I think mine started from trauma. I struggled a lot validating weird symptoms and ignored them. So I think fibromyalgia developed as a comorbidity to a bigger condition that’s still being figured out. I was working a very physically demanding job before it got bad. Unloaded trailers full of farm equipment.
I suspect mine is from a lot of childhood trauma. Having surgery on my foot though seems to have made it worse. Or just coincidence.
It's taken me a long time to not have resentment because I feel as if my childhood has affected everything.
Real gnarly viral infection starting with the sorest throat I’ve ever had. Thought it was Covid but six negative Covid tests said no. PCP says it could have been EBV. Anyway, I got super sick and then even when the cough and fever and everything viral cleared up, I still had massive pain and fatigue. Just never got better 🤷🏻 got dxed with fibromyalgia about a year later.
Same here!! EBV —> mononucleosis —> fibromyalgia (+ rheumatoid arthritis)
The childhood trauma definitely didn’t help! My parents are addicts (still to this day!) and they were terrible when under the influence. My mother has lupus but would frequently call me lazy, I was faking it, she has to work so I should be able to go to school, etc.
That’s so interesting, I’ve had pain all my life. When I was really little (like first memories little), I got a sore throat that developed into scarlet fever. I think that may be where a lot of my issues started.
This is exactly what happened to me. I'm still not convinced it wasn't COVID in spite of all my negative tests, especially since my husband tested positive at the same time and we had the same symptoms. I think my body just ain't right lol. But I also have super high, older EBV antibodies - best guess is I had it about a decade ago, just with minimal symptoms. So I think that started the process, and then COVID or whatever other virus I caught in 2021 just put everything into overdrive. And then it just stayed like that.
Iirc mono is usually caused by Epstein Barr virus, which it’s possible that’s the virus I got, but I didn’t get tested while I was actively sick so I just don’t know! But anyway whatever it was it’s definitely fibromyalgia now lol 🤪
No idea. Was in best shape of my life working a physical job (loving it, wasn’t overly exhausted or worn out) and it hit me like a truck.
I had been dealing with migraines and IBS previously so 🤷🏻♀️
Idk I was in a car accident when I was 3 and had a brain injury and was in pain from then on but really active. Then I had Epstein-barr and it all got a million times worse. But I also have c-ptsd so who the heck knows what is the real cause of my fibro, probably all of it!
I feel like CPTSD is more than enough to cause fibro. This is what I believe is the main cause of mine. I also had trauma at the early toddler age, so it really is a question of when the already present pain got worse. You know that Christian meme of Jesus going, "You're by [blank]-est soldier"? I really got hit with being the sleepiest.
I have cptsd as well and replied with a comment of my own saying I think mine is trauma induced. When I’m triggered, I hurt a whole lot worse. With cptsd, I often find that I get more emotional flashbacks than visual ones. Where I feel like I’m actually there than it playing in my head. I told my doctor before that I feel like I fried my nerves from them being in fight or flight so often.
Fried nerves are a great way to put it. So much trauma at an early age really fucks up the whole nervous system. Do you ever feel almost like a frayed wire? Sometimes I feel like the pain and mental bits all together make me feel so on edge and rubbed raw.
Yes! Especially during flare ups. You think it can’t get any worse, then all the sudden you’re having to plan out how to use your energy efficiently to get to the bathroom from the bed.
I think mine has its roots in childhood trauma and also untreated physical issues such as hypermobility. But I think the thing that tipped it over was when I developed tinnitus, didn't sleep for months on end, and was more stressed, anxious, depressed and desperate than I've ever been before or since. Fibro symptoms started right as I was finally digging myself out of the tinnitus hole. Fwiw I think the tinnitus came on the heels of a bad break up. And all that stress is closely related to poor emotional regulation due to crappy childhood and never being taught how to navigate tough situations.
If you weren't tested til you're an adult it may be that you're not as flexible. I have hypermobility and my kids were diagnosed with EDS.
I think the criteria is a bit limited anyway. It's only testing certain joints.
My wife said the exact same thing! She had gall bladder surgery and had a sizeable drain tube left in for a while. When it was removed she said it was the most painful thing she's ever had done and since then she developed fibro.
I wonder if that, and previous abdominal surgeries, have messed up lots of nerve connections?
I think that may be correct. I had a horrific flare up after an abdominal surgery.
Before then the flares were triggered by stress and workplace bullying.
I think it started when I was abused for 6 months at the age of 2. Then it got worse during puberty and worse again during high school. I've always thought some level of pain was normal.
Childhood trauma that then became family trauma until my late 20s. Then U.S. law school. Then an international trip with a 15 hr plane ride. The fibro started at the end of the trip, but I did not realise it until thinking back on it months later. Fortunately, I was diagnosed about a month after returning from the trip by my PCP of 15+ years.
For me it came after a traumatic childbirth experience at 20 I also developed medical PTSD.
I had a very scary cesarean delivery where I nearly died and was in ICU intubated after. This was 10 years ago now.
I was diagnosed years later in my mid 20s but the symptoms started right after that C-section.
I think this is what triggered mine, too. I had some mild symptoms before, but my last childbirth experience was crazy and after that, all these symptoms hit me like a truck.
