Fibromyalgia: Coping With Sensory Overload

Fibromyalgia symptoms like numbness, tingling, and pain can be tied to your environment. Learn how pain can be affected by reactions to light, sound, or smell.

Sensitivity to environmental stimulation, including bright lights, loud noises, and even certain smells, can make living with fibromyalgia particularly challenging. You might wake up each morning wondering what new trigger may exacerbate your fibromyalgia symptoms.

“I deal with everything on a day-to-day basis,” says Stephanie Parker of Dover, Del., who believes her symptoms are consistent with fibromyalgia but has not yet been formally diagnosed. The symptoms keep her from participating in daily family activities, such as watching her kids’ ballgames in the afternoons.

Tina Pringle, who was diagnosed 16 years ago with fibromyalgia, says that her fibromyalgia symptoms have been overwhelming at times. “The symptoms all merge together, and because of the fatigue and brain fog, everything becomes a maze of sheer confusion,” explains Pringle.

This heightened sensitivity may be difficult for you to understand, much less explain to friends and family members who see no outward problem. The uncomfortable and painful sensations of fibromyalgia may be part of your brain’s unusual way of processing pain, suggests fibromyalgia researcher Benjamin Natelson, MD, a neurology professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and author of Your Symptoms Are Real: What to Do When Your Doctor Says Nothing Is Wrong.

According to a study published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation that compared and analyzed reports from women with rheumatoid arthritis, women with fibromyalgia, and women without a pain syndrome, those with fibromyalgia were much more likely to report intense, unpleasant responses to sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations.

Another study, published in the journal Pain Research and Treatment,suggests that changes in brain chemistry among people with fibromyalgia may be linked to sensitivity to stimuli such as sound and smell. Imaging studies have provided visual depictions of this altered response to sensations. In some respects, the brains of people with fibromyalgia may be hyper-responsive to even the possibility of pain or discomfort, Dr. Natelson says.

Researchers have also tested tissue samples and found elevated levels of inflammatory markers in the skin of people with fibromyalgia — which may be linked to hypersensitivity to touch. Touch sensitivity is real for people like Pringle, who says that there are times when even holding hands with her partner is too painful to bear. Clothes that are too tight, massages, and even light touches all ratchet up her pain and stress. To make matters worse, Pringle says she occasionally even flinches involuntarily when touched by others, which can be hurtful to those around her.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.everydayhealth.com

Widespread pain and fatigue are well-known symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, however, recent studies have concluded that an individual’s symptoms can also be tied to their environment, including reactions to light, sound or smell. Sensory overload can be an additional symptom to fibromyalgia.

For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .