Now if you are someone with the condition then you know that with Fibromyalgia you simply “ache all over”.

The fatigue can be at times very debilitating even when you have just woken up from 8 hours of sleep. You know that even though you sleep long hours you still don’t feel rested. How do you tell someone that you find it hard to get to sleep sometimes or staying asleep. Or when you rise up, you are already experiencing fatigue. How do you even start the day?

You have specific spots on your body called “tender points” which are just too painful to touch, (the name aptly describes what it feels like).

Your mood fluctuates with the unrelenting pain and there are times when the pain and fatigue simply makes you feel “down in the dumps”. Yet you know that you are really not suffering from clinical depression.

Your muscles feel like they have just  “jammed up” and feel overworked and stiff. They feel this way even when you have not exercised so when someone mentions exercise, you say to yourself “ they don’t understand it’s just not that easy for me, my muscles feel like I have already been through a marathon!” You know that it is hard to even start to explain the muscle twitching, burning and deep stabbing pain which you sometimes experience. The pain around your neck, shoulder, back and hips are constant.

And how do you even tell someone about the abdominal pain, the frequent headaches, dry mouth nose and eyes.

How do you even explain to your work colleagues how your symptoms are so severe that either you have to modify your work or quit altogether. You know deep within you that you run the risk of being misunderstood by your family, friends and even co-workers and even your doctors because  you look fine from the outside.

Or why, you don’t feel like walking in the hot sun or gardening because you are not only hyper-sensitive to heat but cold as well, and that you sometimes perceive cold as pain.

How about the fact that sometimes you find it hard to concentrate or form words or sentences, you feel you are “foggy in your brain”. The noisier the environment and the more crowded it is, the harder it gets for you.

What about embarrassing things like an irritable bowel, incontinence at times, numbness and tingling in your fingers and feet and not to mention painful menstrual cramps.

Get the picture????

Yet, we all know that exercise increases blood flow to the tired stiff and painful muscles providing much needed oxygen, energy, nutrients and removing toxins and other waste substances. So what is a good gentle exercise option?

Water exercise  or water aerobics is probably the easiest and gentlest workout for people with fibromyalgia pain.

Recent studies from Spain show that water aerobics while being a lot of fun not only improves the quality of life for women with fibromyalgia pain but is also great in the long-term for ongoing pain reduction.

A  12-week study showed that women who exercised in warm water for up-to 1 hour, three times a week had an  improvement in how they felt  physically  and mentally . They also had considerably less fibromyalgia pain and  reported feeling less depressed, and more willing to  socialize with friends,family and others.

Not only can warm water be comforting, exercise improves  blood flow to our muscles. Water exercise is low impact which means less stress on your joints and tendons. There is gentle resistance to movement in water as well which helps build up strength and makes you more agile.

Alright, so if you don’t like swimming try walking in shallow  water  with your head above water or try “bobbing up and down”  in deep water with a foam belt or a life jacket.The  water naturally tries to keep you buoyant  and aids movement making other ways painful exercises less painful .

Have fun!

Is Fibromyalgia Syndrome Just Another Name to Describe Myofascial Pain Syndrome?

While Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS) may coexist, they are not the same condition.

Fibromyalgia is a generalized amplification of pain with tender points in the muscles. Fibromyalgia tender points are exquisitely tender and painful to compression when pressure is applied. The pain from fibromyalgia tender points is not referred to distant areas.

There is one fundamental difference between fibromyalgia and chronic myofascial pain syndrome. “Trigger points” are common in chronic myofascial pain but in fibromyalgia syndrome there is no such thing as “fibromyalgia trigger points”. The tender points of fibromyalgia are not the same as “myofascial trigger points”. Never the less, people with fibromyalgia will also have co-existing myofascial trigger points.

 
The thing to remember is that the pain of fibromyalgia is generalized, and occurs both above and below the waist and on both sides of the body. On the other hand, myofascial pain is more often experienced in a more limited localized area of the body.

Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS) is a condition characterized by chronic and in some cases, severe pain associated with “trigger points”. These “trigger points” are sometimes extremely painful contractures (“knots”) found in any skeletal muscle of the body and can refer pain to other areas of the body. Myofascial Pain Syndrome is really a disorder of trigger points.

So what are these “myofascial trigger points”? Myofascial trigger points are specific points within a tight band of muscles that are “hyper irritable”. When these points are stimulated or activated, they may or may not trigger pain locally but they can certainly trigger pain and muscle contraction at distant sites.

Trigger points can cause a muscle to spasm, and become irritable. The muscles then become tender and painful. The very place where a nerve enters and communicates with the muscles is a common site for trigger points to occur. The pain from a trigger point  can manifest as a deep dull ache or it can present as a sharp, stabbing or burning pain.

Here are some more examples of how active trigger points can cause pain at a distant site:

•    A trigger point in the upper trapezius muscle can release a pain pattern that results in pain all the way up the neck to the back of your head near the base of the skull.

•    Also trigger points active in the gluteal minimus muscle around your buttocks and hip can usually mimic the pain pattern of sciatica.

Sciatica is a medical condition normally caused by the sciatic nerve being irritated by a bulging or prolapsed disc in your lower spine.  Someone suffering from sciatica may also have trigger points existing simultaneously and optimum pain relief can only be achieved by addressing both these problems.

