Category Archives: Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is one of the most debilitating conditions. Patients suffer from chronic pain all over their body, but especially in the joints and at the base of the skull. Currently, 1 in 50 people are living with fibromyalgia, and are trying various therapies and treatments to reduce pain and improve their quality of life. In this article, we will explain why chiropractic for fibromyalgia is one of the most effective solutions you should try.

What We Know about Fibromyalgia and Traditional Treatment Plans

Unfortunately, fibromyalgia is still a big unknown to all types of medical professionals. It is not clear what causes it and there is no cure to fully heal the patient. Over the decades, healthcare providers have tried a combination of painkillers, muscle relaxants and sleep medication to help patients improve their quality of life.

Unfortunately, all types of oral medications will have unpleasant side effects, especially if you have to take them over a long period of time. Interrupting the treatment will bring back the symptoms. Some patients report that they have days when they can barely walk and that the slightest pressure onto a tender area results in excruciating pain.

What Can Chiropractic for Fibromyalgia Do Differently?

A chiropractor’s approach is to reduce pain in a natural way, acting from the outside. Massages, adjustments, dry needling, and other techniques we use in our clinic are aimed at reducing pain and inflammation, by realigning subluxated joints and improving blood flow.

We believe that chiropractic for fibromyalgia is the right choice because it helps patients:

1. Manage Pain in a Safe Manner

Chiropractic for fibromyalgia is a reliable long-term solution for managing pain. Most patients are very aware when the next bout of the condition is about to set in. They can start adjustments and other chiropractic therapies ahead of time before pain becomes too disruptive for their daily lives.

There are almost no contraindications to going to a chiropractor. The specific techniques we use are tested and proven to be safe for all types of patients, including the elderly, children, and pregnant women.

2. Improve Mobility

The chiropractor will focus on your joints to help you relieve pain and enjoy a full range of motion. Many patients who chose chiropractic for fibromyalgia say that they feel more flexible and able to perform various physical activities since they started the therapy.

The chiropractor’s manipulations will not only help relax tense muscles, but also restore joints to their natural position. Many people we treat are now taking up or starting again hobbies such as gardening, playing sports and cycling.

3. Enjoy Better Sleep

Pain disrupts healthy sleep. When you are in pain, you tend to fold your body in a fetal position, which is not healthy for a good night’s sleep. By reducing pain, chiropractic for fibromyalgia allows patients to sleep well and in a correct position.

Of course, your chiropractor will evaluate your usual sleep position and help you find one that is both natural and comfortable for you. Our doctors’ goal is not just to make your pain go away, but to improve your overall enjoyment of life.

4. Feel Empowered

With chiropractic for fibromyalgia, patients feel that they are regaining control over their lives. They are no longer conditioned by their pain. They can manage pain and prioritize what is important for them: their family, their career, and their hobbies.

This has a major beneficial effect on people’s mindset and outlook on life. Many patients who first came to us felt depressed and had a bleak view of their future. Within months, they were happy, energetic, and busily making plans to improve their life and enjoy it to the full.

Chiropractic for fibromyalgia is the right choice if you want to become master of your life and not let pain control and define you. Call us now and schedule an evaluation appointment with one of our doctors!

Pain comes in a variety of different forms- headaches, neck pain, upper back pain, low back pain, knee pain, foot pain, stomach pain; you name it, we have probably seen it. One condition we see a lot of in our office is called fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, those experiencing fibromyalgia deal with pain all over their body. My name is Dr. Zach Shaw, and I am with the Upper Cervical Spine Center. We see fibromyalgia all the time in our office, so if you are reading this and suffer from fibromyalgia, maybe we can help you too! What is fibromyalgia? First, let us break down the word. “Fibro” means hardening, “myo” means muscle, and “algia” means pain. Therefore, fibromyalgia is pain coming from a tight muscle. These muscles are constantly active/tight and eventually develop into “trigger points.”

Trigger points are an area of muscle that are extremely tight, like a knot. Sometimes, people use massage therapy to try to loosen them up. However, trigger points in a patient with fibromyalgia happen all over the body. Most trigger points are in the shoulders, upper back, low back, and glutes, amongst other areas, but they can also form throughout the rest of the body. It is a terrible condition that a lot of people suffer from.

