Myofascial Pain Syndrome Support Group
Myofascial Pain Syndrome (or MPS) is a term used to describe one of the conditions characterized by chronic pain. It is associated with and caused by "trigger points" (TrPs), sensitive and painful areas between the muscle and fascia. The symptoms can range from referred pain through myofascial trigger points to specific pains in other areas of the body. It may be related...
Hello everyone I'm new to this whole thing, but I need to talk to ppl that understand my pain. A few years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and I would get flare-ups here, and their. About 10 months ago I started to flare-up, and it just got worse, and worse. I started developing these pea size Knott's in my butt, and upper thigh. I would ask my husband to to rub them, but it didn't seem to help. Months went by, and these Knott's got worse. I started researching fibromyalgia, and they mentioned fibro Knott's, but I never could find information that was going on like in my body. I started looking up other disorders, and nothing matched. I cam to myofacial pain syndrome, and thought this sounds more like it. As I read on still things didn't seem to explain because now these Knott's were literally all over my body. I have no insurance, so I haven't been able to be diagnosed . Long story short 10 months now, and I am so bad with most pain being in my right butt cheek going down the back of my leg. I have Knott's in some places like golf balls. My body is so bruised I look like a road map. Morning most days I can barely walk it takes me 20 minutes to get to my bathroom. The whole way I'm crying in excruciating pain, and peeing myself all the way there. Enen if I come home from work and my tylonal wears off I'm bad all over. I've been taking 2000mg in morning, and 2000 at night my liver is probably being destroyed , but I don't wanna take narcotics. My hands have been numb for probably 2 months now, but feel like vibrating, and hurt. I'm in so much pain that I wanna die... I need help I'm so scared my body is dieing. Since these Knott's have speed every where I'm always is pain. I'm so stressed that it's making it worse cuz all I do is cry anymore. The pain is out of control my Knott's when I say every where I mean every where. My arm pits, face p, area, chest stomach omg my stomach is like pieces of chalk trying to come out all over. I would love to talk to ppl about this cuz I just can't live like this anymore.i just can't.
Firstly, please consider switching from tylenol to ibuprofen. You already know tylenol is toxic to your liver, so really watch the max dose you're on in 24 hours. But also, for myofascial pain ibuprofen will work better, helping relax the fascia better than tylenol, which will give you more relief at much lower doses. Also, make sure you take something regularly, it just works better that way. You may also be able to get a muscle relaxant like diclofenac sodium (voltoral) as a cream to rub on the painful muscle knots / trigger points which really helps.
Heat on the bits that are tight and painful is essential. Hot baths, hot showers, hot water bottles, heating pads, stick on heat pads...any and all of these will help. Just do them a lot. But don't burn your skin, never have them so hot it's burning or you can cause problematic rashes.
Don't over do things. Your body needs to rest from the ongoing flare up it sounds like you've been in for too long. This goes for the fibro - MPS and fibro are like two sides of the same coin, they always seem to go together.
Learn how to do your own massage. This is so much easier than it seems! Literally, start by just doing as much rubbing and squishing of the knots as you can stand, using oils (comfrey oil works wonders, as does magnesium oil), lotions or doing it over clothes to reduce friction. You can get books trigger points, and find web pages that show you where the most likely trigger points are. My personal favorite is the www.painscience.com website. There's a few threads not too far back that has so much good information if you have the time to peruse through them.
Do everything you can to reduce stress in your life. Trigger points feed off your stress, especially your jaw and shoulders. Not just reducing stresses in your life, but learning as many stress relieving techniques as possible. They do work, but have to be done regularly, but also in it's simplest form anything that makes you laugh or smile will reduce your stress.
Exercise is important, I shouldn't forget that. The types of activities makes a big difference, because of how trigger points affect muscles when they're working (makes it harder). Walking is more effective than you'd think, but more specifically, yoga, pilates, tai chi and swimming - anything that stretches your muscles will be better than other forms of exercise. But it's important you don't overdo activity, and any advice for 'normal' people really doesn't apply to us. We have to start at seconds and minutes and small numbers and build up slowly over weeks and months not days. Essentially, never ever go for the burn, pain doesn't mean gain it means misery and extended flare ups!
Knowledge is your best weapon managing these conditions. When you realise what these dratted trigger points are and how they respond (especially to stress) it makes sense how they cause so much pain and misery. It's like your body is squeezing you, trapping the nerves in the squeeze, causing such weird random pain patterns. It's also why you get the tight stiff muscles that take so much energy to move - it does...any joint with trigger points take significantly more energy to mobilise!
Most pain management books have excellent advice about how manage a balanced life - reused / second hand / thrifted books (ebay!) are brilliant, as you can try things for pennies and find what works for you. I have a groaning shelf (well, shelves tbh) of dog eared old books that have been helpful.
Oh yes. Lest I forget. Hobbies. They really help reduce stress and calm the mind, which calms the body. Anything that interests you; knitting, sewing, woodworking, crochet, painting, drawing, pottery, singing, crafting, gardening, bread making, baking, the list is endless! When I'm really bad I don't have the brain power for hobbies (it's one of my signs things are getting worse that I've learnt to watch for), but other than that I'm doing something hobby wise every day and love it. My output tends to look like a child's done it but I don't care, it makes me feel good!!
It takes time and effort but it does work. You can and will get in control of your symptoms. You can and will feel relaxed and free and happy again. You're still 'you'. All the good things you have going for you are still there. Remember that every time you're tempted to beat yourself up for having weird pain and fatigue. It's real. You're not making it up. You will still have up and down days and that's ok (like I'm currently in the dolldrums as I over did it over christmas and now I'm resting again. It's annoying but effective).
Dunno if any of that helps you. I've tried to stick to low cost advice. You can spend a fortune and there's people who exploit that and it annoys the heck out of me. You can recover. You can get better from the misery you're in right now. There are people who have been on this board who have recovered completely. Completely. But even a small improvement will have you feeling marvelous and up and about doing stuff.