Fibromyalgia - What Is It And What Are The Symptoms?
What Is Fibromyalgia? Fibromyalgia is chronic pain which is all over your body.
In different people it can be in different areas that are more specific to them.
It hurts to do just about anything, it also makes you tired, a bit similar to ME, however ME doesn't have the same pain factor as you have with Fibromyalgia.
The Biggest Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia The symptoms of Fibromyalgia vary from person to person.
I personally find Fibromyalgia affects my neck and shoulders, in my groin area when I try and walk and also in my hands.
For example if I try to straighten out my hands, they can be stiff and very painful.
Some people would say it's like arthritis but it's not, it's Fibromyalgia.
The condition can be really disabling.
You can find it very, very hard to walk - some people cannot walk at all with it.
And the pain is incredible - it's like the whole surface of your body is so sensitive.
Imagine someone ever so lightly stroking your arm.
Well for a Fibromyalgia sufferer that would be painful beyond belief.
It's Hard To Diagnose It's also extremely frustrating because the doctors cannot find a reason for why you're suffering this pain, and I'm sure quite a few don't actually believe you.
Which is soul destroying after a while.
If you're trying to explain to somebody, especially a Doctor, that you hurt all over your body and they're nodding their head and looking, giving you that look like, really? If you had the energy you'd want to just smack them but you can't.
It's very, very difficult and, I mean give the doctors their due, it's difficult for them, as they have people with Fibromyalgia at different levels and with different symptoms.
The Need To Be Positive I spoke to a lady the other day who suffers very similar pains to me.
We were talking about being positive about things - we're very positive people - people who just plough on because we have to.
Whereas we've come across other people that have Fibromyalgia who spend their lives whinging about it.
And I know that sounds awful but when you're a sufferer you've got to look for the positive steps to start feeling better - it's essential.
But if you are with people who take the view "Oh, I can't do this" and "I can't do that" and "My life's over" it just pulls you down emotionally.
This is important because you're suffering as well and you don't need additional worry.
So that's another reason why I wanted reach out and do this, to bring positivity to people because I saw the results it had with my condition.
I know, yeah it hurts, it's a pain - with Fibromyalgia its pain all over, but you can get control of it and you can start being positive about things again.
Detecting Fibromyalgia With a lot of illnesses today, you can see things in the body with CT scans or MRI scans.
The bad news is that with Fibromyalgia there is nothing that would should up on an MRI or any other scan.
There are no 100% reliable blood tests.
So really the doctors have only the reported pain from the patient.
Before I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, they actually gave me an MRI.
The wanted to explore my pituitary gland because they thought possibly there was a tumour on my pituitary gland.
But the tests came back so inconclusive, so that there was nothing concrete to go on.
In the case of Fibromyalgia there is absolutely nothing that shows up.
The only thing that does show a little bit is your inflammatory levels, the blood tests that they do for your inflammatory levels, sometimes are raised.
But again, that could be down to so many other things.
They could be down to an infection, it could be down to anything and they're not raised high enough for the doctors to show a massive concern.
So it's very difficult to diagnose.
In different people it can be in different areas that are more specific to them.
It hurts to do just about anything, it also makes you tired, a bit similar to ME, however ME doesn't have the same pain factor as you have with Fibromyalgia.
The Biggest Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia The symptoms of Fibromyalgia vary from person to person.
I personally find Fibromyalgia affects my neck and shoulders, in my groin area when I try and walk and also in my hands.
For example if I try to straighten out my hands, they can be stiff and very painful.
Some people would say it's like arthritis but it's not, it's Fibromyalgia.
The condition can be really disabling.
You can find it very, very hard to walk - some people cannot walk at all with it.
And the pain is incredible - it's like the whole surface of your body is so sensitive.
Imagine someone ever so lightly stroking your arm.
Well for a Fibromyalgia sufferer that would be painful beyond belief.
It's Hard To Diagnose It's also extremely frustrating because the doctors cannot find a reason for why you're suffering this pain, and I'm sure quite a few don't actually believe you.
Which is soul destroying after a while.
If you're trying to explain to somebody, especially a Doctor, that you hurt all over your body and they're nodding their head and looking, giving you that look like, really? If you had the energy you'd want to just smack them but you can't.
It's very, very difficult and, I mean give the doctors their due, it's difficult for them, as they have people with Fibromyalgia at different levels and with different symptoms.
The Need To Be Positive I spoke to a lady the other day who suffers very similar pains to me.
We were talking about being positive about things - we're very positive people - people who just plough on because we have to.
Whereas we've come across other people that have Fibromyalgia who spend their lives whinging about it.
And I know that sounds awful but when you're a sufferer you've got to look for the positive steps to start feeling better - it's essential.
But if you are with people who take the view "Oh, I can't do this" and "I can't do that" and "My life's over" it just pulls you down emotionally.
This is important because you're suffering as well and you don't need additional worry.
So that's another reason why I wanted reach out and do this, to bring positivity to people because I saw the results it had with my condition.
I know, yeah it hurts, it's a pain - with Fibromyalgia its pain all over, but you can get control of it and you can start being positive about things again.
Detecting Fibromyalgia With a lot of illnesses today, you can see things in the body with CT scans or MRI scans.
The bad news is that with Fibromyalgia there is nothing that would should up on an MRI or any other scan.
There are no 100% reliable blood tests.
So really the doctors have only the reported pain from the patient.
Before I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, they actually gave me an MRI.
The wanted to explore my pituitary gland because they thought possibly there was a tumour on my pituitary gland.
But the tests came back so inconclusive, so that there was nothing concrete to go on.
In the case of Fibromyalgia there is absolutely nothing that shows up.
The only thing that does show a little bit is your inflammatory levels, the blood tests that they do for your inflammatory levels, sometimes are raised.
But again, that could be down to so many other things.
They could be down to an infection, it could be down to anything and they're not raised high enough for the doctors to show a massive concern.
So it's very difficult to diagnose.
