Understanding The Incapacitating Effect Of Fibromyalgia

What is fibromyalgia, if not the most likely condition to incapacitate the human body? Ask any sufferer of fibromyalgia and the tales of woe can be staggering. Patients suffering from this illness may present with incredible pain, even though physically there is nothing that points to a cause for this pain. They feel virtually permanently zapped of any energy, but at the same time there is no physical indicator why they should be so run down all the time. Their nutritional intake is excellent, there are not vitamin deficiencies, and patients with fibromyalgia also do not take any medications that could be to blame for this kind of rather severe and oft unexpected incapacitation.

Moreover, at times patients who experience fibromyalgia that is triggered by certain occasions or events cannot even point to a particularly stressful, demanding or even high impact job that may be to blame and subsequently left behind for a reversal of the condition. As fibromyalgia continues to take hold, the combination of pain and weariness makes everyday chores hard – or virtually impossible to continue -- and it is only a matter of time until a certain level of nervousness sets in that there is no way a patient can continue to function in a normal manner within the family unit. It is inevitable that the soreness caused by fibromyalgia is the most devastating factor of the disease.

It usually pushes patients suffering with the disease from participating in a host of previously enjoyable activities. Such hobbies and outings include hands-on tasks, like gardening, planting, painting, writing, or even tinkering. At times the incapacitating pain brought on by fibromyalgia so severe that patients become forced to stay inside, become afraid to venture out of doors, and might even resign themselves to lounge on the couch or stay in bed, lest their activities give them any more pain and suffering than they are already encountering.

Incapacitation from fibromyalgia is of course a double edged sword and while the pain – or even just the fear of pain – is enough to debilitate the patient, the tiredness that goes hand in hand with this soreness serves to further heighten the debilitating aspects of the disease. In many cases patients find the fatigue worse than the pain. The former may be combated with painkillers or even holistic relaxation and acupuncture treatments; the latter, however, defies prescriptions and oftentimes also dietary supplements. Going outside and taking a part in some much loved outdoor activities becomes an exception, rather than the norm.

The overwhelming sense of tiredness brought on by fibromyalgia slows down patients to such an extent that it takes a lot of discipline and indomitable makeup to not utterly give up on a variety of activities and even the most basic household chores. This is amplified when the fibromyalgia sufferer lives alone and does not have a good support network to help out. More often than not personal hygiene goes by the wayside, and even previously meticulous housekeepers turn into sloppy – at best – homemakers.