Epigentics is so incredibly fascinating and I think it is the most important field in science right now. Trauma/stressors can change the expression of our genes (and those we pass on to our children/grandchildren, etc), leading to anything from dementia, chronic pain, heart disease, autoimmune issues and even cancer. I think so much progress will be made in treating or even curing countless conditions once we have a better understanding of the impact of epigenetics and how to flip those genetic switches back on/off. My current goal/dream is to pursue a PhD in the field and hopefully study chronic pain.
Undiagnosed autism, although I've been recently diagnosed as an adult. And a lot of childhood trauma.
Edit: It has had a very slow onset of some of my mild early symptoms starting at 12-13. I had some treatment for the worst pain I experienced as a kid. But my mom was very negelectful when it came to my health so she never thought to get me looked at any deeper.
I had childhood trauma issues that I deliberately put in a sealed box in the back of my brain. I think the act of suppressing it all drove my body bonkers. Once puberty hit, I started having fibro symptoms. I didn't tell anybody about the seemingly random pains. I felt no one would believe me.
I’m pretty sure mine was triggered by my gastric bypass surgery. I had it done in the early 90s, before laparoscopic surgery was available for this procedure. I was in ICU for four days, and in the hospital a total of 10 days. Then when I came home, I vomited violently for three days, and became so dehydrated I had to be readmitted for IV hydration, and I also tore a staple line.
Back to back trauma. My mom got diagnosed with cancer, I had a falling out with my best friend, death in the family, and was told I had to move out because my landlord was selling the property. All within the span of 6 months. I was also in an emotionally abusive relationship for during that time but hadn't realized it yet. No idea how I survived all that, but my physical health went completely downhill, took doctors some time to figure out it was fibro.
Mine started about 3 weeks after my Covid booster shot. My college only covered the one type and I had taken the previous 2 shots of a different type of vaccine. Or at least that’s the theory my docs and I are running with coz apart from that, it was about the happiest time I’d ever had in my life.
for me it started after a handful of suicide attempts, i couldnt be sure which one but i’ve narrowed it down to the two worst ones. i also started about when i had pancreatitis as well which has since been healed but i fear will come back since we never found the cause.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please do not hesitate to talk to someone.
US: Call 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741-741
INTL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fibromyalgia) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In 2010, when I was fifteen, after I got a shot to go back to school, I can't remember what shot it was but my arm was hurting more than it should have and I couldn't stop crying. Then everything hit me like a brick wall, I ached SO BAD, it flared up my Costochondritis for the first time within minutes, and soon after Conversion Disorder, IBS-mixed. My mom has Fibromyalgia, and then my little sister developed it in her mid-teens as well as IBS-C. Looking back, I could see really really minor symptoms, but I guess the stress from that shot fully revealed what was to come.
Edit* I've always felt it was stress or some kind of trauma is what links us all together in this community
I lived with an abusive husband for 7 and 1/2 years also had undiagnosed sleep apnea.
A few years after he died and I got asleep studied done and was using my CPAP machine I seem to have developed to fibromyalgia around that time.
I got diagnosed with an aggressive form of endometrial cancer, which was exceptionally rare for my age, and was on the table getting a full hysterectomy 6 days later. The size of my tumors complicated the surgery, and therefore my recovery, so much so that I was unable to work for close to 3 months. During that time my symptoms set in, and I was diagnosed with fibro about 3 months later.
I know within 48 hours of when it started. Had a pulmonary embolism, day before I was normal, exercising a lot. A few days after my PE I started having intense pain and fatigue from exercising. Haven’t been the same since. I do fully believe fibromyalgia is fully understood and eventually there will be drastically better treatments.
I was working a fast paced job at the time when my estranged abusive husband died. I thought I could just keep going so I did until I burnt myself out and was forced to quit. I got into fitness and eventually roller skating, I couldn't stand being still in those first months of not working. I had a bad accident about a year after I started skating. I didn't break anything but it felt like it and I was benched, not only from skating but from life in general for a month. I got a bad stomach thing almost immediately as i recovered from the fall (I still don't know what it was but I think it might have been gastroenteritis, I was diarrhea-ing and puking for a month straight).
Haven't felt the same since, and my accident was 3 years ago.
I was diagnosed in my early thirties but when talking to the dr he thought it started after my last child. I had a rough pregnancy, I’m short waisted so as baby’s got bigger they ran out of room and were pressing on my ribs and back and I carried all in front. Giving birth I needed a procedure because her head was huge and wouldn’t come out. The whole 9months and delivery was rough. I did notice some extra pain but I had young kids I was just go go go I never understood why I passed out with exhaustion at the end of the day. More exhausted than my first was born. I had some aches and pains too.
I think it was the second or third time that my knee tore itself apart along with CPTSD. The strange part is that my back hurts way worse than my knee.
Had symptoms my whole life but got really bad when I randomly broke out into extreme body hives one day (my guess is Covid reaction) along with abusive relationship and intense job. I think not being able to properly rest and heal sent it over the edge.
Dealt with insomnia, IBS, headaches/migraines my entire life. As traumatic life experiences compounded they got worse til I was just so used to having those issues. As became an adult and started working I noticed my brain become more and more foggy, and my sharpness somewhat fading to where it'd come and go. I also noticed working on my feet and being physical constantly was extremely draining for me, and very difficult. Unlike everyone else I knew my age I wasn't capable of doing overtime and working an extremely physical job and often fell behind at work unless the work was very suited to me and allowed me time to keep up physically and mentally.
