In fibromyalgia, dizziness, poor balance, and falls are common complaints. For some people, they're a minor annoyance that crops up on occasion. In others, they can be severely debilitating and lead to regular injuries. Falling, and especially falling frequently, is a serious problem.
Persons with fibromyalgia can experience dizziness, and some reports (e.g. Rosenhall et al), find dizziness to be a very common symptom, occuring in roughly 2/3 of all persons.
Fibromyalgia is associated with balance problems and increased fall frequency. Patients were aware of their balance problems. These results suggest that FM may affect peripheral and/or central mechanisms of postural control.
Audiovestibular dysfunction, or dysfunction relating to both the auditory system and the vestibular system (hearing and balance, respectively) is one of the many symptoms associated with fibromyalgia.
Smell and Sound Sensitivity
Sometimes, they may also experience light sensitivity. Fibromyalgia causes an extreme response to external stimuli, which include sound, smell, and light. As such, you may experience headaches, dizziness, or nausea when exposed to stimuli that cause a sensory overload.
If fibromyalgia has caused you to experience pain and stiffness in your neck and shoulders, you may also have frequent headaches. These can vary from being mild headaches to severe migraines, and could also involve other symptoms, such as feeling sick.
Fibromyalgia can be associated with ocular symptoms (foreign body sensation, irritation) and visual disturbances (blurred vision), coexisting with dry eye syndrome and reduced corneal sensitivity. Cases of scleritis, including the necrotizing form, accompanying fibromyalgia have been reported.
In fibromyalgia, dizziness most often comes on when you first stand up. It's similar to the feeling of a "head rush" from when you stand up too quickly, only it can happen any time you go from lying down or sitting to standing up.
Overview. Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues. Researchers believe that fibromyalgia amplifies painful sensations by affecting the way your brain and spinal cord process painful and nonpainful signals.
Several rheumatic diseases can mimic fibromyalgia. These include sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Lyme disease, polymyalgia rheumatica and lupus. They have symptoms of widespread pain along with joint involvement. Most rheumatic diseases are treated with medication and physical therapy.
The symptoms can be similar, but people with fibromyalgia are more likely to experience depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and widespread, persistent pain. Symptoms more common with MS include weakness, vision problems, muscle spasms, and bowel or bladder issues.
It's unlikely that you'll need an MRI for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome unless your particular set of symptoms is similar to that of a neurological illness that requires evaluation with an MRI. You may also need an MRI at some point to diagnose an injury or a different illness.
You may get distracted, forget or lose things, and struggle to keep up with conversations. Over half of people with fibromyalgia say they have these kinds of problems, and many feel the fog impacts their lives more than the pain, tenderness, and fatigue.
Not all neurologists are embracing fibromyalgia, however. "It's a difficult condition to take care of. The patients have chronic pain, they call a lot, and they tend to have a lot of comorbidities," says Dr. Kissel.
Many neurologists have an understanding of fibromyalgia, but like rheumatologists, they're not all familiar with it. The pain from fibromyalgia is what typically prompts people to visit a neurologist, and this specialist may prescribe medications to control your pain.
FACT: Fibromyalgia is a neurological disease affecting a person's sensory processing system. Fibromyalgia does not involve inflammation or damage to joints. Brain imaging and studies have shown that fibromyalgia is a disorder of the central nervous system.
Teeth grinding is another issue frequently experienced by those of us with FM. For this reason, I had my dentist make me a mouth guard, which I'm embarrassed to say I don't wear every night. Grinding wears down tooth enamel, can cause teeth to break, and exacerbates the pain of TMJ.
Cervical pain, and even facial pain, especially in terms of masticatory fatigue, are extremely common in FS. Comorbidities are also extremely common, even in the field of orofacial pain, as up to 80% of patients with FM also suffer from headaches or temporomandibular disorders [6].
The central nervous system (brain, spinal cord and nerves) transmits information all over your body through a network of specialised cells. Changes in the way this system works may explain why fibromyalgia results in constant feelings of, and extreme sensitivity to, pain.
Previous studies have repeatedly found distinct brain morphometric changes in patients with fibromyalgia (FM), mainly affecting gray and white matter abnormalities in areas related to sensory and affective pain processing.
“They don't tell you about the emotions you will have to deal with every single day, the grief for the person you used to be, the guilt you'll feel every time you let someone down and cancel plans, the fear of the future and the feeling of being a burden to your family.
The FM/a ® Test analyzes your immune system's white blood cells for their chemokine and cytokine protein patterns. Those who suffer from fibromyalgia will show an abnormal pattern of these protective proteins.
The nerve conduction results in FM patients were no different from those of normal subjects except for prolonged peroneal distal motor latency ( P=0.048) and decreased peroneal motor conduction velocity ( P=0.030).
Magnesium
Not only is it credited with keeping the heart, kidneys and bones strong, it also helps us avoid muscle spasms, weakness and back pain, Dr. Teitelbaum says. Women with fibromyalgia may be deficient in magnesium, studies suggest. And magnesium may help relieve fibro pain and other symptoms.