What Are the Symptoms of Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood chronic pain condition that significantly impacts your quality of life. The primary symptoms of fibromyalgia — widespread pain, fatigue, sleep problems and mental fogginess — can make it difficult for you to work, exercise, do chores, run errands or spend quality time with family and friends. Additionally, managing constant pain and fatigue can impact your mental health and enjoyment of life.

Keep reading to learn more about what fibromyalgia is, risk factors, symptoms and the treatment options available.   

What Is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder that causes widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue, along with other symptoms. It’s difficult to identify and diagnose because the symptoms often mimic those of other conditions and there’s no single test to confirm a diagnosis. Additionally, the causes of fibromyalgia are not well understood....

For many people living with severe neck pain and symptoms from a herniated disc, degenerative disc disease, or a pinched nerve, a cervical fusion is the final treatment option. The purpose of the surgery is to relieve pain, yet many people find themselves suffering from persistent or worsening pain in the weeks and months following the procedure.

When a cervical spine surgery fails — meaning it doesn’t deliver the expected outcomes — the continued pain and symptoms are known as cervical post-surgery syndrome or failed neck surgery syndrome. 

Learn how to recognize the signs and explore the treatment options available.

What Causes Cervical Post-Surgery Syndrome?

Several factors could lead to long-term neck pain and symptoms following a cervical fusion. Post-surgical pain might be radicular (radiating from the nerve roots) or musculoskeletal (stemming from the joints or soft tissues) in nature. 

• What causes radicular symptoms? The most common reason...

Identifying the Different Types of Headaches

Headaches are one of the most common pain conditions in the world, and nearly everyone has experienced a headache at some point in their life. Head pain can be incredibly disabling, causing work and school absenteeism, poor sleep and loss of ability to exercise or perform daily activities. And for people who experience chronic headache disorders, living with constant or near-constant pain can lead to anxiety and depression. 

Keep reading to learn more about common types of headaches.  

Types of Headaches

Headaches are classified into two main types: primary headaches and secondary headaches. Primary headaches aren’t caused by a medical condition — the headache is the primary condition. Secondary headaches are caused by an underlying condition — the headache is a symptom of something else. There are over 150 different types of headaches. Below is a listing of some of the most common types. 

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How to Tell If You Have Coccydynia

Coccydynia is persistent, chronic pain of the coccyx (tailbone). The tailbone is the small, triangular bone at the bottom of the spine. It’s the last segment of the spinal column and is made up of 3-5 vertebrae. When the tailbone sustains an injury or damage, it causes inflammation that leads to pain and tenderness. Common causes of coccydynia include: 

• Direct trauma from a fall
• Repetitive stress and soft tissue strain from prolonged sitting on hard surfaces, horseback riding, bicycle riding, etc.
• Abnormal stress and pressure from poor posture
• Obesity
• Childbirth

Keep reading to learn the symptoms to watch out for and treatment options available.  

4 Telltale Signs of Chronic Tailbone Pain

If you have coccydynia, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• Localized pain. Coccydynia causes localized achy, tender pain at the bottom of the spine that doesn’t radiate to surrounding areas. The pain can range...

What Is CRPS?

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) — formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) — is a rare and poorly understood chronic pain condition. Because it’s not widely seen and studied, it’s often misdiagnosed by doctors, causing patients to receive the wrong treatment or no treatment at all. Keep reading to learn more about the condition, symptoms of CRPS, treatment options, and outlook.  

An Introduction to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

CRPS is a chronic pain condition that typically affects an arm, leg, hand or foot. In the majority of cases, it develops after an injury that damages an arm or leg, like a direct blow, a fracture, a strain or sprain, a burn, or a surgical procedure. CRPS can cause intense and worsening pain that’s out of proportion to the initial injury, as well as changes in skin color, temperature and texture. 

CRPS is a neuro-inflammatory condition. Scientists believe it occurs due to dysfunction...

Severe facial pain is immediately disruptive to everyday life. And unless you were in a recent accident, you may not have any clue what’s causing sudden and significant pain over one or more areas of your face. 

The trigeminal nerve is one of the most common sources of chronic facial pain on one side of the face. At first, many people mistake trigeminal pain for a dental abscess or a migraine condition. But if you’ve been living with facial pain for more than six months, your dental examinations are all clear, and traditional pain medications aren’t effective, you may be suffering from neuropathic pain stemming from the trigeminal nerve.

Keep reading to learn signs and symptoms that indicate the trigeminal nerve is causing your chronic pain.   

What Is the Trigeminal Nerve?

The trigeminal nerve is a cranial nerve that carries sensations from the face to your brain. It’s actually a pair of nerves — one on each side of the face. Each...

Back pain is one of the leading causes of disability and one of the most common reasons for missed work in the United States. It’s one of the most pervasive medical ailments in our society: experts estimate that up to 80% of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives. 

Back pain can be acute or chronic. Acute back pain resolves within a few days to three months, while chronic pain lasts three months or longer. While many people recover fully from back injuries and pain, some people experience severe and debilitating pain and can’t find pain relief from traditional treatments. 

Keep reading to learn the top five causes of chronic low back pain and when it’s time to see a doctor.  

Defining Chronic Back Pain

Chronic back pain is pain that lasts for three months or longer. In some cases, chronic pain develops from an underlying medical condition like arthritis. In other cases, acute pain develops into...

Neuropathy — also called peripheral neuropathy — is nerve pain that occurs when one or more peripheral nerves are damaged or injured. The peripheral nervous system is the network of nerves outside the brain and spinal cord (the brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system). Peripheral nerves carry signals from the brain and transmit them to other areas of the body — the hands, feet, arms, legs, face and internal organs. Damaged or dysfunctional peripheral nerves can cause you to feel pain, weakness, numbness, tingling and loss of motor skills in different areas of the body. 

There are three types of peripheral nerves that could be affected by neuropathy:

• Sensory nerves responsible for receiving and processing touch, temperature, pain, and texture sensations from the skin
• Motor nerves that control movement and muscle function
• Autonomic nerves that are responsible for internal organ functions like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure,...

If you’re currently living with chronic pain, you may feel like your entire life revolves around pain. Without treatment and management, pain can control almost all aspects of our lives and affect our abilities to concentrate and work productively in a job for eight hours, exercise, or spend a carefree evening out with friends.

If you’ve been managing chronic pain alone up until now, you may not know all the options you have available to find pain relief. Below, we’ve outlined the first steps you should take if you’re ready to get on the pathway to treat chronic pain and find long-term relief.    

1. Document Everything You Know About Your Pain

In order to help your doctor and guide future treatments, it may be helpful to document as much information as you can about your pain. Find a journal where you can record:

• The location of pain
• The movement of pain — does it travel, radiate or remain localized?
• The severity and...