What Does It Feel Like to Have Fibromyalgia

Dealing With a Chronic Pain

Have you ever had the flu? I’m not talking about a runny nose and a fever, but a hard core flu where every muscle in your body hurt, so much so, that you were bed fast for several days and it hurt to get out of bed?
Have you ever broken a bone? I’m talking about a multiple compound fracture that had to be fixed by screws. Have you ever had back pain, like degenerative and or bulging discs? Or have you injured your back to the point of immobility? Have you ever felt the prickly burning and tingling sensation in your feet or legs when they are thawing out under hot water?
Put these together and you have an idea, just an idea, of what the agony feels like to a fibromyalgia patient. Those pains and sensations just mentioned are of the type most people can relate to. But, believe it or not, there is even more pain that comes with fibromyalgia than previously mentioned.
For a Fibro patient, those perceptions are an ongoing daily sensation and can be worse during a flare. The pain can be so bad in the ribs and sternum that we are forced to breathe shallow to avoid the dire agony of a deep breath. Breathing shallow creates another set of problems like adding lightheadedness and dizziness to those already miserable headaches. As you can see, symptoms can fall like dominoes when you have debilitating daily pain. With fibromyalgia the headaches can range from run of the mill all the way to migraine level headaches.

Fibromyalgia Hurts!

In my life, from about seven or eight years old to twenty-one years old I’ve had five substantial concussions and a few minor concussions along with six surgeries, dozens of stitches, seven or eight broken bones and score of painful moments associated with this medical history all before fibromyalgia. Let me explain in more detail. I got hit in the head with a baseball bat playing street ball. I literally saw stars and a few days later had the worse exploding headache sensation in my life to that point.
I broke my nose, received whiplash and a minor concussion playing football in Junior High School. I was knocked out in that injury, but after a trip to the hospital the pain was comparatively minor. Fast forward two or three years later when I was hit by a Cadillac while riding my bicycle. I cracked my skull and broke my nose. The injury knocked me out and gave me a small period of amnesia along with a serious concussion. I was hospitalized for a few days and the pain was severe but manageable until several days later when I was home nursing paralyzing headaches that were so severe that all I could do was lay flat on my bed and waiting for the searing pain to work its through its cycle and ease up. Those headaches made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t walk or talk or cry out for help. I can’t remember how many of those I had, all I can remember was that they literally stopped me from living. All I could do was barely breathe through the erupting agony in my head.
Fast forward again about five years later and I was in a wreck with that blue Chevy Chevette. I broke my left leg in six or eight pieces and the main piece of upper and lower shin bone ripped through my skin and were poking out. It took two screws to piece it all back together. I also had an amnesia level head injury. I might as well have broken all my ribs, they all hurt like I had, but they were just sprained. I struggled to breathe it hurt so bad. I breathed much better after I passed out from the pain. I haven’t mentioned recuperating from the surgeries or any of the stitches because I don’t want to bore you with those details. I mention all these illnesses and injuries to compare to the day in and day out agony of fibromyalgia.
When making the comparison too, just a year’s worth of active fibro pain compared to the combined agony of those experiences I would choose those experiences over fibromyalgia. With those injuries and surgeries, in every case there was light at the end of the tunnel. With fibromyalgia, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The pain is constant and never ending making the hurt of fibromyalgia much worse than any of those experiences.
If someone would’ve said you will experience greater pain than these headaches twenty years after I was hit by a car I might have shot myself on the spot. While lying in the bed after my car wreck, if someone would’ve said this is minor compared to your future pain I may have lost all hope.
But if could replace my current painful experience with those of my past, I would go back in time in a heartbeat. So long as that was all the pain, I would experience going forward. The point is that it’s hard to fathom any painful condition worse than a fibromyalgia.
Another thing to consider when looking at the agony of fibro is that the chronic ache and hurt leads to other symptoms likes chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression, to name a few. There are well more than ninety symptoms of fibromyalgia and about eight or nine are directly related to pain, maybe more.
Trying to describe what fibromyalgia is like is virtually impossible. Every fibro patient has unique pains on top of what I have already described. The bone crushing pain that occurs from the core of your body pushing its way out to the surface is excruciatingly debilitating. This pain forces you into bed or in my case a recliner. My back and neck hurt so bad I can’t lay in bed unless I am going to sleep with heavy medication. Thankfully, I have a recliner that can put me in several positions to help change the pressure on my neck, back, hips and legs. I spoke to my children’s pediatrician once about the pain associated with fibro. He described it by saying it is like having arthritis in all your muscles. I know fibromyalgia isn’t a form of arthritis, but it is a good description of the type of debilitating pain associated with fibromyalgia.
I’ve heard from some source I don’t remember that some have described fibro as having a body wide migraine. The bottom line is fibromyalgia is a terrible illness to have.

Troy Wagstaff © All rights Reserved

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