Archive for November, 2009

Men and Fibromyalgia

Posted by admin On November - 30 - 2009Comments Off

Fibromyalgia is a medical condition which causes pain in the muscles and tendons of the body and, as a result, fatigue and irregular sleep. In the understanding reached by the medical community about the condition, it is due to an increase of pain as a result of stimulation by the nerves. The condition occurs more in women than in men with men making up a fifth of the number of people who suffer from it. What are those factors that play a role in only a fifth of men getting it?

The general causes of it are researched to be genetic, stress is as important a factor and is a factor that also makes it more aggravating. The pain, which is a regular function of the many neurotransmitters, is a result of the central nervous system gone bad. This is related to the dysfunctional levels of serotonin and dopamine (neurotransmitters). Lesser occurring reasons of the condition are changes in the climate, too much activity and exercise for the body, fluctuation in the manufacture of hormones and hence the decreased hormone levels, severe depression and cold.

The men specific symptoms are far milder than the same in women and are not as commonly found. Men’s symptoms, being less, also subside over a period of time – the case is not so with women. The symptoms though are stiffness and ache in the body that brings about a feeling of extra tiredness. The pain varies from being an ongoing continuous pain to a sensation that just comes off and on periodically. The pain with the fatigue can just drain all the energy out of a man enabling to do absolutely nothing with himself.

The other very important symptom is pain in the tender joints of the body. The pain, if provoked by pressing on it, can be very extreme and painful. The most usual places to find this pain are the back of the head, the front of the neck, the upper hip, shoulder blades and the inside of the knees. Getting regular continuous sleep is a big hassle for these people. In men, one of the unique things is the jaw pain, the cause of which is temporomandibular joint dysfunction. It counts for face and head pain as well. The men who suffer from it start to be able to concentrate less and remember less as well. Irritable bowel syndrome, stiffness after getting up in the morning and palpations are some of the other symptoms. Sensitivity to bright light, noise and the strong odor are added only male symptoms that females don’t face.

To treat the condition, the first thing that is done is to determine whether it is indeed fibromyalgia and not one of the many related condition that have the same symptoms. Once determined, there are a host of preventive measures that can be taken. These are three kinds – medication, therapy and exercise. What is important is that men admit to actually being incapable by the condition which is not usually done.

Treatment Of Fibromyalgia Tender Points

Posted by admin On November - 30 - 2009Comments Off

Some of the most obvious symptoms for fibromyalgia are pain in the muscles, face and tendons and pain in the tender points. These symptoms are the same for many similar diseases including arthritis. It is important that whether the condition is fibromyalgia or not, it must be figured out before one going for pain relief. This is because the pain relief exercises conducted for Fibromyalgia are distinct and any other intended pain relief exercises won’t do.

One of the key pain spots are the tender joints. They are the joints that are tendered to touch in your body. When one is under the influence of fibromyalgia, it is causes extreme pain to just place a little pressure on these points. This pain is so bad in some cases that some people can’t have even a bed sheet touch their tender points. To keep the pain from hitting you, you must do all you can to keep all these points from any pressure at all times. There are times when even your face becomes so painful that it becomes unimaginable how one can ever do that.

To kill the pain that comes with fibromyalgia, anti-flammatory drugs and pain killers are very useful in the simpler cases. To go with these you can also administer to yourself some muscle relaxants and analgesics. Anti depression tablets help you get the sleep to give your body rest to carry yourself throughout the day. Anti-seizure tablets also do a lot to a body suffering from fibromyalgia. All these medications only make life easier to live with for a while if you have to live it with fibromyalgia.

The right therapy is three-fold – medication, therapy and exercise. Medicine is prescribed dependent on the seriousness of the situation. Therapy includes exercises that relax the muscles as opposed exercises that strain them – stretching exercises and water therapy included. Water provides the least resistance so it is easy to do these exercises in the water. After medication and administered therapy, one needs to keep it up at home. So stretching exercises, maintenance of enough activity to let the muscle be active and other such things are highly recommended.

There are various natural methods too that you can use to heal the pain. One of them is using oils. Various oils have different effects on the body – as separate oils and as mixtures in the right proportion. An expert must be consulted on this before you administer any oil to yourself. Herbal consumption medicines also are good because they have fewer side effects.

Overall, all medicines will not work for all people who are suffering from Fibromyalgia. Some will work and some may not as there is not proper analysis yet on the condition. What we do know is that the condition is rampant and its symptoms cause its sufferers pain. There are standard ways to cure it for the simpler cases and a little more advanced and customized ways for the more serious ones.

Don’t Let That Fibromyalgia Pain Spread

Posted by admin On November - 25 - 2009Comments Off

The pain that you suffer from when fibromyalgia occurs is excruciating. It cam permeate into almost every area of your daily living and make every activity the most uncomfortable that you have done ever. There are ways to get through it but a lot of people do not understand the practical and the emotional effect of the pain on the body of a patient. This causes the patient to undergo even more stress and finally becomes mentally helpless. The fact of the matter is that that pain is indeed in every place possible and there is no way to get rid of it. The only thing to do is to learn to how to reduce it while living with it.

There are people who you can talk to including support groups but the best judge of what method is best for his or her pain the person who is undergoing the pain. There is a whole host of methods that are available to be availed of by the people who are plagued by the pain that comes along with the condition. The list looks like – self-hypnosis, relaxation exercises, stretching exercises, heat therapy, self evaluation and medication. What is more important is that the patient understands what her body is going through and admits it to herself first. Then they must learn to talk to close friends, family and their doctor about how they are feeling honestly.

One good idea is to maintain a diary with the changes the condition is taking her through intact with the medication that she was taking at the time. If there was a noticeable change, then it must be looked into what works, what doesn’t and why it must be so.

