Preventing vs. Treating Your Fibromyalgia Symptoms 

There is a big, big difference between treating your symptoms after they've gotten away from you and preventing them before they ever get that far.

Once your symptoms get away from you, it's like a runaway train.

Think of all those movies where the train is barreling down the tracks and everybody's panicking, trying to figure out how to stop it. That's what a fibro flare feels like once it takes off. You're just along for the ride, hanging on, waiting for it to run itself out of steam.

The truth is, once your symptoms have really gotten away from you, it can be incredibly difficult to stop that train. Sometimes the best you can do is be gentle with yourself and let it run its course.

But that doesn't feel good, right? It leaves you feeling like you're not in control of your body or the situation.

Which is where prevention comes in.

The key to prevention is knowing ahead of time what you need to do to feel your best. It's also crucial to see and understand the warning signs that your body is giving you.

Today, I'm giving you tips on how to shift your thinking from treating — after you experience those symptoms — to preventing those symptoms in the first place. I'll also give you some practical tips for how you can start to hear what your body is telling you — before she has to scream — and compiling that information into something I call your body's owner's manual.

Why Fibromyalgia Makes This So Much Harder

What is it about fibromyalgia that makes this so much more difficult? Here are some reasons you may not be familiar with:

Explosive Synchronization 

Explosive synchronization is a term used in the tech world to describe an unstable electrical system.

In 2018, researchers from the University of Michigan and South Korea discovered that the best computer model depicting brain activity of fibromyalgia patients was one that included the concept of explosive synchronization. [1, 2]

The name means pretty much what it sounds like: 

• Explosive: a sudden and dramatic increase (boom!). 
• Synchronization: everything happening together, all at once.

In other words, you stub your toe and the next thing you know, your whole body is in a fibro flare. Everything hurts, all together, all at once, with the pain increasing dramatically and suddenly.

Central Sensitization

Another term, used not just in fibromyalgia but in other conditions as well, is central sensitization. This is where your central nervous system becomes overly sensitized.

The best way to explain it is this: your body starts processing everything as pain, whether it's actually painful or not. Like a hug — hugs aren't supposed to hurt.

But with central sensitization, there's a switch that gets flipped in your brain and nervous system, where your body begins to see everything as pain.

Essentially, your body gets really, really good at processing pain, and it starts to see everything that way.

Fibromyalgia Is An Amplifier

In addition, fibromyalgia is going to take any other symptoms or conditions you have and crank the volume knob up.

For example, if you have an old knee injury, IBS, or a bad disc in your back, fibromyalgia is going to make all of those things hurt more than they should — and then the explosive synchronization is going to make everything else hurt too.

Your Body Has a Pressure Gauge

When I think of fibromyalgia pain and that switch in my brain that gets flipped when we have too much painful stimulus — I visualize my body having a pressure gauge.

You've probably seen this scenario in the movies too. The pressure in the pipes is getting too high and the pipes are going to explode. The nuclear reactor is going to melt down and the gauges are topped out at critical. 

That's what our fibro bodies are like.

Let's say my massage therapist is using too much pressure in a sensitive area. At first, everything seems fine. Then I can feel that pressure gauge starting to climb. A little higher. A little higher.

I've learned that if I ignore it, eventually I hit a tipping point. If I don't do something to release that pressure, it's going to overflow.

In these times, it feels like somebody flipped a switch. What started as one painful spot has suddenly turned into a full on fibro flare.

That's why learning to recognize your body's warning signs is so important. The earlier you notice that pressure gauge rising, the more options you have. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to stop the momentum.

The best way to avoid the fibro equivalent of a nuclear meltdown is to learn how your body is communicating with you. That way, you can recognize the warning signs and do something about it.

What is your body telling you? What does it feel like in your body when that pressure is rising?

In the movies, if nobody recognized the warning signs, nobody would take action to keep the meltdown from happening.

Your body's no different.

Your Body Is Already Talking to You

So how do we catch those warning signs?

The first step is to pay attention.

This is a very practical kind of mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn has described mindfulness as, "paying attention, in the present moment, on purpose, nonjudgmentally, as if your life depended on it."

With fibromyalgia, your life kinda does depend on it!

This kind of mindfulness means paying attention to things like:

• How does your body feel right now?
• Does it feel better when you do this?
• Does it feel worse when you do that?
• What helps you get back to your baseline?

An Example From My Own Life 

In addition to fibromyalgia, I have chronic daily headaches and migraine. One of the things I've discovered over the years is that there's a whole chain of warning signs that happens before a full-blown headache or migraine arrives.

Today, I know that if I start spelling things funny — spelling words phonetically instead of correctly (like phonetic with an F instead of a PH) — that's often one of my earliest warning signs. After that, I'll notice a pressure feeling in my forehead. Then my shoulders start creeping up toward my ears. Eventually, the headache arrives.

But I didn't figure all of that out at once.

What I noticed first was the headache. Then, over time, I realized my shoulders were getting tense before the headache started. After paying attention for a while longer, I noticed the pressure feeling in my forehead came before the shoulder tension. Eventually, I realized that even before the forehead pressure showed up, I was starting to spell things funny.

Every time I noticed a symptom, I'd try to notice what happened right before that symptom. Once I figured that bit out, I'd try to notice what happened before that. I just kept trying to work my way earlier and earlier.

I will tell you, after 20 years of looking for earlier and earlier warning signs, I notice things pretty quickly these days — but when I started? I couldn't see any of this.

If you're just starting to pay attention, that's okay. Don't feel like you're behind if you don't have it all figured out. It takes time to uncover this.

