There are a number of diseases that work to harm people and that can cause immense pain. Because there are so many, it’s difficult to try and determine the differences between them. How are you going to be able to figure out what disorder you have? One disorder that you could be dealing with is known as fibromyalgia. In this article, we’re going to take a look at what fibromyalgia is and get an idea about how it affects the person and what you can do about it. Let’s jump in and take a look.
What is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is, in short, a muscular/skeletal condition that millions of people deal with every single year. It is the most widely recognized musculoskeletal condition, after the very common osteoarthritis, which has a lot of the same symptoms associated with it. Still, it is frequently misdiagnosed and misconstrued. Its symptoms incorporate far reaching muscle and joint torment and exhaustion, and also a variety of different manifestations. Fibromyalgia can result in a number of mental health problems, including anxiety and depression, and it can also be a main cause for social separation and reclusiveness.
With fibromyalgia, some or all of these symptoms can happen together:
- Anxiety or depression, among other mental health issues.
- Decreased pain threshold and the inability to deal with physically painful situations.
- Incapacitating exhaustion coupled with an inability to sleep through the night.
- Widespread torment and pain throughout the joints and other parts of the body.
More than 12 million Americans are diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The vast majority of them are actually female, and a majority of them are between the ages of 30 and 60. Ladies are 10 times more inclined to get this malady than men are.
What Causes Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a mysterious disease, and researchers have not yet been able to determine exactly what causes it. There are lots of different theories that have been brought forward in order to explain the disease, but there still is not a lot of solid proof that indicates exactly what the root cause(s) of the disease are. In this section, we’re going to take a quick look at some of the most common theories that are associated with the symptoms and the diagnosis that is fibromyalgia.
Hereditary Qualities
Fibromyalgia can run in families. It’s possible that there is an unidentified hereditary irregularity that makes certain individuals more likely than others to develop fibromyalgia. The National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) states that certain qualities may manage the way that the body deals with the moments of pain that we sometimes face. Researchers guess that individuals with fibromyalgia may convey one or more qualities that cause them to respond unequivocally to jolts and other types of pain that someone else may not see as painful or traumatizing. Because this may be engrained in the DNA, researchers are hoping that, someday in the future, they will discover that a specific genetic code causes fibromyalgia.
Triggers
For some patients, the symptoms of fibromyalgia start after a serious physical injury or a session with a severe illness. These don’t likely cause fibromyalgia on their own, however, these events and injuries may trigger the onset in individuals who are now at risk for having it in the first place. It’s one of those things where, if you’ve already got it going on somewhere in your system, you’re going to be a lot more likely to deal with it when an injury or some sort of trauma occurs to certain areas of your body that may be more sensitive to it. This is important to keep an eye on and to recognize if you start to notice pain and weakness after you’ve recovered from an injury.
Rest Disturbances
Issues with insufficient sleep, or problems resting during the most important phases of slumber, are basic with fibromyalgia. Then again, specialists are not certain if this is an indication or a reason for the issue. If you’re not getting enough sleep during the night, it can influence the levels of a percentage of the brain chemicals that had been produced in the brain previously. Your brain needs a certain amount of these chemicals to be able to function properly, and so the lack of sleep that inhibits the development of these chemicals makes it that much more difficult for you to function. This can cause you to feel confused, get dizzy, or be unable to concentrate while you’re trying to go through your tasks of daily living. It can also cause pain to get worse, and you’ll start to notice that you’re getting the symptoms of fibromyalgia.
Gender
As indicated by the NIAMS, women are eight to nine times more probable than men to have fibromyalgia. Researchers accept that female reproductive hormones may play a part in the disorder, but there still isn’t a lot of research associated with it yet. Researchers are currently looking into the link between female hormones and the pain associated with fibromyalgia, and should have some information about the relationship within a few years’ time.
Age
As indicated by the NIAMS, the most widely recognized age to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia is usually in the midst of what is referred to as “middle adulthood,” between the ages of 25 and 60 years old. With men, this gap is a little bit smaller; most men are at least 35 or older when they are diagnosed with the disease. This may be because it doesn’t develop as quickly as it does
Other Rheumatic Diseases
Rheumatic maladies influence the joints, muscles, and bones. Individuals who have another rheumatic infection are more prone to have fibromyalgia also. These ailments can include, but are not limited to the following disorders:
- ankylosing spondylitis
- lupus
- osteoarthritis
- rheumatoid arthritis
There, of course, may be other triggers and causes as well. As time goes on and we learn more about this mysterious disorder, we hope to get a lot more information so that we can figure out the root cause of it. By determining what the main cause of the disorder is, it puts researchers in a much better place where they can determine how to deal with therapy and other needs more effectively. It will be interesting to see where it goes when we determine what the root causes of the disorder are. Even though we’re not at a point where we know or understand where fibromyalgia comes from, researchers have been able to identify a number of different risk factors that may make you more likely to develop fibromyalgia in your adulthood.