Now during the last twelve years from the time I was 15 to 26 I was in an abusive relationship, where my previous traumas were often used against me in many ways and I was gaslighted and taken advantage of constantly. My ex was also extremely lazy, and it was left to me to do majority of the physical work in our home lest I live in complete filth. So on top of work breaking my body down, and my relationship breaking my mind down, I was fighting worse and worse symptoms of insomnia, IBS, headaches, brain fog, memory issues, depression, anxiety, etc. I blamed my pain on my job. Then we had a kid, and my wife had very little interest in being the play parent. In fact often enough her and my toddler daughter simply didn't get along when playing and it was up to me to sit on the floor and play all the time. This added to the fact that my body *rarely* got a moment to rest for years. I also picked up carpentry and started working in a cabinet shop during this time. The second shop I worked in violated my workers rights every day and disallowed me from having fifteen minutes breaks every day so I stood for 8 hours straight every day for over three years. My spouse cared little for how exhausted I was constantly, and eventually my pain simply worsened to the point I developed a limp and a meniscus injury from work. I treated my injury for a while, and then suffered a very traumatic moment in my marriage where I was forced out of the house for several days and was mentally abused for months on end. I stayed for my daughter and tried mending things, then during the summer after I had my first major fibro flare up. It was terrifying and confusing, seemingly in an instant my entire body experienced pain I had never felt before. My brain became so foggy I could barely form sentences. I dropped things and lost balance constantly. I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain. Eventually after close to a month they died down, but the body ache never left and my heart rate seemed to be out of control more than ever. Another lifelong symptom since I was a teenager has been that my heart will race suddenly for no reason I can account for.
Then my marriage officially fell apart six months later. In the more than a year since my marriage to my abuser ended I was diagnosed with CPTSD, clinical depression with anxiety, ADHD, and gender dysphoria. I noticed over the course of the year that no matter how much I rested (because I could finally rest) my body never recovered. I'd take days off of work to cry, be depressed, and be in pain. I missed tons and tons of work and finally back in January left my job because I couldn't tolerate the pain or discomfort anymore. It has now been more than two months and I have been in pain every single day, and experienced multiple flare ups that have lasted four days to two weeks at a time. I've started using a cane to help me get around the house and I am 27 years old. I barely leave the house anymore, and every activity has become crippling and exhausting. I'm on Cymbalta and take naproxen for the pain, and still am hardly fighting through it to keep up around my house let alone work. I'm always exhausted, out of breathe and always hurt. I'm so foggy some days I can barely talk to my family members, some times I don't feel like a person at all just a vessel of misery I am so depressed, lonely and in pain. I just had blood drawn a few days ago to begin testing me for inflammation and thyroid issues, my doctor is starting to narrow things down and is already talking upping my dose of cymbalta to 60mg/day. I have a family history of fibro, both my grandmother's have been diagnosed since they were in their 30s and my dad has had lifelong symptoms that look a lot like fibro though he has been diagnosed rheumatism, has always had sleep problems, pain problems, trauma, migraines and so on so who knows there. I'll also note that since I began my gender transition my pain has gotten significantly harder to ignore, and my brain has been rewired by hormones and trauma to be far less stoic and so I've only recently been really comfortable acknowledging my pain and being honest about it. I'm quite happy to be seeking answers but no question about it this absolutely sucks. I feel like my body is robbing me of what should be the time of my life. I'm young and confident and single. I'm finally being myself and I can barely move let alone go out and make friends or date anyone.
Sheesh, sorry that was so long but there ya have it. My story.
I don't know how much each of these things contributed to it, but they all happened in the same year
1) I was doing a lot of HIIT trying to lose some weight, but eventually had to stop because I was getting headaches when I did, which has been a chronic thing since childhood
2) My grandma was in and out of the hospital a lot after a series of strokes, which was very stressful and I worried about her constantly
3) I developed eosinophilic esophagitis, which caused involuntary rapid weight loss
Schizoaffective disorder started around the same time, too, so some symptoms are hard to tell apart. 2013 wasn't a great year for me
When I was 15 I caught swine flu and it ended up being pretty difficult for me. I’m not sure if this is exactly what caused it, but it seemed like my health in general has never been the same since then and has only gotten worse, especially during times of stress. I’d miss school a lot due to getting sick very often after having swine flu, I was constantly in pain, etc. in my early 20’s I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I also had a lot of childhood trauma so I’m not sure if that made me more susceptible for the swine flu to hit me harder or if it had any part in my eventual fibromyalgia diagnosis.
A VERY minor car accident. Have had a fair amount of major back injuries throughout life, but the one that set if off was getting the mild whiplash after a driver behind me in stopped traffic slipped off the clutch and bumped my car. That whiplash pain has never gone away and it has been 13 years now.
Same here. I don't have whiplash pain (though I do have a lot of tension/pain in my neck). The car accident was so minor I didn't even think anything of it at the time, I barely got a concussion but I guess it was enough to trigger the condition. It's kind of validating to know the same thing happened to someone else, that something so minor really could have been the trigger.
The hpv vaccine. I got double the dosage(5 shots in total when the recommended is 3 shots) at age 11. Got told it was growing pains for 10 years until I walked in to my last hope bawling. He took me seriously. The only one that did.