Why does fibromyalgia occur? The central facilitation/sensitization theory formulates a reason for fibromyalgia. The nerve system is hyperactive, especially the part going to your muscles. All your muscles have these little things called mechanoreceptors that allow you to balance in space and understand what movements to use. When we put a lot of pressure on a mechanoreceptor, it causes pain. This same pain in a person without fibromyalgia is normal and lets us know how to react before injury. However, this same pain in a person with fibromyalgia is amplified. You could literally just touch him or her and the pain will be almost unbearable. That is the effect of central sensitization. Central sensitization means that when a sensory stimulus occurs, the body overreacts and interprets the stimulus as pain.

For example, let us say that I, a person without fibromyalgia, gets my foot stepped on. That is a sensory stimulus, so the message of pressure on my foot travels up the nerve and meets at something called a dorsal root ganglion (DRG), a hub before entering the spinal cord. Once in the spinal cord, the message travels into the brain and the brain says, “Hey, it’s just pressure, but we need to move the foot away before it becomes painful or injured.” So, I pull my foot away; that is how a normal nerve system works. If this exact same instance happened to someone with fibromyalgia, the same process happens, except at the DRG, there is interference, so the message gets altered. In this instance, the message of pressure turns into extreme pain. The altered message now travels to the brain, but instead of a normal response of moving the foot, the brain instead sends extreme pain signals to that foot and then tells it to move. The patient now experiences a lot of pain in the foot from a stimulus that should not have caused so much pain.

Why does interference to the DRG change the message? It all has to do with the upper cervical spine, which is where I come in. When there is pressure on the brainstem due to a misalignment in the top of the neck, it can put pressure not just on the spinal cord, but on the DRG as well. If there is pressure there, any sensory input, whether it is someone stepping on your foot, putting on your shirt, or anything else that is sensory from the body back to the brain, it is going to be interfered with.

Unfortunately, in people with fibromyalgia, this interference transmits as pain. That is why a person with fibromyalgia can be barely touched, yet they feel excruciating pain and are almost jumping off the table, like some of my patients when they first start care. When we start correcting the misalignment, the patient’s body starts to work better, and the care gets easier and easier. Eventually, the patient does not feel as much pain. Why? Because as we take pressure off this area, the sensory part of the nerve system can communicate with the brain exactly like it should.

What is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia can be defined as a medical condition that is characterized by severe and widespread pain all over the body, especially in muscles and joints, fatigue, memory, and sleep issues. People suffering from fibromyalgia are more sensitive to pain as compared to others.

The causes of fibromyalgia are yet not known. But research has shown that there might be a problem in the processing of pain signals from the nerves via the spinal cord and brain. Furthermore, women are at higher risk of suffering from fibromyalgia than men.

Risk Factors

Age: Fibromyalgia can occur in any individual. But it is more common in individuals of middle age or old age. The chances to suffer from fibromyalgia increase as you get older.

Gender: As compared to men, women are more likely to suffer from this disorder. Studies have shown that the chances of developing fibromyalgia are two times higher in women than in men.

Other Diseases: If a person is suffering from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus, then the chances of him/ her to suffer from fibromyalgia are quite high as compared to others.

Family History: Research has not confirmed yet that fibromyalgia is a genetic disorder or not. But if one family member is suffering from this disease, then the chances of other members to suffer from this disorder are high.

Other Factors: Persons suffering from stressful events (PTSD), infections, injuries or accidents can also develop this disorder.

Symptoms

Symptoms of this disorder appear after surgery, physical trauma, psychological stress, or infection. In some cases, fibromyalgia occurs without any triggering event. Here, the major symptoms of fibromyalgia are described:

Severe Pain: Patients with fibromyalgia suffer from severe and widespread pain. The pain occurs all over the body, in muscles and joints. Besides these, twitching, tightness, stiffness or burning also occur in joints and such persons have a very low threshold for pain.

