The Frustration of Fibromyalgia : Symptoms

The Fibromyalgia Solution: A Breakthrough Approach to Heal Your Body and Take Back Your Life
by David Dryland, M.D.

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Fibromyalgia feels different to everyone. The common denominator in most cases is an elevated awareness of painful and uncomfortable sensations throughout the body. The pain can be diffuse or localized, and it can move from one part of the body to another. Most patients complain of pain and stiffness in their neck and shoulders or in other stiff, tight muscles. For a lot of people, there is general tenderness throughout the body. Painful sensations may be described as aching, burning, or throbbing. What hurt intensely yesterday may only be a mild ache today. In fact, so many places can hurt that at a doctor's visit, a patient may only focus on the things that really hurt that day. Confounding to doctor and patient, such an account distorts the picture of the illness and often prevents an accurate diagnosis from being made.

Fibromyalgia patients are chronically tired and often wake up feeling as if they didn't sleep at all. Depression is common, but who wouldn't get depressed by unending, unexplained misery? Many people experience memory, concentration, and cognition problems - a condition commonly known as fibro fog. Fibro fog is actually one of the more frustrating symptoms people experience, making it difficult to multitask, concentrate at work, or think on their feet. Other symptoms include headaches, numbness, skin irritation, feeling too cold or too hot, sensitivity to bright lights or loud noises, and an aversion to intense tastes and smells. Due to a depressed immune system, fibromyalgia patients are more likely to catch a cold. They will be sick longer and have a longer recovery period. Existing or previously undetected allergies can become unbearable. Many fibromyalgia patients also suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, adding tremendously to their discomfort.

Headaches and heartaches go hand in hand with fibromyalgia, as you struggle to maintain relationships, jobs, and even simple daily routines. Fibromyalgia symptoms can come and go, leaving you enormously frustrated with your inability to know how you will feel on any given day. Adding insult to injury is the fact that no matter how terrible you feel, you can still appear healthy to everyone else. An initial outpouring of sympathy from friends and family will often fade as the illness drags on without any explanation. Physicians have trouble identifying a physical cause that explains the continued pain. Even when a physical cause is identified, such as a strained back, the pain is always far greater than would be expected for the type of injury.

Fibromyalgia is full of cruel ironies. It makes you too tired to get out of bed, while at the same time, lying on a mattress is so unbearable, you can't stand to stay there. You will want nothing more than to fall into a deep sleep but find yourself staring at the clock instead. Exercise that feels great one day leaves you in agony the next day. You won't feel like drinking, but you'll still feel like you have a hangover. And on the day when you wake up knowing you would do anything to get your health back, you are too exhausted to figure out how on your own.

Common Fibromyalgia Symptoms

• widespread, variable aches and pains
• fatigue
• morning stiffness
• restless sleep
• pain exacerbated by exercise
• noninflammatory pain that doesn't respond to medication
• increased sensitivity to allergens
• confusion or difficulty concentrating
• headaches
• abdominal cramping
• numbness or tingling
• easily irritated skin
• sensitivity to temperature
• sensitivity to bright lights or loud noises
• sensitivity to intense tastes or smells
• skin that readily flushes
• discomfort in crowds

A Brief History of Fibromyalgia

For decades, fibromyalgia patients have struggled in silence, as much of the medical world turned a blind eye to their plight. It was less than twenty-five years ago that modern medicine officially recognized fibromyalgia as a clinical diagnosis. People have suffered from it for much longer. Hippocrates first described a similar set of symptoms in 400 BC. Not until 1816 did the British surgeon William Balfour once again make note of the condition. In 1904, the British physician Sir William Gowers classified this set of symptoms as fibrositis, now known as fibromyalgia, indicating a medical condition that stemmed from inflammation of the muscles. Fibromyalgia was considered "arthritis of the muscles" and classified with other rheumatological conditions involving pain in the muscles or joints. (Rheumatological conditions are a set of diseases generally involving inflammation of joints or other tissues, such as gout or rheumatoid arthritis.) Early research did indicate slight abnormalities in the muscles of fibromyalgia patients, but these theories were later disproved. Once it became clear that there was no inflammation in the muscles, there was no longer any logical explanation as to why fibromyalgia caused pain.

Throughout most of the last century, many physicians thought of fibromyalgia as a purely psychosomatic condition, and in the beginning that was an understandable reaction. Their patients complained of pain in their muscles and joints despite the fact that the physicians couldn't find anything wrong. Until the 1990s, there were no guidelines on how to diagnose fibromyalgia, and most physicians dismissed the condition or made the diagnosis by default when they couldn't find anything else responsible for the pain.

As early as 1981, the fibromyalgia research pioneer Dr. Muhammad Yunnus conducted clinical studies of patients with fibromyalgia and identified a wider range of symptoms than the muscle pain that commonly occurred in these patients. He was one of the first researchers to understand that the symptoms these patients experienced were not only real but somehow interconnected. He called for physicians to base a fibromyalgia diagnosis on its own characteristic features rather than on the absence of another recognizable condition. Sadly, this advice fell on deaf ears, and fibromyalgia continued to be thought of as the diagnosis doctors used when they failed to find another problem. In many cases, this is still true today.

Eventually, the population of fibromyalgia patients became too big to simply ignore. In 1987, the American Medical Association (AMA) finally recognized fibromyalgia as an illness and cause of disability. The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) followed suit in 1990, establishing much-needed "official" diagnostic criteria. While the newfound recognition and specific diagnostic criteria certainly helped validate fibromyalgia's existence as a clinical disorder, it didn't help answer any questions about the nature of the illness or why some people got it when others didn't. Furthermore, the name still referred to the old belief that the problem was primarily in the muscles. Fibro means fibrous (as in muscle fibers), myo means muscle, and algiameans pain - muscle fiber pain. Despite the fact that these changes didn't actually answer the important questions about fibromyalgia, they still helped a lot of people simply by validating their suffering. Researchers have found that people with fibromyalgia actually feel better about themselves and their condition once they have a diagnosis, even though that diagnosis has not traditionally offered any tangible relief. There is, however, tremendous mental relief in being able to put a name to your illness.

Copyright © 2004, 2007 by David Dryland, MD

About the Author

David Dryland, MD, is a Yale-trained clinical rheumatologist with a busy practice in Medford, OR. Having successfully won his own battle with fibromyalgia, Dr. Dryland has developed a ground-breaking treatment protocol that his own patients have followed with success. Through his educational seminars and writing, Dr. Dryland is changing many popular misconceptions about the origins of fibromyalgia and how to effectively reduce or eliminate fibromyalgia symptoms. A much sought-after speaker, Dr. Dryland leads seminars and workshops on how to recover from fibromyalgia and control the fight or flight response. He lives in Ashland, OR with his partner Laurel and his three children.