What Are Some of the Major Symptoms of Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia isn’t anything but difficult to diagnose, as no research facility tests exist to affirm the condition. Rather, specialists depend upon the disorder’s wide array of symptoms. Here is a look at some of the symptoms that you may be dealing with if you have fibromyalgia.
Pain
Fibromyalgia makes you hurt and swell everywhere on your body. The Mayo Clinic says broad pain that is found all through the body is a criteria for a diagnosis. The pain should, likewise, be a problem for at least three months, influencing both sides of the body, and also above and beneath the waist. Specialists may test different parts of the body in order to see if they are weakened or if they are sensitive to the sensation of touch.
The pain is mostly in your joints, but you may also notice it in some of your muscles as well. You may have more pain with any injuries that you get, even if you are recovering from the injury. Particular weak spots on the body may be difficult to touch, and you may have to avoid touching them in order to prevent painful experiences. You may experience swelling, aggravations while trying to sleep through the night, and mental illnesses including anxiety and depression.
Exhaustion
General feelings of fatigue can meddle with life and cause you to feel regretful about postponing obligations. Likewise, a few individuals may not perceive this exhaustion and weariness as a part of their fibromyalgia. Women may accidentally assume that they’re encountering hormonal responses connected with their menstrual cycle; a few individuals think that it may be chronic fatigue system, and fibromyalgia is often mistaken for this disorder, mainly because of its comparative symptoms.
Muscle Use
Your muscles may feel like they have been exhausted or pulled. They’ll feel that way on a regular basis, even without activity or another reason. Some of the time, your muscles may jerk, have cutting pain, or you may feel like you have a burning sensation going through your muscles. In the worst cases, your range of motion is going to be limited at best; in some cases, people with fibro may need some assistance walking with a walker or a cane. Wheelchair use is uncommon, but there have been cases where they have happened before, so it’s definitely not out of the picture for those who have very severe muscle limitations. This may get worse if it’s going to rain outside, or if you’re doing a lot of physical activity related to your joints and muscles. A few patients with fibromyalgia have torment and achiness around the joints in the neck, shoulder, back, and hips. This makes it troublesome for them to rest or enjoy daily activities.
Perpetual Headaches
A few individuals with fibromyalgia experience perpetual headaches, and may be fighting them away on a daily basis. The headaches that they experience may be serious (usually referred to as migraines – these are often accompanied by vision problems and vomiting). Despite the fact that these headaches are normal, particularly among ladies, you may want to make sure that you aren’t having them for an extended period of time. If the headaches are occurring alongside of the other fibromyalgia symptoms here, your doctor or other medical professional will likely take the time to do tests and see if fibromyalgia is the cause for your health issues. If it doesn’t seem to be caused by other possible problems, the chances of it being because of your fibromyalgia is quite high.
Sleep Issues
We talked about how sleeping issues may be part of the reason that people end up with fibromyalgia. It is also a very common problem that happens to people who already have been diagnosed with the disorder. Individuals with fibromyalgia may experience difficulty sleeping through the night. If you’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chances are that you will need to take some sort of sleeping pill in order to ensure that you’re getting a full night’s rest. Many times, the pills that are prescribed for the patient to take will also help with a variety of other symptoms, so make sure that you talk to your doctor to see how they plan on dealing with this problem in an effective manner.
Other Common Fibromyalgia Symptoms
As with any disorder, there are plenty of common symptoms, and then there are others that you don’t see too often. Some of the other fibromyalgia symptoms may include, but are not limited to, the following problems.
- Abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and irritable bowel syndrome. Acid reflux and GERD may also develop over time.
- Chronic pains in the head and neck, which may result in an inability to move and function.
- Dryness in mouth, eyes, and nose; skin may also be dry around the joints.
- Fibro haze, which is referring to a person’s inability to focus while dealing with fibromyalgia symptoms. You may also have difficult paying attention a
- Hypersensitivity to warm or cold resulting in discomfort or pain.
- Incontinence and an inability to hold waste within the body.
- Numbness in your extremities, sometimes accompanied by trembling and shaking.
- Stiffness and inflexibility.