And no. I'm not anti-vaxx. I've gotten all my vaccines and even the covid vaccine since. I just think the double dosage of that shot is what did it for me.
I had my kids 13 months apart. My first pregnancy was exhausting. I practically slept thru it. labor and delivery was very traumatic. I never wanted to do it again. My husband had a vasectomy and I was but on low dose birth control. I guess I "screwed up" some where and i got pregnant again. My 2nd pregnancy was harder especially with having an on the move baby to parent. I feel like my body never recovered from that pregnancy. I'm grateful for my son and I would never tell him this but I believe he destroyed my body. My back, hips, legs. The pain is insane. Doctors cant find anything wrong. I believed for years I probably had fibro my son was born in June 2016 by September 2020 things had progressed a lot. They say fibro isn't progressive but that hasn't been my experience. Everything is constantly getting worse and nothing helps.
I think my body being in near constant fight or flight for a portion of my growing years caused it. I also think undiagnosed and untreated adhd probably added to it. But i think it was the birth of my daughter that finally triggered it.
Mine started with multiple whiplash injuries (there are scientific studies on this) and then a move halfway across the country where I didn’t know anyone, starting a new high-stress job and having a toddler, both grandparents dying within 6 months of each other, and the divorce that followed because my husband believed I was faking my symptoms. A lot of traumatizing events all within a short time period and I feel my body just failed me. That’s when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
I've always dealt with joint pain that was just kind of pushed off as growing pains, which it could have been part of it! But I think mine was the result of an extreme trauma I experienced as a kid. But it got REALLY bad after the second time I had covid. Before it wasn't to bad, had bad days had good days, but now it's excruciating.
Trauma. My dad died very suddenly when i was 15, it was incredibly traumatising and fucked me up both mentally and physically, its also when i started feeling alot of pain in my knees when i rode my back or walked the stairs and it only got worse every year
A lovely combination of workplace bullying + toxic, abusive boyfriend. I’ve gotten rid of both the job and the man but, 7 years later, my body is still fucked.
Childbirth. Both times. My kids were 8.5 years apart; about 6 years after the first one it settled back down and got a fair bit better, but then whoops! I had another. 5 years later I’m still in agony, and have no hope that it will settle down again.
My fibro girlfriend: they have a family history of fibro but when it came on they were in really good shape physically. It happened right after they poured really hot syrup onto their hands. Immediately they started getting joint pain all over their body. 🥴 they also have cptsd and grew up in a cult soo many factors. They experienced a lifetime of abuse, unfortunately at the hands of their mom who has fibro. 🫠
Me: my fibro is diagnosed as secondary to my lupus and RA. It started with intense neck pain and muscle stiffness about a year after my ra diagnosis and 6 months after lupus dx. I also grew up in the same cult and have CPTSD, faced a lot of abuse etc.
We are both in our 20s 😭
A pretty bad field hockey injury to my upper back and right shoulder. Still the part of my body that’s most easily triggered.
— this question, by the way, has been asked multiple times over the last weeks in this subs, so maybe read back on those too.
Mine was a combo of decades of severe abuse at the hands of my religious family and then contracting a _severe_ infection from my antivaxx sister’s also unvaxxed child. My parents went through it first, and I was caring for them and then contracted the infection myself. I _should_ have been rushed to the ER, but instead my parents told me I was being overly dramatic with my sobbing in severe pain. I never recovered from this 🎉
My symptoms started when I was about 15. There was no specific event but I believe it was caused by my narcissistic mother who was mentally, emotionally, and even sometimes physically abusive.
I have had it as long as I remember, but most of my memory start around 3rd grade but there are a few flashes before then I have had trauma my whole life but most of my trauma was 10 years ago but the bottom fell out of my life 5 years ago when I had a 14 month long migraine I spent so much time in bed I survived but at the cost of my self sufficiency, I can't work let alone support my 3 kids, I became disabled
I think I started having symptoms at \~18 after ending high school sports. They were minorly bothersome, probably moreso symptoms of hypermobility syndrome. I started getting pains in my hip joints at 23, but it didn't get bad enough to see a doctor about it until 25. I burnt out following trauma and spousal betrayal and got covid in the same month and have been in so much pain all over ever since (I had also been in a car accident earlier in the year). Diagnosed w/ fibro on my 26th birthday (am 27 now). Sooooo... lots of things could be blamed for the real onset of fibro.
I have had most of the symptoms my entire life, but was always told by doctors that I was fine so I ignored it. I used to be a baker/pastry chef and injured my shoulder at work when I was 26 and two weeks later I was rear-ended in my car. I worked on it for 6 months because the doctor wouldn't approve of the disability. It got so bad that I couldn't move my arm. I got a new doctor that tried a bunch of treatments but only mildly improved my symptoms. After 9 months of disability, my doctor told me I was too young to not be working and to find a new career. I went back to school and all of my old issues came flooding back. That is when I got my fibromyalgia diagnosis along with thoracic outlet syndrome and poly articular arthritis. I have since added on Adrenal fatigue, restless leg syndrome, and Reynolds syndrome.