Tiredness: People suffering from fibromyalgia mostly feel tiredness and fatigue even after getting sleep of 8 to 9 hours. 

Sleeping Disorder: The sleep of such persons is mostly disrupted due to severe pain. As a result, they suffer from sleep disorders like insomnia or sleep apnea. Some persons also suffer from restless leg syndrome in which they feel a severe urge to move their legs.

Due to this, the person might not be able to sleep comfortably and peacefully.

Cognitive Problems: Problems related to the brain also occur in persons suffering from fibromyalgia. The person is unable to focus, concentrate and pay attention. The person also feels difficulty in remembering. This symptom is called ‘fibro fog’. 

In rare cases, the persons also experience the following:

• Tingling or numbness in arms, legs, hands, feet, face, etc.
• Pain in the jaw ( that is also called temporomandibular joint syndrome)
• Headache especially migraine
• Anxiety 
• Depression, tension, and nervousness
• Irritable bowel syndrome (that is also called IBS)

Diagnosis

This disorder is usually diagnosed through physical examination, patient’s history, and X-ray, etc. But it is quite difficult to diagnose this condition because the symptoms of this disorder mimic other conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, tendinitis, or bursitis, etc. Furthermore, no test is available for the diagnosis of this disorder. So sometimes, this condition is misdiagnosed. 

Treatment

There is no cure for this disorder. But the doctor can prescribe pain killers, muscle relaxers, etc. Exercise and self-care with good habits can also be helpful in relieving the pain. Besides, a technique called the chiropractic adjustment technique is very effective in lowering the pain.

Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care

Besides medication and exercises, the upper cervical chiropractic technique can also be used to lower the pain and relieve the symptoms of fibromyalgia. This type of chiropractic technique was developed and introduced by B. J. Palmer in 1930s.

Studies have shown that this technique is very helpful in correcting the underlying misalignments. Actually, the misalignment in the neck affects the functioning of the central nervous system. This leads to a problem in the processing of pain signals from the nerves via the spinal cord and brain.

As a result, the person feels severe pain in his or her body. A minor misalignment in the neck can affect the functioning of the body in the following ways:

• The brainstem is a part of the brain which connects your cerebrum to the spinal cord. All the messages from the brain pass through the brainstem and then go to the body via the spinal cord. A minimal misalignment can put pressure on the brainstem or on parts of the brainstem. As a result, the communication between the body and the brain could be disrupted.
• Secondly, the cervical spine facilitates the flow of blood to your brain. A minor misalignment can change the flow of blood which can cause issues in the functioning of the central nervous system.
• Thirdly, misalignment in the cervical spine can cause problems in the proper drainage of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). When CSF is unable to drain well it can disturb the optimal function of the whole body. 

This shows that misalignment in the upper cervical area can affect the functioning of the whole body. It is necessary to correct these misalignments, and these can be corrected through upper cervical chiropractic care. If this technique is used to correct the specific vertebrae in the upper cervical region, it can help in relieving the pain and reducing the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Drastic improvements have also been observed in patients with fibromyalgia due to the upper cervical chiropractic technique. By using this technique, chiropractors can put the neck, spine, or head in their correct position. Chiropractors perform this technique with extreme care and gentle hands.

Also, this technique does not involve any pulling or twisting. Instead, it involves precise and controlled movement. This technique reduces irritation towards the brain stem and also facilitates the proper flow of nerve impulses. 

Conclusion

Although fibromyalgia is a chronic disease and there is no treatment. But medication (pain killers, etc.), exercise, self-care, a healthy lifestyle, and chiropractic adjustment techniques can help lower the pain and improve the quality of life.

References

What is fibromyalgia? (https://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/basics/fibromyalgia.htm)

Fibromyalgia (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354780)

      What is fibromyalgia? If you break the word down, “fibro” meaning fiber, “myo” meaning muscle, and “algia” meaning pain, you get when you put all those together, muscle fiber pain. This is actually a pretty misunderstood, confusing condition because it can manifest in so many different ways throughout so many different people. Four million people across the United States are struggling with fibromyalgia. This can be manifested in ways of back pain, muscle type pain, upper back pain, low back pain, shoulder pain, etc. This can also extend out through extremities like the arms and the legs, any and or all of these areas could be affected by fibromyalgia. There are also other symptoms and things going on that are related to fibromyalgia, such as migraines, headaches, poor sleep, not feeling like you wake up rested, which is also huge when you have a muscular type condition because of needing to be able to recover at night and heal at night when you have things like that going on.

