This is the topic I wish I had known about much earlier when I was fibromyalgia. I have fibromyalgia as well as chronic fatigue syndrome and have tried many things to treat and manage it. But no matter what I have tried, it has never been effective. I have tried various forms of treatment including acupuncture, biofeedback, massage, and a myriad of herbal remedies and supplements. The problem with all of these was that I could never get rid of the symptoms.
That’s what I thought until I started reading about alcohol and fibromyalgia. I’ve read many articles about alcohol and fibromyalgia and was actually pretty surprised at what alcohol has been found to do to fibromyalgia patients. I thought it was a myth that a person would feel horrible after having a drink. To make matters worse, I was told that alcohol was a lot worse for fibromyalgia patients than it was for people with other debilitating conditions.
To be fair, alcohol can actually help fibromyalgia patients. Ive seen many women who had fibromyalgic symptoms who had no alcohol to drink. Many of them felt so much better after a few drinks, but the alcohol in my bloodstream didn’t have anything to do with their improvement, it was actually the alcohol that was keeping them from feeling better.
Ive also heard of fibromyalgia patients who had no alcohol to drink and were totally fine. I have never heard of a fibromyalgia patient who had no alcohol in their bloodstream.
What a great question. Is alcohol harmful to fibromyalgia patients? No. I have never heard of anyone who drank alcohol to help fibromyalgia. But, no doubt, there are many alcoholic fibromyalgia patients out there. It’s important that all patients know that drinking alcohol is not a good thing, but that those who need alcohol to help their fibromyalgia sufferer feel better shouldn’t have alcohol in their bodies.
In the case of alcoholism, the effects of alcohol are usually reversed with the consumption of a pill called a decarboxylase inhibitor. And the patients with fibromyalgia might need to quit drinking, too.
Alcohol, a depressant, can cause the symptoms of fibromyalgia. But these symptoms can also be caused by a number of other disorders and diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s, and MS. So if a fibromyalgia sufferer needs alcohol in order to feel better, then by all means give them a pill.
Fibromyalgia is an extremely common disorder that affects 1-2% of the population, making it twice as common as MS. Fibromyalgia patients may also have a variety of other disorders, such as back pain, migraine headaches, and restless leg syndrome. But in the case of fibromyalgia, it’s also frequently associated with depression, which can make it more difficult to treat.
While it’s understandable that a sufferer for fibromyalgia might have trouble getting an alcoholic drink, it’s not the same as alcohol being the cause of fibromyalgia. The two are very different things. If fibromyalgia is caused by an infection, then alcohol is no less dangerous than the infection. But in the case of fibromyalgia, alcohol is a symptom. That means that alcohol may not be the cause of fibromyalgia, but it certainly does make it worse.
Well, it can go both ways, but we all know fibromyalgia sufferers have a lot of trouble with alcohol, and a lot of fibromyalgia sufferers also have trouble getting drunk. It’s true, you may not want to put your life’s savings on the line for a few nights in a bar a few years ago, but there are a lot of people out there who would hate to be stranded in a hospital for six months or worse.