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Fibromyalgia pain can easily derail your entire life. It’s an agonizing and seemingly endless experience that leaves you unable to do the things that other people take for granted. But while that pain is the most noticeable symptom and the one that usually sends people to the doctor for the first time, there are a large number of painless symptoms of fibromyalgia.

And because many of these symptoms aren’t things that people typically associate with fibromyalgia, they often go unnoticed, which can delay getting a diagnosis. So, here are some painless symptoms of fibromyalgia that you should watch out for.

6 Painless Symptoms of fibromyalgia

Fibro Fog

One of the most common painless symptoms of fibromyalgia – and one that’s hard to recognize- is what’s called “fibro fog.” Essentially, this is a kind of mental haze that affects people with fibromyalgia from time to time and results in a range of mental symptoms.

Usually, fibro fog makes it hard to focus on daily tasks or causes you to forget simple details you just learned. It isn’t uncommon for someone with fibro fog to do something like leaving their house keys in the door or spend half an hour looking for their cell phone only to realize it’s in their hand.

You might even find yourself forgetting the names of people you just met, which can be quite embarrassing. But these are all things that happen to everyone from time to time, which makes it hard to immediately associate this symptom with fibromyalgia. But if you’re consistently having trouble focusing, it’s possible that you may be experiencing fibro fog.

Anxiety

Anxiety is another common painless symptom of fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, everyone feels anxious from time to time, and a huge number of people around the world suffer from anxiety disorders. For instance, 18% of all Americans struggle with serious anxiety on a daily basis, making it the most common mental illness in the country.

But persistent anxiety is also associated with fibromyalgia. And that means that if you are experiencing panic attacks or feelings of dread regularly you may have the condition.

Frequent Bowel Movements

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a condition that affects around 10% of the world’s population. And it’s characterized by a wide range of trouble with your bowels. It can make you constipated or do the opposite and cause you to have frequent diarrhea. It is actually a much more serious problem than the name might suggest.

But, fibromyalgia can often result in symptoms that are similar to IBS. And people with fibromyalgia often end up feeling constipated or having frequent bowel movements.

So if you find yourself going to the bathroom frequently (or not frequently enough) you might just be suffering from fibromyalgia.

Frequent Urination

Another one of the strange but painless symptoms of fibromyalgia is frequent urination. Essentially, someone who suffers from this symptom will find they have an uncontrollable need to urinate frequently no matter how little they drink or how often they go.

And while that might not sound like a serious problem, imagine having to urinate really badly but not being able to get up because of your severe fibromyalgia pain. Or imagine having the little bit of sleep you are able to get interrupted by a need to use the bathroom. That makes frequent urination a pretty unpleasant symptom to have.

Itching

Itching is one of the most common painless symptoms of fibromyalgia and is one of the most infuriating. In fact, some people with fibromyalgia itching say that it is worse than the pain. Essentially, it’s a feeling of bugs crawling on your skin or severe itchiness that you just cannot seem to cure.

No amount of creams or lotions really seems to help and scratching just leaves your skin bloody without any relief. Of course, not many people would immediately associate itching with fibromyalgia, which makes this a symptom that is very easy to overlook.

Tingling Or Numb Hands And Feet

In addition to the pain of fibromyalgia, it causes some other sensations in your body. One of the most frequent is a sense of tingling in your hands or feet. You probably recognize the sensation as what it feels like when your limbs “fall asleep.”

It’s a sense of numbness in the limb followed by a pins and needles sensation as the feeling returns. But while everyone has a limb fall asleep from time to time after sleeping or sitting on it, the sensation from fibromyalgia can occur at any time and is usually overlooked by people suffering from the condition.

Fibromyalgia causes a wide range of symptoms, and most are easy to miss if you aren’t careful. So always make sure to consider symptoms carefully and get to the doctor if they become severe.