Fibromyalgia Symptoms
Every Person is Different
Fibromyalgia means widespread pain, but it causes a slew of symptoms. Some are debilitating, while others make it difficult to get through the day.
Your symptoms will fluctuate in severity from day to day, and everyone experiences fibromyalgia differently. No two patients are alike. In addition, many symptoms come and go. Unfortunately, trying to figure out what triggers symptom flare-ups often proves futile. Fibromyalgia is an unpredictable and variable disease.
Top Ten Symptoms
Pain All Over – People describe fibromyalgia pain as deep muscular aching, throbbing, shooting, stabbing, or intense burning. In addition to diffuse discomfort, patients also experience regional pains (such as headaches).
Fatigue – Exhaustion is the most incapacitating fibromyalgia symptom.1 You feel as though your arms and legs are weighed down by concrete blocks. The lethargy can be overwhelming.
Sleep Difficulties – This symptom doesn’t just pertain to problems falling asleep. Repeat arousals prevent you from reaching deep, restorative sleep.2 Consequently, you wake up feeling like you have been hit by a Mack truck.
Brain Fog (fibrofog) – Trouble concentrating, retaining new information, and word-finding are common fibromyalgia symptoms that interfere with everyday function.3 As a result, you are easily distracted and avoid multitasking.
Morning Stiffness – You wake up feeling stiff as though your muscles turned into dried leather overnight. Naturally, this symptom creates an uphill battle to get moving in the morning.
Muscle Knots, Cramping, Weakness – No matter how much you try to relax your muscles, they feel tense. Rope-like knots called myofascial trigger points contribute to this symptom in fibromyalgia, along with muscle cramping and weakness.
Itchy/Burning Skin – Your skin looks normal but might feel like a bad sunburn. On the other hand, your skin may have itchy red bumps like hives.4
Balance Problems – Fibromyalgia patients experience greatly reduced balance confidence.5 Additionally, ringing in the ears and dizziness are common yet related symptoms.
Sensory Sensitivities – Lights, sounds, odors, and other sensory sensations are annoying and worsen your painful symptoms.6 You feel as though all your senses are being magnified.
Exercise Difficulties – Moderate intensity exercise can make your pain worse, at least in the beginning, due to exercise intolerance. Thus, finding activities that do not flare up your fibromyalgia symptoms is a challenge.
Associated Conditions
Aside from the key symptoms of fibromyalgia, you probably have associated conditions that drag you down. Recognizing and treating these other conditions can be very beneficial.
Headaches/Migraines – Recurrent tension headaches or migraines affect more than 70 percent of fibromyalgia patients. For many patients, headache symptoms are severe and occur frequently. Trigger points in the neck and shoulder muscles are partly to blame.
Digestive Disorders – Irritable bowel syndrome occurs in 40 to 70 percent of fibromyalgia patients. Symptoms include constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, gas and bloating. Additionally, acid reflux and slowed digestion also occur.
Pelvic Pain – Irritable bladder affects 40 to 50 percent of fibromyalgia patients. Other related conditions include interstitial cystitis, endometriosis (in women), and prostatitis (in men). Bladder function complexity (muscles must relax and contract for this organ to work) and hormonal changes controlling the uterus and prostate make the pelvic region vulnerable to developing chronic painful conditions
Jaw Pain – Temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome causes tremendous jaw-related face and head pain in one-fourth of people with fibromyalgia. Typically, the symptoms are related to the muscles and ligaments surrounding the jaw joint and not the joint itself.
Orthostatic Intolerance – A subset of patients with fibromyalgia experience lightheadedness when changing position from sitting to standing. Basically, the heart struggles to pump blood to the brain due to neurological control issues. As a result, orthostatic intolerance compounds your fatigue and makes exercise more difficult.
Aggravating Factors
Other medical conditions will exacerbate fibromyalgia symptoms, such as arthritis or lupus. In addition, the following situations can make you feel worse: adverse weather (especially cold climates and rapid changes in barometric pressure), cold or drafty environments, hormonal fluctuations (premenstrual and menopausal states), poor quality sleep, stress, depression, anxiety, and over-exertion.
Aside from enhanced sensory sensitivities, certain foods and some prescription medications will intensify your symptoms. Also, the following conditions add to the burden of living with fibromyalgia:
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- Nasal congestion
- Dizziness
- Painful periods
- Profuse sweating
- Chemical sensitivities
- Vulvodynia (vulvar pain)/testicular pain
- Difficulty focusing eyes
- Dry/burning eyes and mouth
- Ringing and pain in the ears
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Learn how your symptoms can be treated; see Medications, Nondrug Treatments, Diet & Nutrition, techniques for Muscle Pain Relief, and Movement Therapies.
If you are unsure whether you have fibromyalgia, check our pages on Diagnosis and What is Fibromyalgia?
References for Fibromyalgia Symptoms
- Humphrey L, et al. BMC Musculoskeletal Dis 11:216, Sept 2010. Free Article
- Kishi A, et al. SLEEP 34(11):1551-60, 2011. Free Article
- Cardoso S, et al. BMC Psychology 12:104, 2024. Free Article
- D’Ohghia M, et al. J Clin Med 13:4404, 2024. Free Article
- Brigida N, et al. Sports 12:90, 2024. Free Article
- Dorris ER, et al. Frontiers Pain Res 3:926331, 2022. Free Article