I wrote this post over a year ago and never published it. My symptoms are better managed now but someone needs to know they are NOT alone.

Do you know or love someone suffering through life with Fibromyalgia? If so, believe them when they tell you the symptoms and triggers. What may bother them one day may not bother them the next. Or, what may bother them one day may be magnified 10 times the next day.

It’s an unpredictable condition.

Symptoms 

• Sleep problems
• Extreme fatigue
• Anxiety or depression
• Specific tender points
• Widespread muscle pain 
• Sensitivity to light and noise or sounds 
• Sensitivity to touch

Facts

• A fibromyalgia flare-up is a temporary increase in the intensity or number of symptoms associated with fibromyalgia. 
• Usually, increased pain and worsening fatigue are the hallmarks of a fibromyalgia flare-up. 
• Fibromyalgia attacks can last a few days to several weeks, or even months.
  
  SIDE NOTE: If someone says it hurts when you touch them, believe them; even if the same touch wouldn’t faze you. It’s their body and they know what hurts and what doesn’t. Quite honestly, it’s pretty insensitive to ask someone if this or that hurts while touching them in various spots. Don’t be THAT person (unless you’re their doctor.)

Triggers

• Stress
• Changes in weather
• Too much or too little physical activity
• Let me say STRESS again
• Poor sleep (Poor sleep may make pain seem worse, and pain can lead to poor sleep. Make it make sense!)
• Certain foods actually trigger flare ups for me; particularly sweets (Boo!)

At the time of this writing, I am on day three of a fibro flareup. I can’t figure out which is worse, the pain in my shoulder, the random pains that shoot through my elbows simultaneously or the random pain that shoots through my right thigh.

Comment if you or someone you know suffers from this b@#!

DGR