Fibromyalgia and Pregnancy

Most women find their pregnancies to be very enjoyable, but pregnancy can definitely have its difficult times. Whether it’s morning sickness, insomnia, or just plain old fatigue, being pregnant can really take it out of you. When you are pregnant and fighting an illness though, things can be even worse. Women with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder, often wonder if they will be able to deal with the demands of a pregnancy.

What is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a relatively unknown illness, even though it affects between 3 and 6 million Americans every year. Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that causes widespread and chronic pain in your body. This pain is also accompanied by numerous other symptoms and often has a great impact on your freedom and enjoyment of life. Fibromyalgia syndrome seems to attack more women than men, with 80% of sufferers being female. Onset of this syndrome generally occurs during early adulthood or middle age and is characterized by symptoms that wax and wane over periods of time.

Symptoms of Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia symptoms are painful and can be debilitating. Fibromyalgia attacks the muscles throughout your body, causing them to ache, burn, and twitch. If you are suffering from the syndrome, you probably feel achy all over, especially in the arms, lower back, shoulders and neck area. Fibromyalgia causes tingling in the fingers and toes, severe fatigue, headaches, and sleep problems. The syndrome is also associated with abdominal pain and gastrointestinal complications. Additionally, many suffers have to deal with anxiety and depression triggered by their fibromyalgia.

There is currently no cure for fibromyalgia and treatments are also limited in their effectiveness. Generally, antidepressants and pain suppressants are used to treat the symptoms of fibromyaligia. This lack of effective fibromyalgia treatment is basically due to the minimal knowledge researchers have about the syndrome. No one is completely sure of the causes of the illness and thus no appropriate treatments for fibromyalgia have yet been found.

Fibromyalgia and Pregnancy
Not very much is known about the course of fibromyalgia during pregnancy. In fact, there seems to be conflicting evidence between researchers and doctors as to the effects of pregnancy on the syndrome. It is generally accepted that more fibromyalgia research must be performed in order to get an accurate idea of what happens to fibromyalgia syndrome during pregnancy.