Every day in the run up to Christmas I’m going to post a symptom or side effect of fibromyalgia – at the risk of sounding too twee for words, it’s the blog equivalent of opening the door on your advent calendar. Instead of a chocolate snowman you get a little window into what it’s like to have fibro.

December 2nd: Pain

Let’s talk about pain! The most common symptom of fibromyalgia, and the one that tends to differentiate it from a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME), a condition which has a lot of overlap with fibro.

There’s a variety of different aches and pains involved here, but in this instance I’m going to cover the widespread pain that’s most commonly associated with a fibromyalgia diagnosis.

Okay, science bit: most commonly the pain experienced as a result of fibromyalgia is described as “musculoskeletal pain” (occuring in the muscles and bones) and it can be felt like a burning sensation or an ache or a “throbbing. Like most fibromyalgia symptoms it can be made worse by things like physical activity and stress.

For a long time prior to my own diagnosis I assumed that fibro pain was constant, every day and every night, always excruciating. I didn’t have that, which was why my diagnosis came as such a surprise. It was only in the following days and weeks when I started to really pay attention to what my body was doing that I realised I’d written a lot of things off as “hormones” (because hormones continue to absolutely ravage your body after you have a baby) or a result of generally being less active during lockdown.

Like the intense ache in my left hand, arm and shoulder I woke up with in December 2020. It wasn’t excruciating the way labour had been, but it was unbearable in a different way. Like my bones were aching; like if I cracked a knuckle or my elbow or some part of my wrist it would provide instant relief. For days I was massaging and pressing down on different parts of my arm in an attempt to unfuck whatever was causing it, to no avail. The only way I could alleviate it completely was to lie on my arm until lost feeling in it, which was hardly sustainable.

After a few days of wanting to chew off my own hand it went away. I assumed I’d slept on it funny and didn’t give it much thought. It was weeks after my diagnosis that the penny dropped.

In some ways I’m very lucky to have pain be an annoyance rather than a mountain to be overcome every day. I feel like a walking bruise a lot of the time, but it’s more than bearable. I know there are fibromyalgia sufferers who live with unbearable and disabling pain and struggle to get the support they need – or in many cases, even a diagnosis. It’s frustrating, it’s demoralising and the hardest part of all is that because it’s invisible it’s so hard to convey just how brutal it is.

Solidarity, fibro team. I see you.