How To Go To Sleep With Fibromyalgia And Endometriosis Pain

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: July 7, 2015 Last Edited: July 7, 2015

Fibromyalgia and endometriosis pain often go hand in hand. Fibromyalgia is a painful condition in which women often suffer from a dull ache in the body. This ache will start in the muscles and migrate to other parts of the body.

Pain will be on both sides of body. It will also be in both the upper as well as the lower portions of the body. It may come and go and some days are going to be worse than other days.

This makes it difficult to plan any activities as you never know when you’re going to have a bad pain day. Worse, it can greatly affect your ability to sleep.

There are a myriad of other conditions that can occur when someone has fibromyalgia. These can include sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome and painful menstrual cycles including endometriosis. Any form of pain can keep a person awake at night.

But when endometriosis is combined with fibromyalgia it can quickly become debilitating. To make matters worse, the lack of sleep can increase pain. The pain can make sleep nearly impossible and a vicious cycle is quickly set up.

Endometriosis happens when the endometrium tissue which lines the uterus starts growing on the outside of the uterine wall. While in and of itself it’s not painful, it swells during menstruation and presses on other organs causing pain.

It can also stretch ligaments and cause pain by stretching them. This can lead to other pelvic issues and many women may even stop having a period all together. This can create an imbalance in hormones which can also cause lack of sleep.

Many women have auto immune disorders. Some have had a hysterectomy or even a C section birth. These are the women who are considered at high risk for having endometriosis.

It can quickly develop and lead to a plethora of health issues. While the exact reason endometriosis attacks isn’t entirely understood, it is known that the endometrium cells migrate outside of the uterus and begin to grow.

As they grow and press on other organs during the woman’s cycle they can begin to create great pain and disturbances in the body.

Both endometriosis and fibromyalgia are a form of an immune system disorder. While it’s not clearly understood why they tend to attack the body in clusters, it is understood that many women who suffer from one, will suffer from both.

Most doctors have had minimal training at best in understanding how these conditions affect the body. It may take a multitude of health care visits in order to understand what is really going on.

Many women pay a visit to the emergency room and are written off as drug addicts when they go in with pain as the reasons are clear to the health care providers.

Many patients wind up missing out on a lot of work or lose a job due to the chronic pain they are in with fibromyalgia and endometriosis. Lack of sleep further complicates their job positions as they begin to make poor decisions due to the lack of sleep. Unfortunately when this happens, they also wind up losing their health insurance.

As modern medicine advances more studies are being done that help recognize both fibromyalgia and endometriosis as very serious issues that affect a women’s health.

As these studies advance more treatment options are being discovered and many women are beginning to find relief from their debilitating pain.

To get rest many women turn to alternative health care. They may find ways to alleviate pain through heat therapy, medications to help control the pain and more exercise.

Treatments will vary according to the health care provider and many women will seek out more than one doctor in an effort to resolve their sleep issues.

It’s not uncommon for such women to seek out a gynecological doctor for treating the endometriosis, a pain specialist for treating the fibromyalgia and even a sleep doctor to help treat sleep disorders.

By working together with so many specialists many women have found a few tricks to help them get the rest that they need. They may take certain medications at certain times of the month to help alleviate some of the pain just prior to starting their cycle.

They may take pain medications as needed for the fibromyalgia pain and the may also require a c pap machine for help with sleep apnea. It’s not uncommon to require more than one treatment for lack of sleep.

While a heating pad or a hot soak in a bath will help some women, it may not even begin to touch the pain of another woman. Symptoms are as individual as each woman is. Even fibromyalgia works individually like this.

Learning to prepare for the symptoms can also help in many cases. By cutting back on specific foods that may exacerbate painful symptoms (those foods that could cause bloating for example) many women are able to help control their pain levels during their menstrual cycles.

Eating less salt to help reduce swelling is also advised by many doctors as is avoiding foods that contain MSG or mono sodium glutamate which has been shown to cause headaches and other sensitivities in many people.

Avoiding alcohol and caffeine may also help to reduce pain and inflammation in some patients. Caffeine can act as a diuretic and even though alcohol may seem like it could reduce pain, it can quickly dehydrate a person and lead to other distractions that could lead to sleep disturbances.

Many women discover that certain foods affect them differently at different times of the month. By identifying these foods they are often able to reduce their sleepless nights and be more in charge.

Controlling the pain may only be a portion of the issue, eating a proper diet and learning when to slow down or cut back on certain things and exercising more may also have a great effect on sleep patterns for patients with fibromyalgia and endometriosis pain.

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