The only blessing about having fibromyalgia is knowing your symptoms are not fatal.  While other chronically ill patients wait in apprehension concerning positive test results, you can be certain yours will usually be negative. 

Whenever you feel panicked about a new symptom arising, check out the chart below offering a wide range of Fibromyalgia complaints.

In Your Head:

Fatigue, irritability, nervousness, depression, impaired memory, Issues concentrating (fibrofog), apathy, frequent awakening during the night, nonrestorative sleep, blurred vision, dizziness, and
headaches – sometimes severe.

Common Aches:

Widespread pain, stiffness in Muscles, tendons, and ligaments which is worse when you first
wake up.  Pain varies and can be felt as throbbing, burning, stabbing, stinging, grabbing, or a combination of
the above.   Numbness in the body or face and tingling found throughout.  Jaw joint involvement causes difficulty in chewing or swallowing.  Sometimes excruciating facial and head pain.  Neck lesions and muscle knots produce headaches.  Muscles often display various twitching.  Restless leg syndrome makes impossible to find an adequate rest position.  Many complain of electrical impulses starting in upper spine and shooting down muscles in their arms.  This then causes exhaustion and general weakness.

On Your Skin:

Crawling sensations, itching, acne, dry skin, rashes,  and burning.  Many complain of swollen
wrists and ankles accompanied with hot-itching on their palms and soles of their
feet.  Flu-like symptoms felt in various parts of the body.  Patients usually have brittle nails, poor hair quality, as well as slightly pungent and irritating perspiration.

In Your Gut:

Irritable bowel syndrome including gas, pain, bloating,constipation or diarrhea, and sometimes nausea or hyperacidity with acid reflux.

Down Below:

Raw, irritated, burning vaginal lips or deeper areas, vaginal spasm, burning discharge, increased menstruation and uterine cramps, painful intercourse, poor erection, repeated bladder infections, pungent, smelly, concentrated urine, chronic interstitial cystitis.

Eye-Ear-Nose-Throat:

Eye Irritation or dryness and burning with tears, blurred vision, excessive or sticky discharge with morning sand, sudden imbalance or dizziness, vertigo, strange sounds (ringing or tinnitus), post nasal drip, chronic nasal congestion, foul metallic tastes, painful or cut tongue, persistent sore throats without infection.  Prone  to common infections.

Other Issues:

Buckling knees when walking, low-grade fevers.  Reynaud’s phenomenon (blanching of fingers exposed to cold), increased allergies, sensitivities to light, sounds, odors, medications, and supplements. 

Recently, I've been engaged in a book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia Fatigue by R. Paul St. Amand, M.D.  Here, he speaks of a possible root cause of fibromyalgia, the tendency to exhibit hypoglycemia symptoms.  The word hypoglycemia simply means low blood sugar.  It’s often used to suggest a disease, but it is actually only one symptom of a syndrome with many complaints.  This complex, he states, would be better defined by the term carbohydrate intolerance.  This is expressed by the body’s inability to use certain carbohydrate loads effectively without adverse consequences.

This simple phrase struck a nerve on my list of symptoms preceding being diagnosed with fibromyalgia.   Previous blood tests confirmed my route to Type II diabetes being inevitable.  Furthermore, I noticed acute symptoms usually three or four hours after eating.  Chronic symptoms for hypoglycemic patients include: fatigue, irritability, nervousness, depression, insomnia, flushing, impaired memory, and concentration. Anxieties are common as are frontal or bitemporal headaches, dizziness and faintness. There is often blurring of vision, nasal congestion, ringing in the ears, numbness and tingling of the hands, feet or face and sometimes leg or foot cramps.  Excessive gas, abdominal cramps, loose stools or diarrhea are frequent.   Unbelievably, some of these symptoms were already occurring before the illness was confirmed as my body's way of waving a red flag in hopes of immediate dietary changes!  And, I did!  But, apparently not enough for my metabolism to reverse the damage that was already happening. 

These  acute symptoms are frightening and occur at various glucose levels, but usually three or four hours after eating.  The release of adrenaline, which corrects the fallen blood or brain sugar,  induces these distressing twenty-to-thirty minute events. They include hand or  internal shaking accompanied by sweating, especially with hunger. Heart irregularities, pounding, and palpitations coupled with severe anxiety that completes the picture. The more intense bouts are labeled panic attacks. Feeling faint is common and actual syncope may occur.  Nocturnal attacks are often preceded by nightmares and cause  severe sleep disturbance resulting in daytime somnolence.  Inability to fall asleep due to excess agitation is also a profound culprit.

