Someone on one of the fibro facebook groups I am on asked the other day whether people thought Fibro was a way of the body telling us to slow down or end up ‘burning out’. Putting together all the things I have read about Fibromyalgia since being diagnosed in March and looking at my own experience, the short answer would be “in my opinion, YES”. The long answer is this:
Most fibromites I know through Facebook and forums and groups were once high achievers often juggling high pressured jobs and family responsibilities. Myself I was always a high achiever in school and went on to put my all into my work at every job I have been in (I have only had 3). I work hard and conscientiously, often doing extra hours to get things finished. I am an AutoCAD Technician for an engineering firm. For those who don’t know AutoCAD it is a program to draw on the computer accurately in millimetres. I am one of the most highly skilled CAD technicians in our office, and possibly in the company. Where other technicians generally had one or two projects on the go I consistently had four or five, I worked twice the speed of most in order to get this volume of work out and to the client on time. I hate to let colleagues or clients down so agreed to most work that came my way, thus making myself overworked. This in turn caused me high stress, which again I think is true of many fibromites. I have no children so at least I didn’t have that added stress. Pressure got worse and worse at work because if I failed to complete work on time or juggle enough to keep everyone happy I would berate myself, I am my own harshest critic. Once you start to fail, people also berate you as they are so used to relying on you and for you to always say yes that they get annoyed when you start to say no!
When you are stressed or scared your body goes into ‘fight or flight’ mode and adrenalin courses through your body to enable you to fight the foe or get away quickly. Cortisol (another hormone) also is released into the body to enable you to sustain your response to the stressful situation. If you are constantly stressed your body initially uses the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism and constantly fills your body with adrenalin and cortisol in order to deal with the stress. This also has the added factor that with so much adrenalin coursing through your body on a constant basis there is no way you are going to be able to sleep properly. When we got our first cat I became a ‘mother’, even while asleep one ear was always open and I knew where the cat was and what he was up to, if he was out I couldn’t sleep until the cat-flap went and he settled on the bed. I am sure this is the way most mothers react when they have their first baby in the house, otherwise they wouldn’t wake up when they cry to be fed! I also over-analysed everything, going over work problems or other problems in my head during the night, going through what I would do the next day and having conversations in my head, trying to imagine what the other person would say and cover every possible answer or argument they might make. With all this going on in my head constantly it is no wonder the adrenalin was racing and no wonder I was struggling to sleep, I just could not switch my brain off! Constantly being aware and alert while asleep prevents you getting to the fourth stage of sleep which is the restorative stage of sleep.
Eventually the body can’t keep up with producing that amount of adrenalin/cortisol constantly and the adrenal gland breaks down and a person goes into Adrenal Fatigue or Adrenal Exhaustion. The original article I read about adrenal fatigue in fibromyalgia is here: http://www.fibroandfatigue.com/adrenal-fatigue-a-critical-condition-in-fibromyalgia-and-chronic-fatigue.html but it is by no means a definite thing and there are many conflicting articles on the internet from various doctors and specialists, but to me it fits with my circumstances and makes me think it could be correct. Unfortunately it is not tested for by the NHS so I have no way of telling if my assumptions are correct.
Being in ‘fight or flight’ mode all the time also causes the nerves to always be on the alert and that, I think, is where then the over-reaction to pain starts with the Fibromyalgia. Nerves are used to being constantly instructed by the brain that they need to be on guard and ready to react. This makes them hyperactive and they start reacting to things they shouldn’t react to like small knocks and muscles over-straining, add this to the fact that you are not getting to the fourth stage of sleep which is the stage where healing of wounds and restoring of energy occurs, then you have muscles that hurt with only minor over-exertions and that can’t heal themselves because the usual healing sleep is not there either. Also, with this comes more nerve reactions of jumping muscles, twitches and all-over itching where the nerve endings are getting completely confused with their signals.
The nerve sensors also react to lights, sounds and smells in an over-active way, making things that you would once not even notice grate, and again cause that ‘fight or flight’ response so that you just have to get away from the irritant, or fight it! Family often think we have a short temper or are being grumpy but it is not that, we just cannot stand the noise/light/smell and forcing us to experience it can cause extreme reaction in us, making us physically sick or giving us a migraine. We are just obeying our body’s instructions to get rid of the irritant or get as far from it as possible.
So where does this leave me at the present time? My brain has basically shut down, it has said “enough is enough”. I can forget what I am saying in the midst of a sentence, I can walk into a room and forget why I am there, some days I can stare at my computer and not know how to proceed with the work I have been doing for eleven years! Many just say “you’re getting old that’s all”, but for someone who used to be erudite with words as I used to be and who used to be at the top of their game work-wise, I find it upsetting and frustrating and many other words that I just can’t find at the moment! My body too has shut down and I cannot walk more than a few yards without the support of crutches, I can’t stand for more than a few minutes without pain, I sleep 18 hours out of 24. I am very sure that this is my body’s way of telling me I need to listen to it, sleep when it tells me to, get rid of as much stress as possible and let it recover, regroup and regain its lost strength. In fact I am actually starting to feel some benefits of my slower pace of life in the last week or so, no doubt to be completely ruined by Christmas, but I have felt as though I have just a fraction more energy at last after years of feeling wiped out by the time I have showered in the morning. I’m not saying I am cured or that I can go back to my old life, but just that things seem to have made a very fractional move in the right direction and that is giving me hope for the long-term future.
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