I have lots of pain in my neck region & in my upper back & I describe them in this fashion.

The pain in my neck region feels like someone has taken a C clamp & is tightening it as hard as they can.

As for the pain in my back it feels like someone has taken a ball bat with nails in it & is continuing hitting me in that area of my body. Both last from a few minutes to an hour or more when they start.

Funny thing, I go for a massage on a weekly basis as I can't take any meds these days & my therapist always seems to find more knots in my lower back.

Boils down to one thing, fibro has a mind of its own.

Do hope you can get some relief soon.

I call these my "wasp stings". They feel like that sudden piercing, burning zap, and sometimes my whole leg will twitch on its own, and I hate them. If that is similar to what you experience? Welcome to the wonderful weirdo world of neurology. My neuro and my neuro-psych both told me it's best to think of it as "nerve is irritated so it bites you". I don't get any one "sting" for long---but I can get a couple dozen in a day's time if my bad hip/damaged nerve are aggravated.

I'd check it out with the docs to be safe. Mine is localized to where the damaged nerve is and to what it attaches to---I never have them anywhere else. Luck and blessing.

thanks you sugarbear and leo for your replys i will ask my dr about it when i go back (if i remember) forget alot, and "wasp stings" is right on the money for what it feels like

Write notes on a pocket calendar about how often and how intense, and take that with you. (Not to be gross, but similar to the menstrual cycle diaries the GYN likes us gals to keep.)

Yeah, wasp stings *suck*

Yes I have had that pain before, as well as several other types of pain. There's baseball bat pain (you feel as if you've been beaten with a bat all night), glass shattering pain (you feel like glass is shredding your skin), sun burned pain (you feel sunburned all over), shredded muscle pain (you feel as if your muscles have been through a paper shredder), vice grip pain (feels like a thousand pliers are squeezing your skin all over) Cement pain (someone has put cement in every muscle in your body) etc. I had so many different types a pain that I began to name them. I have made a lot of progress with my illness, so fortunately for me, I don't experience these types of pain too often anymore, unless I'm having a periodic flare up. Here's a great article about the different types of fibro pain.

TYPES OF FIBROMYALGIA (FM) PAIN

Those of us with fibromyalgia (FM) experience several kinds of chronic pain, usually all at the same time. Only a few of the fibromyalgia pain types have medical names. But just as Eskimos have several words for snow, I have several ways to define and categorize our pain.

Here are some categories based on my own experiences. Knowing the medical terms will help you communicate better with doctors and other healthcare providers, while my categories will help you understand your illness and let you know you're not alone.


Types of Fibromyalgia Pain

The first 3 types of fibromyalgia pain are medically defined:

Hyperalgesia
Paresthesia
Allodynia
The next 4 types are obvious by their names. I wouldn't use these terms in a doctor's office, they might think you're crazy!

Knife in the Voodoo Doll
Randomly Roving Pain
Sparkler Burns
Rattled Nerves

Paresthesia & Fibromyalgia

Paresthesias are odd nerve sensations that can feel like crawling, tingling, burning, itching or numbness. Sometimes, these sensations can be painful. Paresthsias are also associated with peripheral neuropathy, chemotherapy drugs, multiple sclerosis and migraines.

Many common FM treatments can help alleviate paresthesia-related pain, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). Some people also have good luck with vitamin B12, capsaicin cream, massage and acupuncture.


Hyperalgesia & Fibromyalgia

"Hyper" means excess and "algesia" means pain. Hyperalgesia is the medical term for pain amplification in FM. Our brains appear to take normal pain signals and "turn up the volume," making them more severe than they would normally be.

Most of the drugs used for managing FM pain are aimed, at least in part, at reducing hyperalgesia.


Allodynia & Fibromyalgia

A symptom that perplexes a lot of us, especially when it's new, is allodynia. That's what it's called when your skin hurts to the touch, and when mild pressure from clothing or gentle massage causes pain. A lot people describe allodynia as similar to a bad sunburn.

Allodynia is a fairly rare type of pain -- other than FM, it's only associated with a handful of conditions, including neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia (shingles) and migraine. Allodynia is believed to be a hypersensitive reaction that may result from the central sensitization associated with FM. The pain signals originate with specialized nerves, called nociceptors, that sense information about things like temperature and painful stimuli right from the skin.

Allodynia comes in 3 forms:

Tactile, which is pain from touch or gentle pressure
Mechanical, which is from something moving across your skin
Thermal, which is pain from heat or cold that's not severe enough to damage tissues
Some drugs that work for some people with allodynia include:

Tramadol
Lidocaine
Ketamine
Morphine
Venlafaxine
Some people also get relief from topical pain creams (capsaicin, Tiger Balm, Aspercreme, BioFreeze). Paying close attention to the way you dress can help alleviate allodynia as well.

If you have allodynia, massage therapy may make it worse. If you feel other aspects of your health would benefit from massage, be sure to discuss allodynia with your doctor and massage therapist and keep track of how treatments impact this symptom.


Other Fibromyalgia Pain Categories

Once again, the following categories are not medically recognized - they're things I came up with to fill a gap in how we classify different types of pain. They're intended to help you track symptoms, gauge effectiveness of treatments, and to let you know you're not alone.


* Knife in the Voodoo Doll

Sometimes, out of nowhere, I'll get an intense stabbing pain that seems to cut through my body. I generally get this pain in my chest or abdomen, but some people say they get it in other parts of the body. It can be so intense that it makes it hurt to breathe. It usually goes away as fast as it comes. I have no idea how to prevent this type of pain, other than by pacing myself.


* Randomly Roving Pain

This is one of those things that reminds you FM just doesn't make a lot of sense. A lot of us get pain that migrates around the body, sometimes moving between certain places, sometimes striking in new areas. If you also have myofascial pain syndrome, it can be especially hard to tell randomly roving pain from the referred pain caused by trigger points. For me, this pain responds to treatments about the same as hyperalgesia.


* Sparkler Burns

Remember when you were a kid and you hung onto a sparkler for too long? The sparks hit my hand causingtiny pin-pricks of pain? I have almost the same sensations today. They make me jump, and scratching them triggers tactile allodynia. These sensations usually just last a few seconds. I have no idea what triggers them or how to prevent them.


* Rattled Nerves

Most people won't understand why I call this a type of pain, but I'm sure most people with FM will get it. Certain things tend to get my whole body on edge, jumpy, and feeling rattled. It makes me ache all over, and sometimes I get nauseous, dizzy and anxious. Things that rattle my nerves generally involve sensory or emotional overload, such as:

Certain sounds (repetitive, loud, shrill, grating, screaming kids)
Visual chaos (crowds, flashing lights, busy patterns)
Stressful situations (busy traffic, confrontations, fibro-fog induced confusion or disorientation)
When my nerves are rattled, I try to get out of the situation as quickly as possible and relax, preferably somewhere quiet.

Yep - I call them "ice pick pains" because it feels like someone is jabbing me with an ice pick. I'll have them for a few days, and they go away as randomly as the came - only to reappear some other time for no reason I've ever been able to discern, other than the obvious one - I have fibromyalgia.