For years, before the actual onset of fibromyalgia, I would have sworn I was suffering from adrenal failure.  Yet, my doctor never made the connection to glucose intolerance, and just gave me an increase in blood pressure medication to combat the increase pumping my heart needed to do to extract this deadly glucose.  Throughout this period, my nerves were frazzled and attributing it to work became an easy excuse.   At times, my system seemed to race, and nothing I did would calm those internal gears down.  Sadly, I also implemented an organic vegetable based diet that added increased protein from wheat gluten in hopes this would rectify the disturbance.  This, I am certain, was my initial downfall as I had carbohydrate intolerance.

With issues of insulin signals are sent to certain kidney cells to reabsorb some of the previous filtered serum phosphate that was destined for elimination.  These ions are returned to the blood stream and widely distributed to all the tissues throughout the body.  These cells, mostly severely affected by fibromyalgia, suffer due to insulin demand.  Hence, the two most affected areas are the brain and muscles.  These structures demand and absorb the largest amounts of phosphate.  Consequently,  if   carbohydrates  are diminished, intracellular demand for phosphate declines also.

But, common sense also tells me that some form of carbohydrate is needed to calm my system.  I've spent several weeks on an Atkins diet feeling such anxiety, that I was forced to incorporate some form of grain.  And, despite my intake of the recommended B vitamins, my system still screamed for an alternate diet.  So, to say I am a bit skeptical on his recommended Hypoglycemic Recipe Index is an understatement.  More importantly, I question the sugar free products that are listed on the recipe section that I know from first hand induce painful flare ups.  

Yet, I have learned quite a bit from Dr. Amand's studies.  Foremost, do not ingest too many carbs!  I am continually on the carbohydrate decline as I measure these foods on my dinner plate.  I have noticed that eating Fibromyalgia Breakfast Soup and Fibromyalgia Juicing Recipe is the best way to start my day, forfeiting the Gluten Free Oats for breakfast.  I also noted my mid morning snack of bananas and raw almonds further energizes me and reduces painful symptoms.  Furthermore, bananas contain tryptophan which induces a good serotonin boost and helps combat anxiety and pain.  Most importantly, my additional afternoon snack of The Fibromyalgia Salad offers cranberries to flush away toxins my body has accumulated throughout the morning.  My remaining meals are less whole grains and beans and more protein and vegetables. 

Morning is home to joint sludge.  Waking up takes extra time as joints slowly become accustomed to the new movement of the day.  Achiness and feelings of listlessness ensue as we await our bodies to get in gear allowing us to become soldiers of the new demands of the morning.

Fibromyalgia patients often complain of generalized morning pain and stiffness that may not
get better for hours. Disturbed sleep, pains throughout the body, physical exhaustion, and other symptoms plague many fibromyalgia patients, making it difficult for them to get an adequate amount of sleep. Many of them feel as if their muscles and bones have been overworked. The problems are particularly noticeable when waking up in the morning.

There is a simple remedy to get your joints flexible and release the toxins harbored over the evening rest.  Just drink a LARGE glass of water upon waking.  Do this and take a probiotic supplement at the same time.  In minutes, a sense of regained flexibility will begin you day.

Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body. If your body lacks of water, your heart, for instance, needs to work harder  to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, and the rest of the vital  organs.  If your cells are not oxygenated correctly sludge can begin to build up in your joint areas.  Water allows the release of these toxins built up in tender joint areas enabling more elasticity to begin your day!

Having fibromyalgia puts your energy reserves on low many a day.  After all, how can your body keep you in top physical condition when it is continually warding off pain hour after hour?  Your body must repeatedly send a multitude of signals coming from your cells, which are over worked to begin with, offering detailed information to your brain.  These circuits take time to complete and consume quite a bit of energy in doing so.

Studies show that poor cellular  energy production due to poisoning of the energy-producing machinery of the cell  (the mitochondria) is a common characteristic in both fibromyalgia and chronic  fatigue syndrome.  In studies at the Abington Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania, rheumatology researchers found that fibromyalgia patients suffer from a condition that could be described loosely as “muscle toxicity”, in which 
structures called mitochondria within muscle cells were inefficient in their production of energy.  In addition, fibromyalgia sufferers were found to have smaller than normal muscle fibers that exhibited misshapen mitochondria that were not found in normal subjects. - taken from Foodsforfibromyalgia

How can you combat this daily loss of energy?  By assuring your body has an adequate break to rest during the day.  Take time to fix up that bedroom of yours to an oasis of peace.   By doing so, you won't mind seeking a quiet reprieve in the afternoon allowing your body to rebuild its reserves.  One great way is by reading.  Reading allows the mind to quiet giving the body that much needed time to relax, rebuild, and detox. 

