How Fibromyalgia Affects Your Mental Health

When you live with the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia, you know how much it impacts your life. Not only does fibromyalgia affect you physically, but it also impacts you mentally. 

Fibromyalgia is still a very misunderstood medical condition. It’s characterized by body-wide pain and tenderness, often misdiagnosed as a different health issue, such as arthritis or an autoimmune condition. 

You may also experience other symptoms, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraine, memory issues, and sleep disorders, further stumping medical teams trying to give you a correct diagnosis. 

Unfortunately, the chronic pain and confusing symptoms can cause a lot of emotional distress. 

What’s worse is that it’s still commonly believed that fibromyalgia is only psychological, which can isolate you from well-meaning friends and family members. 

At RapidRecovery TMS in Wilmington, North Carolina, our team wants you to know that we understand the toll that chronic pain and poor mental health can take on your overall well-being. 

So, we want to discuss how the physical pain of fibromyalgia can affect your mind and emotions and how we can help care for both your physical and mental health in this month’s blog. 

Fibromyalgia and mental health 

Currently, experts are still unsure what causes fibromyalgia. Some experts point to a genetic disposition to be more sensitive to pain, while others suggest changes in the brain that affect how it processes pain signals, making you feel pain with no actual physical cause. 

Whatever the reason, living with fibromyalgia makes you susceptible to developing mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. Depression is strongly linked to fibromyalgia, and studies tell us that people living with fibromyalgia are three times more likely to develop this mental health condition. 

It’s currently unknown if fibromyalgia directly causes depression or if depression is simply a symptom of fibromyalgia. No matter the reason, living with any type of chronic pain certainly impacts your mental health since it limits physical activity, isolates you socially, and affects sleep, all of which are intimately linked to the health of your mind.

With fibromyalgia, you may also struggle with psychological symptoms such as perfectionism, low self-esteem, and social anxiety. 

Addressing the physical and emotional symptoms of fibromyalgia

Although fibromyalgia isn’t fully understood, treatment options are available to help you effectively manage your symptoms. 

At RapidRecovery TMS, we offer a variety of therapies and medications to eliminate or at least reduce physical symptoms. By addressing physical symptoms, you can regain social connections, get quality sleep, and move your body with less pain. 

Once we find a pain management strategy that works best for you, we can schedule some psychotherapy sessions to help you work through emotional stressors to minimize mental health symptoms as well. 

For effective physical and mental health care, schedule an appointment with our team by calling our office or using our online booking feature today.