Here's an extra tip that might surprise you:

Talk to the people who live with you, work with you, and know you well. Ask them what they notice. I guarantee they notice things about you that you aren't even aware of.

Of course, not everyone has people in their life they would feel comfortable asking. If that's true for you, a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach^® can often fill that role. One of the benefits of working with someone who understands fibromyalgia is having another set of eyes to help you spot patterns, ask better questions, and notice connections that can be difficult to see when you're the one living inside the symptoms every day.

The more you notice, the more you understand what your body is telling you, and the easier it gets to step in early — before the flare, not after it.

Prevention in Action

Once you start paying attention and learning what your body needs, you can start preventing your symptoms. Here are some of the strategies that have made the biggest difference — for me and my clients.

Take Your Medicine Before You Need It

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — that's especially true with pain medication.

I recently had a breast biopsy. I talked about it in earlier articles like this one on The Human Care Fibromyalgia Patients Deserve. That biopsy led to a lumpectomy last week... and about an hour before they took me back for surgery, the nurse brought me 1,000 mg of Tylenol to take. So even in the hospital, before a surgery where they were going to give me pain medication, they still gave me something before I needed it. I had to laugh — and told my husband, "Guess what the next article is about!"

At one point (pre-2020) I was traveling about once a month. As part of my prevention, I would take medication before the flight instead of waiting until I was already hurting. (I stopped trying to catch the runaway train!)

Same thing when I'm sleeping in a bed that's not my own. I know that sleeping in a bed that's too hard is one of my triggers. To avoid waking up in pain, I take something before I get into bed — even if it's just Advil.

Think about it — if I'm tossing and turning all night because I'm in pain, not only am I going to be in pain when I wake up and have to try to recover from that, but I'm also going to hurt more because I haven't gotten good sleep. I'm going to be tired. I'm going to be brain fogged. I'm for sure going to be cranky.

Take the pain meds before bed, get good sleep, and the whole next day is better.

The same logic applies to anything that would normally cause pain. Going to be sitting in the bleachers at a football game? Take something before you go. Going out to garden? Take something before you head outside. That medication is going to be way more effective than if you wait and take it after. It'll take less medication to keep you feeling good — and you'll recover more quickly.

Stop Before You Hurt

Most people with fibromyalgia end up in a push-crash cycle. This is when you push push push and do ALL the things when you feel good — and then crash afterwards.

The key to breaking this toxic cycle is to stop before you run out of energy. To stop before you hurt.

To help with this, I recommend The Pomodoro Technique^® — a pattern of working and resting. Traditionally, a Pomodoro is 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. (Pomodoro is Italian for "tomato" and this technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timers.)

Coaching people as long as I have, though, has shown me one important tweak — fibro people need to work less and rest more.

Depending on what you're doing, the pattern might look like 20 minutes of work and then 15 minutes of rest. Or an hour of work and 20 minutes of rest.

Whatever the ratio, the principle is the same: stop before you hurt.

Whether you're cleaning out the garage, organizing your office, doing laundry, or writing a book — set a timer. Because I guarantee you will get on a roll and forget to stop and take that break. (And yes, I wrote both my books using the Pomodoro Technique!)

Eat Before You're Starving

Since blood sugar fluctuations can increase pain levels, fatigue, and brain fog, an important prevention strategy is keeping your blood sugar stable.

When you can eat on a consistent schedule — and choose long-burning fuels like protein and healthy fats — your blood sugar is more stable, leading to less inflammation, better pain and energy levels, and clearer brain function.

And yes, you may need a timer to remind you to eat.

As I was working on getting myself better, I used a timer to make sure my meals were no more than four hours apart.

We've got fibro fog, folks. We're not going to remember. And going too long without food is just going to make it worse.

Modify What You Can

I want to pause for a second and be super clear about something — prevention doesn't mean avoiding things.

The goal isn't to lower your symptoms by doing nothing.
The goal is to lower your symptoms AND live your life.

One of the ways we can prevent symptoms is by modifying our activities. This allows you to enjoy what you love without paying for it so much later.

Let's say every time you go out and garden, you end up in pain. Instead of giving up gardening, think about what you could change. Could you sit on a little stool instead of bending down? Could you use different tools that are more comfortable on your hands? Could you garden in containers instead of in the ground — bring the dirt up to you? Maybe you start with a few flowers in pots instead of trying to do a whole garden.

Or say you're going to a school football game to watch your kid play. You know those bleachers are going to be painful. What can you do? Bring a pillow to sit on. Hand warmers and a blanket so you don't get too cold. Something hot to drink. Snacks so your blood sugar doesn't crash. Earplugs or noise-canceling headphones if it's too loud. Sit somewhere that's not right next to the band.

These are all ways of thinking about prevention instead of trying to treat your fibro flare after it happens.

You're not skipping the things you want to do — you're setting yourself up to actually enjoy them.

Need help understanding what your body is trying to tell you?

It is absolutely possible to move beyond simply managing your symptoms into living your life again.

It takes doing some of the things I talked about here today, like being aware of what your body is telling you and shifting your mindset from treating to preventing your symptoms. It absolutely takes being more aware of your body and how things affect you — that practical sort of mindfulness I described earlier.

Be gentle with yourself, though. These things aren't always easy to figure out on your own, especially when you're in the middle of the pain, fatigue, and fibro fog.

If you'd like help figuring out your body's patterns, building your body's owner's manual, and creating a prevention plan that fits your real life, consider working with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach^®. What I've described here today is literally an assignment I give every single coach when they're in training with me. They've had to do this for themselves and they can help you do this too.

Schedule a consultation and let’s help you start identifying your body’s patterns, prevention strategies, and next best steps.