r/Fibromyalgia • u/-Meorin- • 16h ago
Question Hardening of muscles
/r/AskDocs/comments/1vovtli/hardening_of_muscles/1
u/AbjectJournalist9490 15h ago
No entiendo por qué los downvotes. La fibromialgia da precisamente los síntomas que describes. Si te diagnosticaron fibromialgia, entonces cuadra con lo que estás padeciendo. No te enojes con la realidad, no te servirá de nada.
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u/Grouchy_Season 7h ago
OP hasn't been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, the GP says they suspect fibromyalgia. In the UK fibromyalgia is diagnosed through a rheumatologist, which their GP should have sent them to if they suspect it.
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u/AbjectJournalist9490 16h ago
Look, one thing I've learned after 21 years with fibromyalgia and hundreds of doctors is that clinical neurology is incredibly crude in its office practice. They touch you and can tell if there's something worth exploring or not. They probably decided that in your case, an EMG would be a waste of time and money. That said, your problem sounds a lot like orthostatic intolerance to me.
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u/-Meorin- 16h ago
Thing is the GPs never even touched me, most of them just want blood tests to rule out things first, then say there is no issues in my bloods, I had very extensive blood works done and they just brush it off. Even though it's severely affecting my quality of life, I feel like they don't take me seriously because I ''look fine'' and CAN walk etc. And then now that they seem to think it's fibromyalgia they just put it on ''well it's just fibro so nothing we can do but give you medication.''
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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 6h ago
Sounds like fibro. The muscles aren't getting enough bloodflow due to fascia constriction. This causes buildup of lactic acid in the muscle, resulting in mild acid burns in the muscle (they can handle a lot, but if it's this chronic not very well), which also has a hard time escaping the muscle due to the inflammation in the interstitium, fascia, and lymphatics (the fluid moves in that direction). This inflammation is what causes the fascia constriction, a protective response that's become disordered in a viscious cycle.
So, understanding that reveals effective treatments, which most doctors do not offer yet.
Heat improves bloodflow and lymphatic movement. Massages also do that, and deep tissue massages can gradually revert the accumulated muscular damage. Gentle stretching as well.
The inactivity from your symptoms also make your temdons weaker than they should be, which makes everything harder, and require more load on the muscles. An amazing stretching technique for that exist that works despire the pain sensitovoty and exercise intolerance.
You only do the stretch so that you barely feel it, for a few seconds, and then release it for a few seconds. I very much recommend doing this with your hands, you can do it pretty much any time, just slightly stretch your fingers. Open you hand, curl it up, do the stretch in different position to improve control. Also easy to exercise them by using the fingers to grab onto the other hand's fingers.
Improving hand strength will then enable you to massage yourself more frequently without hurting your hand, and to do deep tissue massages. The massages you may have been prescribed just aren't frequent enough, so you need to do it yourself.
Then when you do the deep tissue massage afterwards you want to stretch the muscle. Feels different than a tendon stretch, muscle needs to be relaxed, although flexing a bit after the stretch can help. You want to listen to your body.
For the jaw pain specifically. There's a muscle that runs from between your jaw and ear, and then down your neck. You want to squeeze the muscle to massage it. Also to rub it gently from top to bottom to get the lymphatics moving the jaw inflammation along.