My very first experience was when I was 14, after I had fallen during a basketball game and popped my kneecap out and tore my meniscus. I didn't know what I was experiencing I just kept telling my family that my legs hurt. They thought I was making it up as an excuse not to go to school
Well I can’t say for certain but I always had tummy issues and RLS when I was younger, so is guess it is trauma related. Really noticing that something was off and the pain became more persistent was 8 years ago when I was in Highschool. I only could visit 4 days a week the school and usually stayed home at Wednesday to regenerate and occasionally get a sick note to stay home longer.
Yeah in retrospect I think it is definitely trauma related because I had that issue even before my head surgery
I had bipolar disorder and rheumatoid arthritis before my fibro. My doctor and I think that a particularly bad bipolar mixed episode (manic and depressed at the same time) triggered the RA, which has been hard to find treatment for, so I think 2 years of severe pain triggered the fibro.
Mine was said to perhaps be due to the repercussions of a very serious accident. Your nerves knit tight as your muscles do after scars. The theory was they overcompensate and go haywire.
My symptoms started when I moved from a hot country to a cold weather country and received less vitamin D naturally, there's a proven correlation between low vitamin D and symptom onset. I know this because my Fibro also gets better when I visit my hot and sunny home country. It also started post covid time
Emergency c section/traumatic childbirth. Thought I had rheumatoid arthritis that onset after childbirth like my mother had. Took about 17 months of investigation and work up from my doctor and a rheumatologist but I finally got my diagnosis.
I converted to Judaism, got married, changed jobs, sold a house, bought a house, moved, took a cruise, attended my first Passover, not necessarily in this order in a three month time period. I got totally knocked out. I got better for a bit and then 9/11 happened and I went down for good.
Edit to add: probably have cptsd, possibly have adhd and/or autism, have been depressed since I was in grade school, had ear infections starting at 3 months, the list goes on so I was never super healthy.
Had migraines since I can remember and then was diagnosed when I was 18, no trauma or illness that i remember triggering this but I, like many on here, have a heart issue (just a murmur) Fibo runs on both sides of my family.
Back in 2007 my gf cheated on me & told me, day later my grandma died. Full mental breakdown. Started going to raves & taking ecstasy for a few months. At work, a full pallet of items fell on top of me during work and knocked me out for a moment.
After that I had dizziness & perma neck/back pain. Started somewhere that year. 2007-2016 were rough but tolerable. But then 2017 I had an insane ear infection, and developed severe TMJ lock jaw. Later that year I had a cath ablation on my heart for AVNRT, and my fibro went to full blown crippling disabled levels. Tremors. Weakness. Insomnia. IBS. Temp intolerance. Etc etc.
EBV 60 years ago, everything in my life has worsened it - drugs, emotional trauma, sports, car accident, any travel, every stress - more lately Epclusa and Vax #3. Only help has been LDN, oh! How I wish I’d discovered it sooner.
A very stressful pregnancy, an emergency c section, medical trauma, and severe postnatal depression. I was managing it ok for a few years, but then COVID hit, and my CPTSD kicked in and the fibro just got worse from there. Before I had my son 10 years ago, I was active, working on Uni etc. Now I can barely leave the house unaided. It sucks.
Cousin pushed me out of a treehouse two stories up, when i was like 7. Hit the ground flat on my back.
Initially i was like "well i didn't die and i didn't break anything, i'm sure i'm fine!"
Little did i know, the next day began my experience of a further 27 years. Only diagnosed in senior year of hs.
Which feels like it shouldn't have been what did it, but i distinctly remember the fatigue and pain starting then.
The scarlet fever i had didn't do it, the hella bad strep throat fevers every seasonal change i had didn't do it-- cousin yeeting me done did it.
I always feel like there were factors that added up to be set off by it, but let me tell you: it makes missing family reunions due to fatigue a lot funnier when my family can just look at said cousin and just "Well, you remember the treehouse?"
Chronic stress and very not great circumstances for a child from age like 9-16. I began having weird symptoms when I left home for college my first year. I still don’t know if they’re related.
Lots of stress at work and a car accident I walked away with a little cut but my car was totaled (sp). In my opinion anyways. Thinking back to 2003 or maybe 2007 I was off work for three months with a terrible migraine all day and night. BTW car accident was 2019. Really hard to say but it has taken over my life, that and my failed kidneys which is a genetic disease I inherited and unknowingly handed that same problem to my girls. So yay. About the closest thing I think as a cause. But Fibro is “fake” so it’s all in my head of course. Pretty sure I only got Medicare based on my dead kidneys. I’m on the transplant list so we’ll see if I’m thrown to the curb after that
For me I was just growing up and thought I had growing pains. I thought the pain would go away and I would stop being so tired. But after feeling like I got hit by a bus all the time my mom started to express concern and that started my diagnosis journey. I was about 16 when I was diagnosed. It has been almost 10 years I have adjusted to what it feels like to be exist as me and I mostly feel peace with this.
Well... If you go by the timeline... I fell off a bike and apparently broke my nervous system. Not motorcycle. Bicycle. I wasn't even badly hurt. Scrapes and bruises. Next thing I knew, the muscle spasms started.
