You can recognise fibromyalgia by these symptoms

Fibromyalgia is a chronic illness that causes you to suffer from pain, stiffness and fatigue for no clear reason. The symptoms often develop when people are between 25 and 40 years old and it’s especially women who suffer from this illness. About two per cent of adults has this disease, which can influence somebody’s life quite intensely. This is how you recognise the symptoms.

Fibromyalgia literally means “pain in connective tissue and muscles”.

Health issues

Fibromyalgia consists of a combination of health issues. Two people who both suffer from this disease can, therefore, experience very different symptoms. The severity of the symptoms can also vary. The pain can temporarily subside or become worse. Yet there’s definitely a couple of obvious similarities in fibromyalgia patients. These are the most common symptoms:

1. Pain

Nearly everyone who suffers from fibromyalgia suffers from muscle pain or joint pain. This can be a nagging, stabbing or burning pain. It often starts in the back, shoulders or neck. The pain can gradually spread to other parts of the body.

2. Fatigue

The symptom of fatigue occurs in pretty much every fibromyalgia patient.

3. Stiffness

A common symptom of fibromyalgia is feeling very stiff when you’ve spent a long time in a certain position. Especially in the morning, when you’re getting up, you might be experiencing this. During the day, you might have trouble getting up out of a chair.

4. Sleeping problems

The pain might wake you up during the night, which causes you to sleep a lot less soundly. It might also be that you lie awake worrying about the decline of your body.

Go to the next page to read about the remaining three symptoms and what you can do to reduce them!

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