Satellite clusters of new trigger points can also form and to effectively treat pain, all need to be “searched out” and deactivated to bring about muscle relaxation and pain relief.

“Trigger points” are common in chronic myofascial pain but in fibromyalgia syndrome there is no such thing as “fibromyalgia trigger points”. The tender points of fibromyalgia are not the same as “myofascial trigger points”.

Never the less, people with fibromyalgia will also have co-existing myofascial trigger points.

While Fibromyalgia and Myofascial pain syndrome may coexist, they are not the same condition.

Fibromyalgia is a generalized amplification of pain with tender points in the muscles. Fibromyalgia tender points are exquisitely tender and painful to compression when pressure is applied. The pain from fibromyalgia tender points is not referred to distant areas whereas with chronic myofascial trigger points this is the case.

• This an excerpt from new e-book on treating Fibromyalgia with Natural and Alternative Remedies by our pharmacist, Chris Sajnendra

1.    Widespread pain on both sides of the body, above and below the waist, being present for at least 3 months; including upper or lower back, neck and chest pain.
2.    Pain as a result of palpation of at least 11 of the 18 “tender point” sites. While it is not known why these tender points are present in someone with Fibromyalgia, it is common for someone with the condition to have pain in at least eleven of these sites.

Fibromyalgia Tender Points

The location of the nine paired tender points that comprise the 1990 American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia.

..an excerpt from new Fibromyalgia E book by Chris Sajnendra, our board pharmacist becoming available soon………

Still, to this day, the number of doctors and health professionals who continue to ignore Fibromyalgia as a real health condition is mind boggling .

Before the onset of Fibromyalgia, most people with the condition would have enjoyed an active and healthy lifestyle. Yet with the onset of the condition, not only does one have to cope with the disabling effects but also convince others that there is truly something wrong. The constant battle of trying to convince your family and friends and even the medical fraternity that something is wrong with you can be a huge obstacle in progressing towards effective diagnosis and treatment. The difficulty is that outwardly you might look fine and even the blood results and many medical tests do not reveal much. Yet you know that something is wrong. It can be very challenging mentally and emotionally as you can almost feel like you are perhaps “losing your mind”.

Well here is some good news. Fibromyalgia is not “just in your head”. I am sure you have heard this term before if you are someone who has the condition. Today there is a substantial amount of research available, which supports the fact that Fibromyalgia Syndrome is actually a distinct clinical syndrome. Fibromyalgia is a very real condition.

This is a portion from the Introduction in The New E-book on natural and alternative remedies for Fibromyalgia being written by our board Pharmacist, Chris Sajnendra.

What Is Fibromyalgia or Fibromyalgia Syndrome?

This is probably a good place to start. After all, if you are reading this book there is a chance that you might be wondering if you in fact have the condition itself. Maybe, you have always suspected that you had Fibromyalgia but were not really sure?

On the other hand, you might have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia or suffer from it’s many symptoms, or may even have a friend or family member struggling with the disorder. As you read on, it is my deepest desire that you will gain a better understanding of this painful condition that afflicts millions around the world.

Fibromyalgia or Fibromyalgia Syndrome (pronounced fy-bro-my-al-ja)  in the past has also been referred to as “fibromyositis” and “fibrositis”. Historically terms such as “muscular rheumatism”, “psychogenic rheumatism” and “neurasthenia” were also used to refer to symptoms resembling those of Fibromyalgia. A researcher by the name of Mohammed Yunus[1]  coined the term “ fibromyalgia” to use as a synonym for “fibrositis” in a scientific publication in 1981. The misnomer ‘fibrositis’ was often used before, where “itis” implied an inflammatory component. However, it is widely known today that no inflammatory process has ever been found to be part of this disease.

Fibromyalgia is simply a name used to describe a group of symptoms which are marked by generalized pain and stiffness in various parts of the body including muscles, joints, connective tissues and cartilage. The prominent feature is musculoskeletal pain coupled with extreme fatigue and sleep problems. Other multi-system dysfunctions also exist in someone with Fibromyalgia.

“So why call it a syndrome?”

A “syndrome” is simply a collection of symptoms which when they exist together, imply the presence of a particular health condition or a greater chance of developing it.

The word  ‘fibromyalgia’ actually comes from:
•    The Latin word “fibro”, meaning fibrous tissue (such as tendons and ligaments)
•    The Greek term  “myo” meaning muscles
•    And the Greek term “algia” meaning pain.

We also know now that fibromyalgia is a chronic condition with persistent and widespread pain and stiffness accompanied by fatigue, disrupted unrefreshing sleep, and cognitive difficulties. Other unexplained symptoms such as anxiety and/or depression “piggy back” the condition resulting in  a certain level of functional impairment of daily living activities.


[1] Yunus, M; Masi, At; Calabro, Jj; Miller, Ka; Feigenbaum, Sl (Aug 1981). “Primary fibromyalgia (fibrositis): clinical study of 50 patients with matched normal controls”. Seminars in arthritis and rheumatism 11 (1): 151–71. doi:10.1016/0049-0172(81)90096-2. ISSN 0049-0172. PMID 6944796