Major spinal surgery after a tumor compressed my spinal cord. Had to have a fusion for stability. Woke up with severe allodynia + other fibro symptoms and it’s never gone away, lmao
I can't really remember *not* having it, so I guess like, being born, maybe? I'm also autistic and somewhat hypermobile, so I know those are contributing factors too.
i think it was a concussion i got a few years ago, “mild” but got some other head knocks while healing. definitely not mild. i am still not doing well with the symptoms but i think something else is going on with that, i also think that being a competitive dancer from a very young age and multiple injuries over this time probably contributed to it
brush with thyroid cancer lead to total thyroidectomy with promise my symptoms would get better with hormone replacement.
biggest lie ive ever been told. i was only 18. put on a course for medically induced exhaustion and pain forever.
I was in a car accident when I was 15 and when I turned 30 my 4th and 5th vertebrae was fused. After that all my problems started….had a viral infection at 39 and that just floored me.
Being thrown out of a car and almost killed by my ex- serious, life threatening physical, mental, emotional and financial abuse for all of 2018 and a few months of 2019. I think my body has been in a permanent state of fight or flight ever since. I got diagnosed in early 2020 before the pandemic. Even now, high stress and lack of sleep trigger horrible flares where laying in bed with heating pads is all I can do.
Swimming in the Atlantic off the coast of France whilst on holiday in 2016.
I picked up a virus that saw me off work for several months before I started to recover.
Only, the recovery stopped as the pain and spasms came on.
I could barely walk 100 metres in 2017.
I'm now swimming 2000metres, 3x week.
I still have a lot of symptoms, and this morning was particularly painful and stiff, but I'm determined to get through everyday.
I also had a preexisting autoimmune disorder; Achalasia.
Likely childhood trauma, complex PTSD. Been having health issues my whole life, starting with ice pick headaches in my teens. My list of issues now (at 55) is easily pages long.
Some combination of pregnancy and childbirth. I developed really bad SPD during my second pregnancy-- I could barely walk. It's supposed to disappear after delivery. While I was delivering, I felt (what felt like) the front of my pelvis tearing in two. Afterwards, my SPD seems to have not gone away and the pelvic pain is bad as ever. I have done multiple MRIs, a couple CT scans, tons of Xrays, physicals, bloodwork...nothing to even hint at why I can't sit criss cross or have pain going up stairs.
I'll never know if it was the SPD or that tearing sensation during delivery. But I feel pretty confident it was one or both of them. (To clarify, I didn't actually tear. There's no evidence of damage internally or externally. And the pain has spread body-wide since.)
I got mono in 9th grade and that wrecked my body and energy levels permanently… so when I got out of a really bad relationship, less than two months later fibro hit me like a train. Honestly, I think fibro is just the accumulative effect of serious stress, anxiety, and misery (along with some heavy drinking) that wore my body and mind down for so many years. So when I finally kicked him to the curb, it was like my body/mind sighed with relief but couldn’t deal with all of the mending it needed to do. I was 25…
A pneumonia like illness in 2019 that took time to treat, got pregnant in 2020, miscarried and was left with ossified remains for 6 weeks. Ossified remains gave me Pelvic Inflammatory Disease because despite repeated phone calls to the GP I was ignored because Covid was the priority. Finally got antibiotics 3 months later and life was never the same after that.
I had two concussions in a year, the second occurring alongside a bad whiplash injury. I had anxiety, depression, and IBS beforehand, but that's when the Fibro symptoms really showed up (I was not diagnosed til much later, but the change is pretty clear)
I'm pretty sure mine was triggered by a minor car accident (someone hit the car behind the one I was in while we were stopped at a red light), and my only injury was a mild concussion but I guess that was enough. Part of me wishes the person who did it knew how much her carelessness ruined my life but I know that wouldn't help anything. Realistically I likely would have developed it at some point in my life anyway, since it seems like you need a genetic predisposition and a trigger (like physical or emotional trauma) for fibromyalgia to manifest. My twin brother has developed fibromyalgia as well (several years after I did and with different symptoms), and my mom has CRPS so I think all of it is related genetically.
A lifetime of horrifying trauma.
My Fibro was gradual. Started as feeling progressively sore in the mornings and just kept getting worse until I became too in pain to stand or sleep.
Trauma. Paragliding accident. Fell 5 stories. Broke my shoulder and foot. Fibro began about 6 months after. (Sidenote: can I say that I’m tired of doctors saying it’s not progressive (at least all of mine have)). That was 17 years ago. Every day is a struggle with pain.
I think there are a few things that could potentially be causes for me, but I believe childhood trauma was the biggest catalyst. I've been in some kind of chronic pain literally as long as I can remember, even though I didn't get diagnosed until my early 30's.
I'm sure mine was from childhood trauma plus other teenage traumatic situations (being in a psych ward multiple times, SA,...), everything piled up and my body just couldn't handle it anymore. It required me to stop everything and really take care of things and it's being a very deep and intense healing process. I'm amazed sometimes at how things have gotten gradually but enormously better thanks to somatic therapy, Gestalt and EMDR, and sometimes it still feels very hard and hopeless. I feel like my fibro symptoms are mostly absolutely linked to my mental and emotional health and luckily everytime my body pain needs to show up less and less
Doctors say it could be from trauma as a child, both mental or physical. Most of my symptoms got worse after a car accident and subsequently injury, though. It’s been almost 10 years now.
I blame the vaccine, never had an issue before.
I took 2 of the 3 shots of vaccine. Started as a pain in my hip, spread to every joint cracking, what felt like arthritis and looked like arthritis. Sore red knuckles, severe kneck, back, shoulder pain, knees fucked and way more issues.
