Fibromyalgia pain can easily derail your entire life. It’s an agonizing and seemingly endless experience that leaves you unable to do the things others take for granted. But while this pain is the most noticeable symptom and the one that usually sends people to the doctor for the first time, there are a large number of painless fibromyalgia symptoms.
And because many of these symptoms aren’t things people typically associate with fibromyalgia, they often go unnoticed, which can delay getting a diagnosis. So, here are some painless fibromyalgia symptoms you need to watch out for.
6 Painless Symptoms of Fibromyalgia
Fibro Fog
One of the most common – and hard to recognize – painless symptoms of fibromyalgia is what is called “fibrous fog”. Essentially, it’s a kind of mental haze that affects people with fibromyalgia from time to time and results in a range of mental symptoms.
Usually, fibro fog makes it hard to concentrate on daily tasks or makes you forget simple details you just learned. It’s not uncommon for someone with fibro fog to do something like leave their house keys in the door or spend half an hour looking for their cell phone only to realize it’s in their hand.
You might even forget the names of people you just met, which can be very embarrassing. But these are all things that happen to everyone from time to time, which makes it difficult to immediately associate this symptom with fibromyalgia. But if you’re still having trouble focusing, you may be suffering from fibro fog.
Anxiety
Anxiety is another common indomitable symptom of fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, everyone feels anxious from time to time and a large number of people around the world suffer from anxiety disorders. For example, 18% of all Americans struggle daily with severe anxiety, making it the most common mental illness in the nation.
But persistent anxiety is also associated with fibromyalgia. And that means if you experience panic attacks or feelings of fear regularly, you could have the condition.
Frequent bowel movements
Irritable bowel syndrome is a condition that affects around 10% of the world’s population. And it is characterized by a wide range of problems with your intestines. This can cause you to become constipated or do the opposite and cause you severe diarrhea. It’s actually a much bigger problem than the name might suggest.
But, fibromyalgia can often lead to symptoms similar to those of IBS. And people with fibromyalgia often end up feeling constipated or having frequent bowel movements.
So if you go to the bathroom often (or not often enough), you may have fibromyalgia.
Frequent urination
Another of the weird but painless symptoms of fibromyalgia is frequent urination. Essentially, someone who suffers from this symptom will find they have an uncontrollable urge to urinate frequently, no matter how little they drink or how often they go.
And while it doesn’t seem like a serious problem, imagine having to urinate very badly, but not being able to get up due to your severe fibromyalgia pain. Or imagine getting some sleep, you can be interrupted by a need to use the bathroom. This makes frequent urination a rather unpleasant symptom.
Itching
Itching is one of the most common painless symptoms of fibromyalgia and is one of the most irritating. In fact, some people with fibromyalgia itch that it’s worse than the pain. Essentially, it’s a feeling of bugs hanging over your skin or severe itchiness that you just can’t heal.
No amount of creams or lotions seem to really help and simply scratching leaves your skin bloody with no relief. Of course, few people immediately associate itching with fibromyalgia, making it a very easy symptom to overlook.
Tingling or Hands and feet numb
In addition to fibromyalgia pain, it causes other sensations in your body. One of the most common is a touch in your hands or feet. You probably recognize the sensation as what you feel when your limbs “fall asleep.”
It is a feeling of numbness in the limb followed by a feeling of pins and needles as the feeling returns. But while everyone has a limb that occasionally falls asleep after sleeping or sitting on it, the feeling of fibromyalgia can occur at any time and is usually overlooked by sufferers of the condition.
Fibromyalgia causes a wide range of symptoms, and most are easy to miss if you’re not careful. So, always make sure to examine the symptoms carefully and consult the doctor if you become severe.
