Pain Relief - How To Assure That You Have Fibromyalgia? Nurse's Guide

Years ago, after much suffering, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Even though I was a nurse, I suffered along with everyone else I knew who'd been diagnosed with it and sought some natural methods of pain relief. But through a sheer stroke of luck I cured myself! I no longer suffer from fibromyalgia and many years have passed now.

Fibromyalgia, also called fibromyositis and fibrositis, is a condition which causes long-term pain throughout the body and in the tender points (not trigger points) in joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues. Sufferers also could have fatigue, morning stiffness, sleep problems, headaches, numbness in the hands and feet, depression, and anxiety, which may or may not be due to all the symptoms they have.

Fibromyalgia could also coexist with other conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

Although the cause of this disorder is unknown there are all sorts of expert guesses as to the cause including physical or emotional trauma that may play a part in the development and abnormal pain transmission responses.

It's been theorized that sleep disturbances, which are common in fibromyalgia patients, may actually cause the condition or that maybe the cause is waking patients up. In my case I would wake up for two hours between 2 A.M. and 4 A.M. every night and be wide awake.

This disturbance wreaked havoc with my daily activities because I do not think my endorphins were acquiring released properly. The endorphin release to repair the body and initiate healing happens around 2 A.M.

Another one of the theories is that the disorder may occur with changes in skeletal muscle metabolism, which might be caused by a diminished blood flow causing chronic fatigue and weakness alike to chronic fatigue syndrome.

Others experts have guessed that it might be a virus that has initiated fibromyalgia or even that it's inherited. But I do not believe any of that.

Although women and men have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia it's more common among women especially in the 20 through 50 years old age group.

Fibromyalgia pain could sometimes be confused with arthritic pain. But it doesn't have the deformity of joints as seen in arthritis.

The pain could be described best as deep-aching pain, like mine was, or radiating, burning or shooting pain and could be severe at times. The pain could be present during the night when one wakes up or throughout the day to some degrees. This pain could drive people to check all sorts of methods, treatments and therapies to try to acquire pain relief usually with no pain relief.

Pain could acquire better or worse throughout the day. As well as mild generalized pain through the body I noticed severe pain in specific areas like my quadriceps muscle that I used while driving making long distance driving impossible. My upper arm would ache so bad that I thought I would keel over.

People complain of back pain, lower back pain, chest pain, muscle pain, joint pain etc. And usually try pain medications and some other pain pills which do not work.

Your doctor could diagnose fibromyalgia by pressing on your tender points.

The doctor would prefer to know how long you have been enduring the widespread pain and/or pain and tenderness in 11or more of the 18 tender points. If it's been more than three months it would be considered chronic and would assist make the diagnosis. The tender points are located in fibrous tissue or muscles of the neck, shoulder, rib cage, chest, thighs, knees, lower back, arms and buttocks.

When the doctor presses on these points they may or may not hurt. So it's fairly easy to diagnose except the doctor has to determine if there are any other disease present that is causing your pain. So he/she may do some other tests to rule out infections, thyroid problems, rheumatoid arthritis, sleep disorders, cancer and other conditions.

Besides sleeping problems, muscle aches or joint aches or general body aching and fatigue, there could be facial muscle pain or aching. And a reduction in exercise is common. I found it difficult to walk more than 20 minutes at a time without severe aching and fatigue.

Fibromyalgia has been a common problem for many years. In some pain sufferers the symptoms may acquire better then return out of the blue.

I suffered with fibromyalgia along with arthritis and many other ailments and sought pain relief until I changed my diet due to breast cancer, which I cured naturally. Changing my diet was the key to acquiring rid of fibromyalgia and many years later I still no longer suffer from it.