What Causes Fibromyalgia Flare-Ups?
What is fibromyalgia, and what do you need to know about it?
Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by musculoskeletal pain with other symptoms, including mood swings, memory loss, fatigue and lethargy, and insomnia.
Fibromyalgia is the second most common condition which affects our bones and muscles. This disease is often misdiagnosed and even misunderstood.
The most common symptom of this disease is fatigue, muscle pain, and joint pain.
Although there is no definite cure for fibromyalgia, a combination of medicines, exercising, a healthy way to manage stress, and good healthy eating habits may eradicate these symptoms assuring you can lead an everyday life.
The actual cause of fibromyalgia are not precisely known, but doctors suggest that it is a problem with how the brain and the spinal cord process pain signals from our nerves.
Fibromyalgia is common among women or if you have another very painful disease such as an infection or arthritis.
Fibromyalgia is also common among those with mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
If people in your family have fibromyalgia, you are more likely to get this disease, and it is also common among people who rarely exercise or are emotionally abused.
What are the symptoms of fibromyalgia?
The simplest definition of fibromyalgia symptoms is that you ache and have immense pain in every part of your body. Some of the most common symptoms include:
- You have severe muscle pain, burning, itchiness, twitching, or tightness.
- You feel weak or lethargic in performing routine work.
- You have insomnia, or you cannot sleep well.
- You feel nervous, depressed, stressed, or worried.
- You have trouble concentrating, and you forget stuff called fibrofog
- You have tender points
- Frequent headaches
- The slow and confused state of mind and speech
- Extreme tiredness
- Insomnia
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Migraines
- Sensitivity to pain, some foods, and smoke
What is a fibromyalgia flare-up?
When people have fibromyalgia, they experience their symptoms regularly. With time, however, these symptoms may worsen and intensify. When the symptoms intensify, it is called a flare-up or a flare.
Flare-ups can occur suddenly and are very likely if the person experiencing fibromyalgia takes a lot of pressure. Flare-ups range from a few days to a few weeks.
Some factors make fibromyalgia flare-ups more likely to occur. These might be due to changes in a few things, such as:
- Changes in your diet
- Changes in your hormones
- Taking a lot of stress
- Changes in the routine and schedule
- Changes in the sleep pattern
- Changes in the temperature or the climate
- Changes in your treatment
Having surgery, getting into an accident, or stress can worsen fibromyalgia, and flare-ups also occur because of excessive exercise or lack of sleep.
How to treat fibromyalgia flare-ups?
Although fibromyalgia and its symptoms are beyond the control of anyone, some of the factors can be prevented, and the flare-ups can be controlled.
You can keep a record of your activities and check on what exactly causes a fibromyalgia flare-up. Keeping a check might reduce the chances of any flare-up.
Reducing stress is another way of preventing fibromyalgia flare-ups as stress worsens fibromyalgia.
Fatigue is another reason for flare-ups, and you should ensure you get enough sleep because sometimes, people with fibromyalgia experience pain, which may cause problems in sleep.
A healthy sleeping pattern will be best enough to prevent fibromyalgia flare-ups.
Regular exercise can also improve the symptoms of fibromyalgia flare-ups, so it is recommended for people who have fibromyalgia to exercise regularly to prevent fibromyalgia flare-ups.
Not doing too much physical activity is another way of preventing fibromyalgia flare-ups. The one experiencing fibromyalgia must not overexert themself if he wants to avoid flare-ups of fibromyalgia.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is another way of preventing fibromyalgia flare-ups from occurring.
Doctors have discovered that exercising is one of the main things known to fight fibromyalgia flare-ups and their symptoms.
The real problem, however, is that when a person is in so much pain, they cannot possibly think of doing exercise, let alone perform it.
With the strong effects of fibromyalgia, lady gaga revealed that she had to rest continuously.
She mentioned that she might have had about a million pain creams which she would keep using in the hope that the pain would subside.
The real problem that has not led to any solution regarding the diagnosis of fibromyalgia is that the medical community does not know about it. Hence, there is a lot of error and trial in it.
Some medicines are available for this disease, but you cannot be sure whether they will work.
Many patients with fibromyalgia took painkillers to eliminate the pain associated with this disease. Still, lady gaga said that these medicines used to give her terrible side effects and that she preferred not to use them unless she faced some real emergency.
Fibromyalgia flare-ups, an overview
One of the main issues regarding fibromyalgia is that this disease is somewhat invisible.
A person might look utterly healthy to strangers but must still face this disease.
Studies reveal that most fibromyalgia sufferers are women and that men rarely encounter this disease.
Since the one with fibromyalgia looks completely normal on the outlook, many people consider the person suffering completely fine.
The severity of fibromyalgia pain also differs from patient to patient.
It might be mild pain in one individual, but it can be extremely severe and dangerous in another.