DOES FIBROMYALGIA PAIN EVERYWHERE?
You will have such a disease that you will suffer from constant pain, but when the doctors you go to examine you, they will have difficulty explaining your complaints and all tests will be found normal. After a while, even your relatives will look suspiciously at your efforts to explain your pain. On the other hand, perhaps you will start to think that you have a hidden cancer. However, your disorder is actually fibromyalgia, which is a feeling of pain expressed excessively by the brain and related nerve structure, and is also a condition associated with forgetfulness, sleep disorders, weakness and especially ups and downs in your emotional state. We have to accept the fact that these people are in really serious pain. However, if we make this pain into a package and give it to a completely healthy person with an injection, it will be seen that much less pain will be felt. Although our patients often tell usmy pain threshold is actually very high, the actual sensitivity threshold expressed here is very high.
I actually believe that the above paragraph describes the fibromyalgia patient beautifully. Even though human beings have more opportunities every day, things are getting more complicated because both the patient's environment and doctors do not consider this disease, which affects 8% of societies, as a real disease. As a result, the person finds himself in an even more incomprehensible situation and daily movements seem to cause even more pain and sleep becomes more disrupted.
Fibromyalgia can be seen at any age and is significantly more common in women than in men. All societies, rich and poor, developed and undeveloped, cultured and uncultured, are affected at similar rates. Especially individuals with a family history of long-term pain complaints and fibromyalgia, those exposed to psychological stress and trauma, and those who have complained of pain for years are even stronger patient candidates. On the other hand, if our patient also has chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the risk of fibromyalgia is 3 times higher. Fibromyalgia should definitely come to mind in our patients who we think have completed their treatment but state that things are not going well and their pain continues. These long-standing diseases, especially those of rheumatic origin, affect the person's psychosis. It has destroyed and damaged the logical endurance dams and created a storm inside.
The most important complaint of a significant portion of patients is pain. Sometimes a deep pain that cannot be described exactly has been bothering him for years. Shoulder, neck and back pains are felt even more. We can say that fibromyalgia is more common in those who complain of painful menstrual pain (dysmenorrhea). There are meaningless pains and complaints in different parts of our body, for example; such as jaw pain, constant weakness, painful and frequent cystitis feeling. However, for me, the intestinal system is one of the mirrors of the soul that reflects to the outside. The toilet habits of a mentally clear person work like clockwork and they do not have complaints such as constipation or gas. However, half of fibromyalgia patients have serious constipation problems and our patients are diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome in gastroenterology outpatient clinics.
Why do fibromyalgia patients perceive or feel pain more? Could we help the patient more if we understood this problem? Our behavior, mental structure and social situation in our lives are always effective at this point. For people who abandon themselves to the flow of time, who do not try to stand up against any event, who look for reasons in others for the events in their lives, and who give up because they cannot change their circumstances even though they do their best, pain is actually a language in which the body expresses itself to the outside. Trying to explain this situation by calling it a trick is usually a mistake made by those around the patient. Sleep disorders are one of the main factors that cause this disease. In fact, there is nothing like a really good sleep, and the body of a person who is happy, smiles and says what a beautiful day is starting when he wakes up in the morning will not be affected by a disease called fibromyalgia. On the other hand, when obesity, laziness or lack of activity or lack of exercise, and dissatisfaction in business life are added, a person who is a candidate for fibromyalgia emerges.
Let's take a step with our language...
What's wrong with you?Everywhere I touch hurts, sometimes I get cramps
When did your complaint start?I've been feeling it for a long time
Where do you feel your pain the most?It seems to spread from my shoulders to my arms, my neck hurts a lot and spreads everywhere, my hips also hurt, I have pain and coldness and burning sensations going down to my legs....
Do you have any other complaints?
Do you have any other complaints?
strong>Can't sleep or constipation or gas
Previously, it was recommended to count tender points for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. However, today we have abandoned this diagnostic method, which I have never thought of. The most important step in diagnosis is to have a clear interview with the patient and then a thorough examination. This is a turning point and we have now diagnosed the patient and believe me, this is our first and biggest move that puts our patient at ease. Because now their complaints have a name and it is understood that they are real. The fact that there were no obvious abnormalities in his examination and that his tests came out fine was another reassuring factor for him. What needs to be known from now on is that further testing and research must absolutely stop. If there are proven medical clues that the doctor himself has noticed, our physicians are already investigating this.
The fibromyalgia patient's inability to explain his problem, his inability to express himself, and his anxiety about whether he should ask someone else, increase his distrust in medicine over time, leaving him uncertain about what is going on. It will push him into the lap of grass-garbage treatments.
A patient I treated at the clinic, who is in his 60s and diagnosed with fibromyalgia, said that although nearly half of his complaints decreased in the second month of his treatment, they did not completely go away. He repeated this question to me 6-7 times throughout our conversation and asked me every time. Once again, I realized that he wasn't listening to what I was telling him. When I asked him what was most important in the treatment of this disease(so what did you do for yourself?)he got angry with me. In fact, the most important treatment step that we may not be able to explain well to our patients and that we may sometimes neglect is motivating the patient to live. A person who believes that he will be okay understands that he must struggle. Believe me, words are inadequate to describe how much we need a positive struggle with oneself in fibromyalgia. Actually, the result of this effort is to hold on to life...
1. You should definitely exercise, but these exercises should be regular and within a certain discipline. Even if it is small, your exercises will be beneficial if you do them consistently. It will happen. Believe me, aerobics, pilates and plates with equipment that can be done at home will relax you more than you think.
2. We actually need to adapt this treatment, called behavioral therapy, which targets the education of small groups, to our own society. Because it is necessary to find ways out of fibromyalgia, which mostly affects housewives in our country. Book reading hours, hand knitting or crafting hours can be planned together. When housewives come together, they should look for ways to spend their time usefully. It is necessary to stop investigating what diseases are behind the cold and burning, taking into account all kinds of aches and pains at every point in our body.
3. Although herbal medicines come to mind as complementary medicine, they are not really effective. I rarely recommend acupuncture to patients whose pain I have difficulty relieving, and scientific data on this subject is increasing. Turkish baths and spas are only useful if they are a treatment that is accompanied by exercise and taught to the patient.
4. As for the drugs we use; Trying to relieve pain alone reduces our chances of success. Since it will be used for a long time, painkillers with the lowest dose and effect should be used. On the other hand, I would like to point out that we give anti-depressants remembering that the main goal is a good sleep. Although one of the underlying causes of the disease is chronic depression, we are unlikely to get rid of fibromyalgia by treating depression alone. In recent years, drugs containing gabapentin and pregabalin are the methods we use most in this field. However, all these treatment options are not easy to use, especially due to their appetite-increasing, dizziness, and edema-inducing side effects.
The truth of the matter is that a fibromyalgia patient who does not make an effort and cannot change his perspective on his life has little chance of recovery. Regardless of the stress factors that the conditions cause, instead of complaining about them, we must gather all our strength and overcome those obstacles. While the soul is caught up in the vortex of life, it is impossible for the body to keep up with it in a healthy way.
Read: 0