The pain brings about the intense fatigue that the body goes through for somebody studying with fibromyalgia. There is absolutely no strength even if you try and get some. Every single possibly small thing that you ever need to do seems almost impossible because of the intense pain that the condition brings along with it.

The important thing about managing the pain spreading is that everything must be pre planned. You must be able to anticipate when it comes, what triggers it, at what time of the day it is more, what time does the fatigue hit the most etc. In simple words, One must stay ahead of pain. Once you understand these factors, you will be able to handle it more efficiently. If you are smart with you pain, your pain won’t be smart with you.

There are new medicines and techniques coming out every now and then. Read up about these treatments and even ask your doctor if they are advisable. All might not work. You can then follow the same rule of informing your doctor as you write in your dairy as to what works and what doesn’t to understand the condition better so that you can stay in the top of it and not let it walk all over you.

How To Know If You Have Fibromyalgia

Posted by admin On November - 20 - 2009Comments Off

Let’s start with basics. Fibromyalgia is what happens to you when your muscles (and basically all other fibrous tissues) have fatigue and pain. The places where it is most likely to occur are those spots where slight pressure can turn into immense pain. In its early research stages, it was known as Chronic Muscle pain Syndrome, Tension Myalgias, Psychogenic Rheumatism and Fibrositis. It is not fatal or crippling hence there is no need to worry. There are no permanent side effects but it a very painful experience – something that can be effectively lessened with the right treatment. It happens in muscles, tendons, fibrous tissues and, ligaments – these and other connective tissues.

To recognize and protect yourself from having fibromyalgia occur to you, you must learn to recognize the symptoms of early fibromyalgia. They can include groin pain, a dry cough, drooling while you are asleep, a sore throat, suffering from a stiff neck, nocturnal sinus stuffiness, post nasal drip, swelling of glands, a running nose, difficulties in swallowing, tooth ache, shortness of breath and a red eye. If you face problems when you climb stairs, then you must get yourself checked up for getting fibromyalgia.

There are a variety of symptoms that shows that Fibromyalgia has occurred to one. These can actually be actually be affected (accentuated and brought down) by the climate around the patient, the emotional, physical and mental stress that the person is going through climatic conditions, the physical activities that the person is or is not doing to keep his body active and also the surrounding environment that he or she is in. Despite the variety of symptoms, Fibromyalgia has not had a cause figured out yet. Therefore, it has also not had a cure developed to help one rid him or herself of it.

Most times the symptoms experienced are fatigue to some level of intensity. This makes one totally drained and with no energy at all in the body. This makes people who suffer from fibromyalgia lose sleep. Headaches of all sorts also hit the patient. Constipation, abdominal pain and bladder spasms are some of the other symptoms that occur that form a sudden need to scratch because of the irritation and increased urinary urgency.

At times, even temperature changes can occur that increase or decrease symptoms like blood circulations and skin reactions. People with the condition also don’t ever get enough rest despite sleeping the regular hours because their bodies send them the wrong signals due to the defect in the central system. The main symptom that you must watch out for is the pain that you experience in tender points from where it starts to spread all over the body. The common tender points that fall victim to fibromyalgia are the neck, rib cage, upper back, behind the head, the upper region of the back and the knees.

How Does One Treat Fibromyalgia

Posted by admin On November - 10 - 2009Comments Off

There is no single proved way that will cure a fibromyalgia patient of the condition but there are quite a few measures that have been found out to use when it occurs. The most effective and used modern methods are pain management, muscle relaxing and the reduction of depression. The main ways that are used in this day and age are exercises that prove to reduce the stress on muscles like walking, exercises in water (swimming and water aerobics), cycling and not heavy muscle stressful exercises like exercising with weights. Alternatives are using heat to relax muscles that are bad, massaging parts of the body that are affected and using stretching exercises to heal the suffering areas of the body.

Medicine wise, there is no drug as such that cures except the ones the ones kill pain and give the patient sleep that is long lasting. The usual prescriptions consist of analgesics, antidepressants and muscle relaxants. Common prescriptions are Acetaminophen which will bring about the reduction of the pain and stiffness brought about by fibromyalgia. The key issue here is that this drug will not work with anybody and everybody so it must be prescribed by a doctor. Tramadol relieves pain only and can be easily used on its own or alongside acetaminophen. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) are the most preferred prescriptions. Usually what is preferred is ibuprofen (inclusive of Advil and Motrin among others), aspirin and naproxen sodium (including Anaprox and Aleve). But they have to be taken with complementing medications because they are not at all effective by themselves.

Antidepressants such as doxepin (most commonly inequan), amitriptyline, nortriptyline (usually Aventyl or Pamelor) is given to allow for the required amount of sleep to the patient uninterrupted. Fluoxetine mixed amitriptyline is also found to be very useful. Paroxetine & Sertraline are particularly preferred for people who are under severe depression. What these medicines do is that they work with the levels of serotin in the brain. Cyclobenzaprine is taken as muscle relaxants but when one is going to bed to avoid any during sleep spasms and muscle pain.

The regular simple sleeping pills and pain killers are not strongly suggested by doctors. This is primarily because while they have a good immediate effect, they have side effects that outdo this benefit. The other disadvantage is that the drugs are narcotic which is why they do much more harm than good.

On one’s own, one can take certain simple steps to prevent fibromyalgia. They can initiate a proper regular exercise workout that keeps the body moving and the muscles active. Stretching exercises and exercises to relax yourself go a long way. A daily rest time is good as it rejuvenates the body and mind regularly especially in the season of maddening schedules. Moreover, the simplest way of all is to live an overall simple and healthy lifestyle giving yourself enough natural body action