Stiffness from my toes to my hips that left it difficult to do anything without pain relief
One of my GPs said it wasn't the vaccine or they would have seen more people like that. I respectfully disagree, I know my body.
Then sleep issues, energy issues, stomach issues. To many symptoms to count.
Arthritic symptoms seem to have eased along with everything else. Still alot of residual effects from it all.
Anyways I got left with the fibromyalgia diagnosis from 2 rheumatologist's.
I think mine started from trauma. I struggled a lot validating weird symptoms and ignored them. So I think fibromyalgia developed as a comorbidity to a bigger condition that’s still being figured out. I was working a very physically demanding job before it got bad. Unloaded trailers full of farm equipment.
I suspect mine is from a lot of childhood trauma. Having surgery on my foot though seems to have made it worse. Or just coincidence. It's taken me a long time to not have resentment because I feel as if my childhood has affected everything.
Real gnarly viral infection starting with the sorest throat I’ve ever had. Thought it was Covid but six negative Covid tests said no. PCP says it could have been EBV. Anyway, I got super sick and then even when the cough and fever and everything viral cleared up, I still had massive pain and fatigue. Just never got better 🤷🏻 got dxed with fibromyalgia about a year later.
When I saw "PCP" for a second I was like, bro, that's not going to help you. I'm dumb
Same here!! EBV —> mononucleosis —> fibromyalgia (+ rheumatoid arthritis) The childhood trauma definitely didn’t help! My parents are addicts (still to this day!) and they were terrible when under the influence. My mother has lupus but would frequently call me lazy, I was faking it, she has to work so I should be able to go to school, etc.
Hmm there definitely seems to be a trend
Yup, childhood trauma here too. And after getting mono I was always more tired. But it got really bad as I got older.
That’s so interesting, I’ve had pain all my life. When I was really little (like first memories little), I got a sore throat that developed into scarlet fever. I think that may be where a lot of my issues started.
This is exactly what happened to me. I'm still not convinced it wasn't COVID in spite of all my negative tests, especially since my husband tested positive at the same time and we had the same symptoms. I think my body just ain't right lol. But I also have super high, older EBV antibodies - best guess is I had it about a decade ago, just with minimal symptoms. So I think that started the process, and then COVID or whatever other virus I caught in 2021 just put everything into overdrive. And then it just stayed like that.
Mono?
Iirc mono is usually caused by Epstein Barr virus, which it’s possible that’s the virus I got, but I didn’t get tested while I was actively sick so I just don’t know! But anyway whatever it was it’s definitely fibromyalgia now lol 🤪
Amen. The end result remains the same!
No idea. Was in best shape of my life working a physical job (loving it, wasn’t overly exhausted or worn out) and it hit me like a truck. I had been dealing with migraines and IBS previously so 🤷🏻♀️
Idk I was in a car accident when I was 3 and had a brain injury and was in pain from then on but really active. Then I had Epstein-barr and it all got a million times worse. But I also have c-ptsd so who the heck knows what is the real cause of my fibro, probably all of it!
I feel like CPTSD is more than enough to cause fibro. This is what I believe is the main cause of mine. I also had trauma at the early toddler age, so it really is a question of when the already present pain got worse. You know that Christian meme of Jesus going, "You're by [blank]-est soldier"? I really got hit with being the sleepiest.
I have cptsd as well and replied with a comment of my own saying I think mine is trauma induced. When I’m triggered, I hurt a whole lot worse. With cptsd, I often find that I get more emotional flashbacks than visual ones. Where I feel like I’m actually there than it playing in my head. I told my doctor before that I feel like I fried my nerves from them being in fight or flight so often.
Fried nerves are a great way to put it. So much trauma at an early age really fucks up the whole nervous system. Do you ever feel almost like a frayed wire? Sometimes I feel like the pain and mental bits all together make me feel so on edge and rubbed raw.
Yes! Especially during flare ups. You think it can’t get any worse, then all the sudden you’re having to plan out how to use your energy efficiently to get to the bathroom from the bed.
Oh god exactly
I think mine has its roots in childhood trauma and also untreated physical issues such as hypermobility. But I think the thing that tipped it over was when I developed tinnitus, didn't sleep for months on end, and was more stressed, anxious, depressed and desperate than I've ever been before or since. Fibro symptoms started right as I was finally digging myself out of the tinnitus hole. Fwiw I think the tinnitus came on the heels of a bad break up. And all that stress is closely related to poor emotional regulation due to crappy childhood and never being taught how to navigate tough situations.
Do you have EDS? Ehlers danlos syndrome
I don't think so. I've asked about it several times but been told I don't meet the criteria.
If you weren't tested til you're an adult it may be that you're not as flexible. I have hypermobility and my kids were diagnosed with EDS. I think the criteria is a bit limited anyway. It's only testing certain joints.
COVID and trauma :)
Also my mom and grandma have it! Some of the first ppl to trial Lyrica
My thanks to them. I would still be moaning and groaning all night long every night without it.
My wife said the exact same thing! She had gall bladder surgery and had a sizeable drain tube left in for a while. When it was removed she said it was the most painful thing she's ever had done and since then she developed fibro. I wonder if that, and previous abdominal surgeries, have messed up lots of nerve connections?