    Also, another area of concern is anxiety and depression. The cause of fibromyalgia is up in the air, and a lot of times people deal with depression or anxiety beforehand, before being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. There are also other times when people have depression or anxiety come on after having fibromyalgia because feeling so bad for so long could definitely get somebody down and depressed after dealing with that for so long.

    Another big deal with fibromyalgia, as I said, there’s not really a cause to be found or linked to fibromyalgia in the medical world, but they’re given many different medications and different treatments and things like that to try to deal with the symptoms of fibromyalgia, just to get some relief, a little bit of hope, but really all this is doing is just masking the symptom. It’s not fixing anything since they can’t find any cause, there’s not any cause to fix. Another term that is related to fibromyalgia is called abnormal pain processing perception, a term that means the body is not able to figure out how to process pain, fatigue, or muscle breakdown.

    What we have found at Upper Cervical Chiropractic is a lot of these fibromyalgia patients end up having something in common, and that is being a trauma. Now, this could be any kind of trauma ranging from a car accident, a slip and fall, a bump on the head, a sports injury, even all the way from birth or birth trauma. What happens is that when one of the top two bones in the neck can misalign, it can start to put pressure on the brainstem, which has every single nerve that goes from the brain to the body. So that means that every message that goes from the brain to the entire body goes through these top two bones.

    Well, when the brain can’t communicate to the body and the body can’t communicate back to the brain properly because of a misalignment here, putting pressure on your nervous system, which is trying to control everything and tell everything how to function and how to heal, there can be some disconnect there. And that’s when a lot of times people are starting to have different types of aches and pains and different things like that. Because what happens structurally is,  when one of the top two bones go out of alignment, it takes your head with it because your head just sits on top. It doesn’t have anywhere else to go because it doesn’t have any other choice but to just move with those two bones.

    When there’s a misalignment at the top of the neck, it takes the head with it, which can also start to bring a lot of compensations and different things that happen throughout the body, like bringing a shoulder or hip up. This is due to the righting reflex, which forces the brain to always be level. If the top two bones are out of alignment, it may take your head up to the right. It’s going to do everything it can by bringing the shoulder up, bringing a hip up, and causing all different types of weak spots throughout the rest of the spine, which can cause muscle pain and muscle fatigue.

    All day, every day we are dealing with the weight of gravity. We’re always using muscles, always while we’re walking, while we’re sitting, while we’re standing, while we’re working, all those different things. If the spine is out of alignment, causing all those different types of compensations, then there can be weak spots like I said, and especially if the correct communication isn’t happening from the brain to body because of the interference at the top of the neck, then that’s when that abnormal pain perception processing can take place.

    There is hope! We’ve had great success within the Upper Cervical Chiropractic world with fibromyalgia patients and cases. Just about a hundred percent of the time, once people start getting under care, allowing the brain to be able to communicate with the body the way it’s supposed to again, and the body can communicate with the brain. Then once we get our head on straight and all the compensations start to work themselves out through the rest of the spine, people see great results. There is hope! 

Of all the conditions diagnosed on the planet, one of the most confusing and misunderstood is Fibromyalgia, primarily because there’s such a wide range of symptoms associated with Fibromyalgia. How do they diagnosis this? Well sometimes it’s a number of sore spots or trigger points and some, I’ve heard as few as five, as many as 17 sore places that people push on. Ultimately the symptoms of Fibromyalgia are typically body pains consistently over time. I see people with neck, torso, neck, upper back, lower back, but sometimes people have extremity pain in the arms and legs. Oftentimes, they get headaches. Most of them have a problem sleeping, which is a big part of Fibromyalgia. They don’t get into a deep sleep, so the body never fully recovers, so they’re constantly wearing muscles down, which makes them get weaker and ache more and create more soreness. A lot of times people will have reflux, heartburn, and a lot of times they have lower digestive problems, whether it’s constipation, diarrhea, or irritable bowel.

