Fibromyalgia: Does your whole body hurt all the time, do you wake up tired and have no strength?

Today is World Fibromyalgia Day, which affects no less than between 3% and 6% of the world’s population.

Do you have the feeling that your whole body hurts all the time?

Tea you wake up tired no matter how much you sleep, and some days the pain interrupts your sleep?

You feel that you lack strengthDoes your neck hurt, do your hips bother you, do your knees or elbows “prick” you…?

all that are symptoms of a disease recognized by the WHO in 1992 and that every May 12 celebrates its World Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Day, with the aim of making the population aware of a disease that has no cure, although there is treatment to control the symptoms.

The date of May 12 was chosen in honor of Florence Nightingale, and it is the day this nurse was born, considered a precursor of contemporary professional nursing and who suffered from this disease for decades.

Florence Nightingale, forerunner of modern nursing Photo Gallery of the Wellcome Collection

Fibromyalgia: rheumatic disease

Musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep, memory and mood problems. They are some of the fibromyalgiaone that affects more than 2% of people in the world.

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), 276,000 Spaniards suffer from this ailmentalthough specialists warn that in reality it could exceed a million of people.

It is a disease with an average time of diagnosis that exceeds six years, therefore, warns the Dr. Antonio Colladospecialist in Rheumatology:

• “Before a recurring pain, even intermittent, even when it can be attributed to workloads, you should go to the doctor to confirm if it is fibromyalgia or another ailment”.

Symptoms added to generalized pain and fatigue

Constant pain, which also produces high wear and tear, and chronic fatigue are not the only symptoms that characterize this disease. In addition to this musculoskeletal pain, it is usually accompanied by:

• Gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea

• Bloating or constipation

• Muscle spasms or numbness.

Constant pain and chronic fatigue are the symptoms of fibromyalgia Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com

And all this makes it a rather disabling ailment.

• “Of the patients that we explored in Primary Care, 23% have some recognition of disability, either through administrative or judicial means. This means that half of people have significant limitations“, explains the president of (SEFIFAC).

Fibromyalgia, a chronic female disease

The data is clear: 90% of people with fibromyalgia are women. Nothing less than seven times more women than men.

But the scientific community has not yet found why, although we know that the chronic pain it is more frequent in them than in men.

Of a hundred people with chronic pain, seventy are women.

Some studies suggest that the reason it is more frequent in women could be due to serotonin in the brain, which is seven times lower than in men.

The Hormonal changes or menopause could also be the triggers of the disease, or the accumulation of environmental pollutants.

But despite the fact that they have tried to find out why they are the ones who suffer the most from this disease, there is still no explanation.

The risk factors are:

• To be a woman.
• Family background.
• Chronic pain in a specific area.
• Viral or bacterial infections.

As the specialist tells this portal:

“We do know that women have a more discriminative, differential, nociceptive system (which produces pain in our bodies), with a greater capacity for sensitivity… Facts that, from a physiological point of view, affect the female sex.”

Fibromyalgia and depression, are they connected?

According to experts, there may be a certain predisposition to fibromyalgia in people who have depression or a family history but…

“It comes later, first in the form of an adjustment disorder after the uncertainty of the disease itself, and because of the impact it has from a functional point of view.”

20% of fibromyalgia patients have severe depression freepik

20% of fibromyalgia patients have severe depression. However, as collected by the psychometric measurement questionnaires, 70% have some alteration of mood, either in the form of depression or anxiety.

The patient is not able to assume and stand up to the disease, increasing its intensity and creating a vicious circle in which fibromyalgia symptoms increase the feeling of despair

E. Revuelta Evrarda, E. Segura Escobarb and J. Paulino Tevarc – Doctors of the General Hospital of Ciudad Real

The study, published in the Magazine of the Spanish Pain Societynotes that “is closely related to psychological and psychiatric disordersbeing the most frequent anxiety and depression”.

The authors, from the Rheumatology and Psychiatry Service of the Ciudad Real Hospital, emphasize that “this association can be casual, comorbidity (two or more diseases at the same time) or secondary.”

• “These psychopsychiatric alterations cause a state of discouragement in which the patient he is not capable of assuming and standing up to the disease, increasing its intensity and creating a vicious circle in which heFibromyalgia symptoms increase feelings of despair. And that leads to a worsening of the psychopathological alterations, and prevents solving and coping with fibromyalgia ”.

And among the reasons for the appearance of the depressive clinic we can consider:

• Time between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis by the doctor.

• …