Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain processing disorder. It causes widespread pain, sleep issues with associated fatigue, cognitive changes, often depression, and anxiety. Approximately 4 million adults across the United States experience this historically poorly understood but common health condition.
Fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses can be extremely difficult to live. They affect you physically and cause an emotional toll that can last after a long period. Coping with many unknowns is challenging to manage. With a condition like fibromyalgia where each day can present with different symptoms, it’s normal to have worries and concerns.
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People living with fibromyalgia and any chronic illness can worry that they will become a burden on their loved ones. Remember that people who love you will listen to you, help you, and care for you on your toughest days.
When you live with an unpredictable condition such as fibromyalgia, it can be hard to set plans with friends and family. Activities that may seem simple to others such as going out for dinner can be stressful for a person with fibromyalgia to plan for. Sometimes declining an invitation to socialize is difficult to accept, but it means that you’re putting your health as the top priority. Those who love you will understand why you may need to cancel plans at the last minute or politely decline invitations.
Chronic illness can cause a lot of worry about going to school, having a career, or holding down a job. When you’re in constant pain, you may have this severe fear of financial burden. Thankfully there are many options for those who don’t hold down the traditional 9-5 work schedule. There are many remote jobs out there that offer flexible schedules. If you have a skill or talent, you may even go into business and create your own hours. For students with fibromyalgia, you may have to lighten your course load as needed. This gives yourself ample time for self-care.
It’s a terrible irony that fibromyalgia sufferers live with that good, low-symptom days can be plagued with worry about when things might take a turn for the worse. Being able to completely relax when you’re free from any major symptoms when you’re used to hurting, sleeping poorly, and feeling foggy and fatigued can be difficult, if not impossible. It’s common for people to worry about when the next episode or flare-up will happen, but it’s important to try and enjoy the periods of feeling better whether they be moments, days, weeks, or even months.
When you’ve been worn down by chronic pain, it is understandable that you might feel like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. The nature of chronic pain conditions is that they are often cyclical in nature. You may have a period of several bad weeks followed by weeks where your energy levels are up and pain levels are down. Forming a support system of people who can remind you that peaks often come after valleys and that things can and often do improve can help boost your spirits when you feel like you’re stuck in a rut of feeling sick.
How you perceive pain has to do with how a painful stimulus makes its way to the brain to be interpreted. People with fibromyalgia experience an amplification of pain. Therefore, things that are ordinarily non-painful may hurt, and painful stimuli may feel even worse. Pain originates at the site of an injury or inflammation and sends a signal from there to the spinal cord. Then the signal moves to the brain. Your brain registers the pain and sends a response back to the area of the body that hurts so that it can respond appropriately (such as pulling your hand away from a hot burner on the stove).
In people with chronic pain disorders like fibromyalgia, they experience an alteration in their processing system and sensitization of pain. Even a gentle touch can be painful due to abnormalities in the nervous system.
Upper cervical chiropractic care is a subspecialty within chiropractic that focuses on the uppermost vertebrae in the spine. These two unique bones protect the brainstem, which is one of the most vital parts of your central nervous system. A misalignment of this area of the spine can irritate the spinal cord and brainstem. As a result, it disrupts the communication of pain signals. This may even offer an explanation as to why fibromyalgia frequently develops following a trauma, illness, or injury.
An examination of this vital part of the spine and nervous system by an upper cervical chiropractor is the key to restoring healthy brain-body communication. Many fibromyalgia patients have reported a decrease in overall symptoms and an increase in their quality of life as a result of their care.
References:
https://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/basics/fibromyalgia.htm
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TV show host Montel Williams describes how specific chiropractic care has helped his body.
The content and materials provided in this web site are for informational and educational purposes only and are not intended to supplement or comprise a medical diagnosis or other professional opinion, or to be used in lieu of a consultation with a physician or competent health care professional for medical diagnosis and/or treatment. All content and materials including research papers, case studies and testimonials summarizing patients' responses to care are intended for educational purposes only and do not imply a guarantee of benefit. Individual results may vary, depending upon several factors including age of the patient, severity of the condition, severity of the spinal injury, and duration of time the condition has been present.