We see a lot of people with anxiety and depression. And I don’t know if it’s the direct cause that creates depression and anxiety or if it’s because they feel bad for so long that they become depressed about it. I do know that taking antidepressants has been known to give a little bit of relief, but of course, it doesn’t fix anything, just temporarily masks it.

The medical approach primarily is medication. There are no surgeries that I’ve heard of for Fibromyalgia. The only medicine has to weapons, drugs and surgery. The medications, like Lyrica for example, seem to create a wide range of symptoms. A lot of them actually even have the same symptoms that Fibromyalgia itself causes.Lyrica is an anti-convulsant. You’re given a drug to treat seizures for patients with Fibromyalgia. And I know one of the major side effects is brain fog, or they call it the Fibro Fog. So that’s an increase in what normal patients would have. And then also sleeplessness, meaning the inability to get into a deep sleep, which actually kind of brings on the Fibromyalgia and can make it act worse and worse and worse.

I know that depression and anxiety is a frequent side effect along with muscle aches, confusion, and digestive disorders. Sometimes the medication itself adds fuel to the fire, right? I do know this: Fibromyalgia does not come from a drug deficiency. Taking medications will never ever remove it, get rid of it, fix it. It may temporarily mask the symptoms. Sometimes, making them worse, but sometimes it can reduce the symptoms, and take the edge off.

So where does Fibromyalgia actually come from? Well, it actually, from my experience, seeing thousands of Fibromyalgia patients, it actually comes from an old trauma, an old trauma that was introduced into the body may be years, maybe decades ago, that created a misalignment in the neck, specifically the area of the brainstem, which is now wreaking havoc on the body. What happens is one of the top bones of the neck gets out of line to the point where two things result. One, it can close down on the nervous system, specifically at the top of the neck is the brainstem. What that does is it affects the communication between the brain and the rest of the body. If it affects the communication to the arms, the legs, the stomach, and if it doesn’t get the full communication from the brain and tell them what to do, then it doesn’t work the way it’s intended. What does that mean? Well, it means symptom starts to develop.

Also, very important is when the bones move, it actually takes the head with it. The brain sits in here, right? And the brain is designed to be level always. There’s something called the Righting Reflex. It’s all about making sure the brain is always balanced. If one of these bones got even a little bit out of position, takes the head a little bit off, the brain doesn’t like it. The brain will send messages down, forcing the body to compensate to level the brain, so it will drop down one shoulder or lift one hip. Most people will find that if they laid on a bed and you had your feet hanging off and you have somebody check it, that one leg would be a little shorter than the other if you have a misalignment in the neck.

Now at that brainstem level, the top two bones, the brainstem comes through there. In the heart of the brainstem resides the sleep center. The sleep center is responsible for shutting the brain down from back to front through all four stages of sleep to get you into that deep sleep, recovery stage sleep. And what we have found is most of our Fibromyalgia patients are not doing that. They’re not getting into a deep sleep, so the body never fully recovers. It’s like going to the gym and doing the same exercise every single day and never giving that muscle long enough time to recover. That’s what you’re doing to your body because you’re constantly fighting gravity: postural muscles are moving and shifting. Those muscles still have to be able to recover, and if they never recover, they keep wearing down and keep getting sore and hurting more and more.

If we can find a problem, the actual cause up in the upper neck and correct that, all three things happen. The sleep center starts to work without interference, so your body starts to get into a deeper sleep. The compensations work their way out, so the body starts to become more balanced, and they don’t have the tensions within them, so the muscles can relax, and the communication between the brain and the body starts to normalize, so your body works the way it’s intended to.

