain. It’s a problem with the neurological controls between the central nervous system and the heart, not the organ itself. As a result, orthostatic intolerance compounds the fatigue of fibromyalgia and makes it more difficult to exercise.
Aggravating Factors
Other medical conditions, such as arthritis or lupus, exacerbate fibromyalgia symptoms. In addition, the following situations or factors aggravate will also make you feel worse: adverse weather (especially cold climates and rapid changes in barometric pressure), cold or drafty environments, hormonal fluctuations (premenstrual and menopausal states), poor quality sleep, stress, depression, anxiety, and over-exertion (you need to pace yourself).
Aside from enhanced sensory sensitivities, certain foods and some prescription medications will often intensify your symptoms. Adding to the burden of living with fibromyalgia, the following conditions worsen it:
- Nasal congestion
- Dizziness
- Painful periods
- Profuse sweating
- Chemical sensitivities
- Vulvodynia (vulvar pain)/testicular pain
- Difficulty focusing eyes
- Dry/burning eyes and mouth
- Ringing and pain in the ears