Fibromyalgia and Painsomnia

Fibromyalgia’s Nightly Visitor: Painsomnia

 Fibromyalgia and Painsomnia

One of the issues that many fibromyalgia patients have is called painsomnia. While everyone realizes that pain is often associated with fibromyalgia, they do not realize that the pain often becomes worse at night. To the point that many patients find this intolerable. This issue has been termed “Painsomnia”.

What is Painsomnia?

In lament terms, painsomnia is chronic pain that disrupts the sleep at night. For many people, they may be able to fall to sleep, but the pain wakes them up every few hours. It then takes several minutes into hours to go back to sleep, only to repeat the process again.

For those who have knowledge of the sleep cycle, they realize that this type of sleep, being woke up constantly and then trying to go back to sleep all in one night, greatly affects the quality of sleep in which the person is getting.

That is why many fibromyalgia patients find that they are beyond tired, but they still have to function in everyday life.

Emotional Roller Coaster

Painsomnia can cause patients to feel as though they are on an emotional roller coaster. They often feel as though they are exhausted, and this exhaustion only heightens emotions.

For many patients, the idea of simply sitting in a chair and crying is a reality that they face every day. This emotional roller coaster makes the pain even harder to deal with, as it can intensify the pain that the person is feeling.

The intensity is due to the person feeling worn down. This emotional roller coaster is on constant loop as you feel more pain, causing you to lose even more sleep, and the more sleep that you neglect, the more pain you feel.

Dealing with Painsomnia

So how can you deal with painsomnia? The idea is to get rid of the pain to get to sleep. After all, our bodies need sleep in order to be fully healthy, and you want to do all that you can in order to avoid increasing the intensity of this pain.

The problem is that many people with painsomnia find that pain killers and sleep medications simply do not work on the level of this pain.

Many fibromyalgia patients have taken these types of medications and found that it made no difference. However, for those who are new to the world of painsomnia and fibromyalgia, they need to start here.

Talk to your doctor to find out what medications can be given to help get you back to having a restful night sleep that is not full of pain.

There are several other options that people have tried in the past and have found moderate or high success with. These options include:

1- Use a heated blanket. Many people find that the pain is lessened when their muscles and bones are warm. This is why many fibromyalgia patients find that an electric blanket is a great addition to their bedroom. This can help them to get a bit more comfort to go to sleep.

2- When you can’t sleep, get up and walk around your home. For those who pain this can be one way to help relieve this pain slightly. In many cases, it is relieved enough that they can at least get back to sleep.

3- Try aromatherapy, as many fibromyalgia sufferers who are dealing with painsomnia find that this is incredibly helpful. Why is this?

Aromatherapy is thought to have a great effect on your senses and body in general. There are oils that are used for pain management, as well as for those who cannot sleep.

When combining these oils, people find that it simply helps them to relax and get to sleep and have a restful night’s sleep.

4- Take a warm shower. One of the ways that many painsomnia patients get back to sleep is to warm their bodies in the shower. This can help with the pain that the person is feeling in the muscles, much similar to using a heated blanket for helping.

Whatever you do, be sure to talk to your doctor about what you are doing so that he or she can help to monitor whether this is working for you or not.

Ways to Control Painsomnia

While painsomnia is not something that you can have full control over. There are a few things that you can do in order to not make this worse. For example:

1- Avoid caffeine, as this can make you stay up. And we all know that caffeine can make fibromyalgia worse for those who suffer with this.

2- Do exercise, but not too late at night, as the release of hormones and chemicals in the mind can make you stay up.

3- Do not try to go to sleep with the television on or other distractions, as this can make it harder to get to sleep and make this be a restful sleep.

4- Certain medications could be interrupting your normal sleep patterns, so discuss when the best time to take these medications would be with your doctor.

Sadly, painsomnia is not something that can be cured for every person. Each person must find what works best for them and how to deal with this on their own.

For some people, pain relievers may help to work enough that they can get to bed. Other people find that they simply must stay up at night, nap for a few hours here and there to keep going.

What makes painsomnia so awful is that this can easily change a person. They are experiencing sleepless nights which plays with their emotional and their mental states.

When combined with the chronic pain of fibromyalgia, it can make many people feel as though their lives are over. The key is finding what works for you and talking with your doctor about options.

You must be willing to try numerous options to see what combination is going to work for you. After all, the more rest you get, the better you can control those fibromyalgia symptoms.

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