Now, if you have Fibromyalgia, you’ve been through all of this, right? What could have created the initial misalignment? As I said, it’s always a trauma. Now, what makes it worse? Stress: chemical stress, visible stress, and emotional stress. All three of those can make the misalignment worse and create more problems. Right? And you’ve probably noticed if you have Fibromyalgia, there are things that make it worse. Stress always makes it worse. Sometimes just as little as a change in the environment, the change in the temperature, the change in the pressure of the weather can actually make you feel worse, like on a cold, rainy day. And then emotional stress can really wreak havoc on you. And then of course if you have any other additional slips, falls, bumps to the head, they always seem to push it down or push it up to the next level.

Of all the diagnosed conditions that we see in our office in the last 26 years, I’ve probably seen more fibromyalgia cases than any other condition. I think that’s because fibromyalgia is kind of a broad term. If you have seven points, or nine, or twelve, or particular points of pain, then they call it fibromyalgia. What I’ve seen is basically from a medical standpoint, when they rule everything else out and you still have musculoskeletal pain. They pretty much call it fibromyalgia. What does fibromyalgia mean? Well, “fibro”is“hard or“tight,“myo”is “muscle,“algia” ispain.Tight muscle pain is really a broad diagnosis. But one of the things that we have found is most of our fibromyalgia patients have musculoskeletal pain. It can be spinal, it can be extremities, arms, or legs. Most of them will have some degree of headache, a large degree of fatigue usually, and oftentimes some digestive disorders. And then, of course, there’s the fibro fog, which is like a lack of mental clarity, feeling kind of light-headed, and you can’t focus. 

   Now, what we have found is with almost all of them, their sleep is affected, and we have found that if there’s a problem at the top of the neck, specifically the Upper Cervical part of the neck, then it can misalign and put pressure on the brainstem. Now, the sleep center resides in the heart of the brainstem. It’s in the very middle. Therefore, it can easily be affected. If one of the bones gets misaligned and closes down on the opening, it puts pressure on the brainstem affecting the sleep center, then it affects your quality of sleep. Now, the way the sleep center works is it shuts the brain down from back to front through the four stages of sleep. 

   Now, what’s very important is that you get into deep sleep. Deep sleep is when your body recovers. That’s the fourth stage, so if there’s something out of line in your neck and if it’s interfering with your ability to get into stage four deep sleep, then your body never fully recovers. It’s like going to the gym and doing the same exercise every day, and never giving those muscles an opportunity to recover. Then they’re constantly being torn down, so they constantly are sore and achy and fatigued. If this is happening for you, if you have a misalignment in the neck interfering with how you sleep, then of course you’re going to be fatigued, but at the same time your whole body gets achy, and it gets sore because we’re constantly fighting gravity. We’re constantly using muscles, postural muscles: we’re walking, we’re sitting, and we’re moving. We’re using muscles constantly, and if your body’s not fully recovering, if those muscles don’t have the opportunity to heal, then they just get achy and sore, fatigued, and they wear down.

    What we’ve found at The Upper Cervical Spine Center is we find the problem, the cause of your fibromyalgia, and one thing I will tell you; medicine doesn’t have much luck addressing even the symptoms with medications. It’s very important to get to the root cause of the fibromyalgia. If we can find that, and if we can correct it, like taking your foot off of the garden hose. The messages to the body open back up, the brainstem gets clearer, and the sleep center functions normally. The first thing people usually notice is they rest better. And if you have fibromyalgia, I know that’s a huge deal. As you start to sleep deeper, your body recovers better, your brain gets more clearer, and all the communication from your brain and your body starts to reconnect and starts to open up. That’s how the body heals. 

Fibromyalgia symptoms are caused by a chronic pain disorder affecting 4 million Americans ages 18 and older. Although it is more common for Americans with fibromyalgia to be diagnosed at ages 35 to 45 years old, most of them have had fibromyalgia symptoms starting much earlier in life. Those who have fibromyalgia have widespread pain and tenderness very sensitive to touch that will come and go and move around the body. Those who have chronic (long-term) fibromyalgia often feel fatigued and undergo problems sleeping.

