Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder where you feel that almost every muscle, ligament, and tendons of your body aches. The pain might occur throughout the body or over the time migrate from one body part to another.
The worst thing about this disorder is that the symptoms are nonspecific and not distinctive, which makes it difficult for the doctors to detect it.
Some of the most common fibromyalgia signs and symptoms that people experience are listed below.
- Fatigue and tiredness: People with fibromyalgia are almost always tired. It is observed that though these people sleep for more hours than other people, they wake up tired and drained out. One of the reasons for this might be the fact that chronic pain does not let them sleep at night leaves them twisting and turning in the bed all night. In such cases, something as simple as arranging the bookshelf or folding the laundry would seem to be daunting.
- Pain: Fibromyalgia associated pain is one of the easiest fibromyalgia signs and symptoms to detect. It is often described as a chronic ache which a person experiences for a long duration of time. In most cases, the pain is widespread and can be felt throughout the body while in some cases only some parts of the body are tender points or pain points.
- Having a tough time with cognitive thinking: Known as fibro fog or brain fog, it is one of the most common fibromyalgia signs and symptoms, where the affected person finds it difficult to cope with tasks which require them to use cognitive thinking. These people find it difficult to pay attention, focus, and multitask. Doctors advise such patients to organize their space, always carry a journal, and try to keep themselves de-stressed and relaxed.
- Mood swings and depression: Just imagine, being in pain most of your waking hours and then being restless the whole night while you are trying to catch sleep. Scary, right? Fibromyalgia patients go through this every single day. Because of the lack of sleep and all the trauma, many people with this disorder seem to be withdrawn, suffer from social anxiety, and are depressed. These people have a hard time when it comes to focusing and dealing with tasks that deal with short-term memory and cognitive thinking.
- Problem in sleeping: When the sleeping pattern of patients with fibromyalgia was studied, it was found that while they are sleeping, time and again there are sudden bursts of brain activities which interrupts their sleep. This is the reason why you will notice that people with this disorder are light sleepers who sleep for long hours but still wake feeling tired and weak. Also, the chronic pain and restless legs do not let them have their share of undisturbed sleep. Note that these patients also suffer from morning stiffness where they experience their joints and muscles have become stiff.
Women are more vulnerable to suffering from fibromyalgia than men. The sad part about the disorder is that as difficult it is to detect fibromyalgia signs and symptoms, it is equally challenging to find a sureshot cure for the condition. Doctors give medicines depending on the individual fibromyalgia signs and symptoms that the patient experience
