Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is much more than its name implies. The word fibromyalgia means painful condition of the muscle fibers, and pain is the main symptom of this condition. This pain is described in many ways from stabbing and shooting to a dull ache and is present throughout the body, although regional pain is also often present. Clinically fibromyalgia is diagnosed when pain is present in all four quadrants of the body, lasts for longer than three months and affects a minimum of eleven out of eighteen specific “tender points” throughout the body.

Skin sensitivity is also often present with many patients reporting touch sensitivity and burning sensations, numbness and muscle spasms and cramps. When considering debilitation, however, it is often the fatigue that most patients point to as the most devastating. Those effected by symptoms of fibromyalgia often describe how difficult it is to “get going” in the morning and state that they need to push themselves to continue with their activity.

Fatigue relates also to the difficulties with sleep that people with fibromyalgia often experience. Patients often do not wake feeling rested, due in part, perhaps, to comorbidity with sleep apnea. “Fibrofog” is another symptom that patients describe as a mental fog that comes and goes causing difficulty concentrating and learning new things. The digestive system is also affected with symptoms like nausea, bouts with diarrhea and constipation, and abdominal pain and gas.

Many patients also experience migraine headaches with sensitivity to lights, sounds and smells. Another, often embarrassing, symptom of fibromyalgia involves urinary difficulties, including urgency, frequency, and both stress and overflow incontinence. Fibromyalgia symptoms can also include weight gain and depression. Patients who are experiencing frequent pain and difficulties with sleep often adopt sedentary lifestyles and, when combined with the effects of medications used to treat the symptoms, weight becomes difficult to manage.

Depression can be comorbid as a disease or it can be situational for a patient in pain, confused and often misunderstood.