Levels of Pain

It's hard to describe fibro pain to someone who's never experienced it.

The 7 kinds of fibro pain as described in this article are about as close as one could get to explaining what I go through.

Types of Fibromyalgia Pain

The first 3 types of fibromyalgia pain are medically defined: 

1. Hyperalgesia - Our brains appear to take normal pain signals and "turn up the volume,"    making them more severe than they would normally be. 

2. Allodynia - your skin hurts to the touch, and when mild pressure from clothing or gentle massage causes pain. A lot of people describe allodynia as similar to a bad sunburn and I agree.

It comes in 3 forms:

A) Tactile, which is pain from touch or gentle pressure. My husband has learned to give me deep tissue massages. Those after the initial gouging a hole in the wall behind me actually help a lot, especially for my feet and my back. He'll literally rake his fingernails down my back and it's a mix between pain and pleasure. He keeps doing this for a few minutes and the pain goes away and my back feels like it's floating. I know, weird. I guess the amount of pressure exerted gets past the gentle touch/pressure triggers and that's why it works for me.

B) Mechanical, which is from something moving across your skin like a shirt, pants or a breeze. For me, putting on a shirt will feel like someone is using heavy grit sandpaper on my skin.

C) Thermal, which is pain from heat or cold that's not severe enough to damage tissues

3. Painful Paresthesia - is odd nerve sensations that can feel like crawling, tingling, burning, itching or numbness. Sometimes, these sensations can be painful. It is also associated with peripheral neuropathy, which I have. I find this one disconcerting at times, especially when I get the feeling like a mouse is quickly running up my back... under the skin.

The next 4 types are the writer's own creation, which is obvious by their names. Don't use these terms in a doctor's office (unless you want to be seen as crazy), but these labels may help you get to know your body's quirks, triggers, patterns, etc.: (I've used these to describe the pain with my neurologist and he completely understood what I meant) 

1. Knife in the Voodoo Doll - for me this is a sharp stabbing pain that can hit anywhere. I'd compare it to a drive by shooting. You never know when it's going to happen or where it's going to hit.  I also get the icepick in the big toe pain. Nothing says I love you like a knee jerk reaction just as your husband is leaning in for a kiss and the icepick hits.

2. Randomly Roving Pain - I hate this one since I'll try and get rid of it or stop whatever I'm doing that's causing it and it just goes somewhere else totally unrelated to what I just did or didn't do. 

3. Sparkler Burns - Ever drop ash from a cigarette on your arm? or have a drop of hot wax hit your hand, that's the same feeling but 100 times intensified. I also get that feeling over all of my body. 

One of the most uncomfortable and scary things I've had happen since being diagnosed with fibro. I woke up from a nightmare where the monster who was chasing me with a giant sword made from flames caught up to me when I tripped in the dream and hit me with the fire sword. I woke up with my entire body feeling like it was on fire. The feeling didn't pass for quite a while and there was nothing I could do since I really wasn't on fire. I tried in front of a fan, it relieved a bit of it but it was simply waiting for it to pass that finally worked. 

4. Rattled Nerves - I associate this one with a feeling of impending doom that I get. Everything around me just sets off alarms and there's nothing apparent that would cause the 5 alarm response.