All reads mentioned here are page turning books.  These type of novels get you rushing to your little corner of peace each day to rejuvinate!

Book Description  The Husband by Dean Koontz
Release Date: May 30, 2006 
 
With each and every new novel, Dean Koontz raises the stakes—and the pulse rate—higher than any other author. Now, in what may be his most suspenseful and heartfelt novel ever, he brings us the story of an ordinary man whose extraordinary commitment to his wife will take him on a harrowing journey of adventure, sacrifice, and redemption to the mystery of love itself—and to a show down with the darkness that would destroy it forever.

What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?

We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash. Landscaper Mitchell Rafferty thinks it must 
be some kind of joke. He was in the middle of planting impatiens in the yard of one of his clients when his cell phone rang. Now he’s standing in a normal suburban neighborhood on a bright summer day, having a phone conversation outof  his darkest nightmare.

Whoever is on the other end of the line is dead  serious. He has Mitch’s wife and he’s named the price for her safe return. The  caller doesn’t care that Mitch runs a small two-man landscaping operation and  has no way of raising such a vast sum. He’s confident that Mitch will find a  way.

If he loves his wife enough. . . Mitch does love her enough. He loves her more than life itself. He’s got seventy-two hours to prove it. He has to find the two million by then. But he’ll pay a lot more. He’ll pay anything.

From its tense opening to its shattering climax, The  Husband is a thriller that will hold you in its relentless grip for every twist, every shock, every revelation…until it lets you go, unmistakably changed.  This is a Dean Koontz novel, after all. And there’s no other experience quite  like it. - taken from Amazon

As a host to Fibromyalgia you can be plagued with a multitude of issues besides the usual reported pain and fatigue.  One of the most common side effects for fibromyalgia patients is medicine sensitivity. 
Fibro patients are often just plain scared to try anything new on the market that could bedridden them for days, if not weeks, as the body begins to try to excrete the poisonous toxins recently implemented.

FMS is a serious chronic medical condition that warrants research that will  guide us to a better understanding and new treatment modalities. Currently, many pharmacological therapies are often  ineffective, and people with fibromyalgia tend to experience drug sensitivities  and intolerable adverse reactions. In order to address these issues, patients  need to work closely with their health-care professionals to evaluate at what  dosage level and what kind of medications are going to be not only tolerable,  but also helpful in symptom reduction.

Sadly, fibro patients are often met with perplexed stares when informing our doctors of a recent incident pertaining to medicine intolerance.  And, I can attest, these symptoms that warrant no medical justification can be extremely severe.  Because of this, we must be proactive when discussing these personal issues so that we can be labeled as "hypersensitive to medication" and therefore more careful consideration will be
given when perscribing the latest pharmacological therapies.

Personally, I've experienced many disastrous accounts when taking new medications.  In fact, I've resolved myself to only taking the needed perscriptions to ensure my health.  Recently, I experienced yet another unforeseen disaster.  My blood pressure perscription expired. Since I was taking half the dosage of a 20 mg pill daily, he issued a 10 mg pill to ensure my medication ingested was more accurate.  I had lost weight with this illness and did not need the higher dose any longer.  Previously, I weaned myself off the dosage slowly as I began losing weight.  Now here is the frustrating part - same prescription, same ingredients, just
a different pill.   For several days I took this new pill thinking my body would eventually adjust.  Instead, my body became more fragile, inundated with pain as the days went by.  I even catered to my  psychological  fancy looking up the ingredients.  After all, there are just some days you feel plain nuts wondering how a new pill with the same formula can affect you this way.  What I found, through personal research, was that the prescription based ingredient and inert ingredients were exactly the same - in each pill.  Only the color differed.  Still, my body desperately tried to rid itself of this new toxin through pain and fatigue.  Surely, there is not enough dye in these pills to warrant such an effect.

Do be careful, if you are hypersensitive to any medications, that you are aware of the possible repercussions  if you switch a prescription that may have the same ingredients, the same dosage, but in a different pill form.