Because it is more common to be diagnosed at ages 35 to 45 even when you have it much earlier, it is important to recognize fibromyalgia symptoms and if you do have fibromyalgia symptoms, it is best to seek treatment right away before it worsens over time. When fibromyalgia is left untreated, the chronic pain could cause permanent changes about how your body perceives pain and worsen your fibromyalgia symptoms. 

The most common fibromyalgia symptoms include the following:

• Pain and tender points – This fibromyalgia symptom is usually what causes sufferers to see their doctor. The pain is almost like tendinitis, osteoarthritis, and bursitis. The only difference is those with fibromyalgia ache all over the body.
• Problems with peeing – Problems with peeing include the feeling of having to go a lot or having a leaky bladder. Urination can also hurt or be uncomfortable.
• Irritable bowel syndrome – Those who have this fibromyalgia symptom will often experience belly pain, bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, or feel like throwing up.
• Fatigue – When experiencing fatigue, simple tasks become very exhausting. Those who experience this fibromyalgia symptom feel completely drained after folding laundry, cooking a dinner, or become too tired to exercise.
• Sleep problems – Those who happen to fall asleep can be easily disturbed, never reaching a deep sleep. Because of this, when they wake up, they still feel tired and having sleeping problems just adds to the fatigue.
• Morning stiffness – After getting out of bed, those who have this fibromyalgia symptom feel as if they need to “loosen up” right away before their day starts. The muscles and joints of the back, arms, and legs are affected, and the stiffness involved is compared to those who have rheumatoid arthritis. The amount of time morning stiffness can last will differ from person to person, lasting anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours, or all day long.
• Headaches – Tension headaches and migraines are very common fibromyalgia symptoms affecting up to 2 out of 5 people. This symptom is often caused by your tight neck muscles but may be caused by the pain in your upper back or tender points as well. 
• Mood disorders – Depression and anxiety disorders affect about 50% of those diagnosed with fibromyalgia. As other fibromyalgia symptoms, such as pain and fatigue, start affecting your life it can be hard to cope with. This leads to having trouble keeping up with daily life and making it stressful. There is also a possibility that having the fibromyalgia symptoms depression and anxiety are as much part of fibromyalgia as the pain.
• Restless Legs Syndrome – Restless legs syndrome affects the legs below your knees and your feet, making you feel uncomfortable. This can be very bothersome, as you feel the need to keep moving your legs to rest them and if this fibromyalgia symptom is experienced at night, it could keep you from sleeping
• Numbness and tingling in hands, arms, feet, and legs – This fibromyalgia symptom happens quite randomly and may last for a few minutes or become constant. It is also possible to have swelling in these areas and while the feelings of having this fibromyalgia symptom can be bothersome, it usually doesn’t get in the way of things.
• Concentration or memory problems, also known as “fibro fog” – One of the most common complaints out of the fibromyalgia symptoms with some sufferers expressing fibro fog to be more of a disability than the other physical symptoms. Fibro fog affects your ability to think, leading to confusion, memory difficulty, and losing concentration.
• Painful menstrual cramps – These cramps can be unusually painful for women with fibromyalgia and women may have this symptom for years along with other existing fibromyalgia symptoms.

A Natural Treatment for Fibromyalgia?

If you or a loved one is experiencing one or a few of these fibromyalgia symptoms, it is best to seek help right away for a higher chance of overcoming fibromyalgia. Those who are diagnosed with this chronic pain disorder are often under treatments that help them manage their fibromyalgia symptoms rather than healing or keeping their fibromyalgia from getting worse. In order for your body to succeed in its battle against fibromyalgia, it needs to be corrected from the inside.

Upper cervical chiropractors help your body fight against these battles with chronic pain by correcting the position of the two upper bones of your spine located just under the base of the skull. When your upper cervical spine is corrected, your brain stem is no longer compressed; this opens and regulates the communication from your brain to the rest of the body to assist in its healing process.

If your brain stem is compressed, the communication is disrupted leading to mixed signals of pain when there is no pain which could lead to fibromyalgia.

Upper cervical care has been a very successful treatment for many fibromyalgia patients. If you feel you have or are diagnosed with fibromyalgia, upper cervical may be the natural and safe alternative you are looking for.