Fibromyalgia can end up causing you to develop other disorders, like osteoarthritis, bursitis, and tendinitis. A few specialists include it in their analysis of arthritis and other related issues. On the other hand, while the torment of bursitis or tendinitis is confined to a particular area of the body, people who are dealing with the pains and aches related to fibromyalgia are experiencing them all over their body. This is, usually, the biggest indication that something else is going on. You’re looking for pain that is all over the body and that, even with medication and such, doesn’t seem to be going away otherwise. This makes it a unique disorder that has to be approached a lot differently than the other diseases that we’ve discussed here.
What Tests Are Used to Diagnose Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia has a ton of tests connected with it, and it’s really truly hard to diagnose fibromyalgia. Here are just some of the factors that are taken into account when a doctor is trying to determine whether or not you have fibromyalgia. To make a precise analysis, your specialist will depend on an exhaustive physical exam and your therapeutic history. There is a blood test to help diagnose fibromyalgia. The test – called FM/a – distinguishes markers created by your immune system and white blood cells in individuals with fibromyalgia. Inquire as to whether the FM/a test is a good fit for you and make sure that you talk with your doctor in order to figure out the best way to move forward with your diagnosis.
To eliminate the presence of other ailments, your specialist may run some particular blood tests. For instance, your specialist may request a complete blood check (CBC). The specialist might likewise request tests for chemicals, for example, glucose, that can cause diseases that have the same symptoms that are brought about by fibromyalgia. A thyroid test may additionally be finished. An underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) can bring about issues like fibromyalgia. That includes fatigue, muscle pains, inability to focus, anxiety, and depression.
Other research center tests used to discount other related illnesses may incorporate Lyme tests, erythrocyte (red platelet) sedimentation rate (ESR), rheumatoid variable tests (RF), calcium level, prolactin level, antinuclear antibodies (ANA), and vitamin D level. These are relatively easy tests to have done on you, and they can all be done at the same time, so you don’t have to worry about going in to outpatient services multiple times in order to get bloodwork and such. Your doctor can prescribe it all, you can do it in one trip, and then you can go back to consult with him or her later on. .
The specialist will assess the seriousness of related manifestations such as fatigue, sleep disturbances and influences, and mental health issues. This will help measure the effect FMS has on your physical and emotional capacity and also on your general wellbeing. Sleeping tests (which are done in specialized sleep labs that you stay in overnight) are very useful in helping to determine exactly what is going on with your sleeping patterns. This will let you figure out how severe your case is and how involved you have to be when it comes to your treatment plan. You may have to change some of your lifestyle habits in order to adapt appropriately, but your doctor can help you to do that in a way that isn’t incredibly disruptive to the rest of your life.
As you can see, there are a lot of different tests and criteria that have to be explored and met when your doctor is trying to figure out whether or not you’re suffering from fibromyalgia. Since this disorder is, in fact, so mysterious, it has taken a lot to time to figure out how to do it. Basically, because the cause is unknown, your doctors have to do a lot of tests that rule out other issues, instead of testing directly for fibromyalgia itself.
What Treatments Are Out There For Fibromyalgia?
Now that we’ve taken a look at what the symptoms are, and we’ve given you a better idea as to how doctors determine whether or not a person is actually suffering from fibromyalgia, it’s time for us to have a discussion about the types of treatments that are available if you are suffering from fibromyalgia. It’s important for you to know and understand that there is no fibromyalgia cure. Furthermore, there is no treatment that will address the majority of the fibromyalgia manifestations. Rather, a wide array of custom and optional medicines have been indicated to be viable in treating this troublesome disorder. A treatment project may incorporate a blend of prescriptions, activities and behavior therapy.
It’s important to make sure that you’re working with a doctor that you trust and that will be able to help you with your symptoms. Even though medications will, likely, be necessary to help keep the disorder under control, you may also have to have physical therapy in order to encourage movement and to help you feel more comfortable and flexible as you’re going through your day. We have plenty of other articles that discuss specific treatments, from physical therapy, to changes in your diet, to anything else that you can possibly think of, so you’re going to want to check those out and learn more about the options that are available to you.
Fibromyalgia is a very complicated disorder and there’s still a lot that we need to learn about how it works and how it affects people. As time goes on and research gets better, doctors will be in a place where they can help people with fibromyalgia deal with their pain a lot more effectively. There are lots of resources out there for people with fibromyalgia, so make sure that you use them to their fullest ability so that you’re able to continue living the life that you want to live.
Further reading:
What Is Fibromyalgia? http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/guide/what-is-fibromyalgia
What Do You Want to Know About Fibromyalgia? http://www.healthline.com/health/fibromyalgia
What Fibromyalgia Feels Like http://www.fmnetnews.com/fibro-basics/symptoms
Comments