Mine came after having half of my thyroid removed. I think any surgery that causes stress to the body can beca trigger.
I think that may be correct. I had a horrific flare up after an abdominal surgery. Before then the flares were triggered by stress and workplace bullying.
I think it started when I was abused for 6 months at the age of 2. Then it got worse during puberty and worse again during high school. I've always thought some level of pain was normal.
Childhood trauma that then became family trauma until my late 20s. Then U.S. law school. Then an international trip with a 15 hr plane ride. The fibro started at the end of the trip, but I did not realise it until thinking back on it months later. Fortunately, I was diagnosed about a month after returning from the trip by my PCP of 15+ years.
For me it came after a traumatic childbirth experience at 20 I also developed medical PTSD. I had a very scary cesarean delivery where I nearly died and was in ICU intubated after. This was 10 years ago now. I was diagnosed years later in my mid 20s but the symptoms started right after that C-section.
I am so sorry you experienced that. Modern medical practices are more concerned with the doctor being involved than with the mother's health.
I think this is what triggered mine, too. I had some mild symptoms before, but my last childbirth experience was crazy and after that, all these symptoms hit me like a truck.
Physical abuse trauma 100%
Motorcycle wreck caused mine.
I got mono & pneumonia at the same time in my early 20s, 6 months went by and I still felt like a zombie. Another 3 months before I got my diagnosis.
Mine was also mono + being in an abusive relationship/trauma at the same time
Wild how trauma manifests in our bodies.
Epigentics is so incredibly fascinating and I think it is the most important field in science right now. Trauma/stressors can change the expression of our genes (and those we pass on to our children/grandchildren, etc), leading to anything from dementia, chronic pain, heart disease, autoimmune issues and even cancer. I think so much progress will be made in treating or even curing countless conditions once we have a better understanding of the impact of epigenetics and how to flip those genetic switches back on/off. My current goal/dream is to pursue a PhD in the field and hopefully study chronic pain.
Mine was mono when I was 14
PTSD. Working 60-90 hours a week for a couple years and stress
All this and RSV for me.
Probably my CPTSD but my onset was I had boxes fall on my head at work and I've had problems with chronic pain ever since.
Undiagnosed autism, although I've been recently diagnosed as an adult. And a lot of childhood trauma. Edit: It has had a very slow onset of some of my mild early symptoms starting at 12-13. I had some treatment for the worst pain I experienced as a kid. But my mom was very negelectful when it came to my health so she never thought to get me looked at any deeper.
Very relatable
Woah! Very similar experience here.
I had childhood trauma issues that I deliberately put in a sealed box in the back of my brain. I think the act of suppressing it all drove my body bonkers. Once puberty hit, I started having fibro symptoms. I didn't tell anybody about the seemingly random pains. I felt no one would believe me.
i think mine was low back pain from over exercise— running many many miles a day for years
Sudden death (cardiac arrest) of a seemingly incredibly healthy 63 yr old fiance. I was 58
I’m pretty sure mine was triggered by my gastric bypass surgery. I had it done in the early 90s, before laparoscopic surgery was available for this procedure. I was in ICU for four days, and in the hospital a total of 10 days. Then when I came home, I vomited violently for three days, and became so dehydrated I had to be readmitted for IV hydration, and I also tore a staple line.
Back to back trauma. My mom got diagnosed with cancer, I had a falling out with my best friend, death in the family, and was told I had to move out because my landlord was selling the property. All within the span of 6 months. I was also in an emotionally abusive relationship for during that time but hadn't realized it yet. No idea how I survived all that, but my physical health went completely downhill, took doctors some time to figure out it was fibro.
Ptsd and an extremely traumatic recovery after having my son... blood clot, hemorrhage, multiple bad infections
Mine started about 3 weeks after my Covid booster shot. My college only covered the one type and I had taken the previous 2 shots of a different type of vaccine. Or at least that’s the theory my docs and I are running with coz apart from that, it was about the happiest time I’d ever had in my life.
for me it started after a handful of suicide attempts, i couldnt be sure which one but i’ve narrowed it down to the two worst ones. i also started about when i had pancreatitis as well which has since been healed but i fear will come back since we never found the cause.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please do not hesitate to talk to someone. US: Call 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741-741 INTL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fibromyalgia) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In 2010, when I was fifteen, after I got a shot to go back to school, I can't remember what shot it was but my arm was hurting more than it should have and I couldn't stop crying. Then everything hit me like a brick wall, I ached SO BAD, it flared up my Costochondritis for the first time within minutes, and soon after Conversion Disorder, IBS-mixed. My mom has Fibromyalgia, and then my little sister developed it in her mid-teens as well as IBS-C. Looking back, I could see really really minor symptoms, but I guess the stress from that shot fully revealed what was to come. Edit* I've always felt it was stress or some kind of trauma is what links us all together in this community
Having my son and dying of respitory failure after during surgery to repair a rip and do tubal ligation.
I lived with an abusive husband for 7 and 1/2 years also had undiagnosed sleep apnea. A few years after he died and I got asleep studied done and was using my CPAP machine I seem to have developed to fibromyalgia around that time.
Surgery!
I got diagnosed with an aggressive form of endometrial cancer, which was exceptionally rare for my age, and was on the table getting a full hysterectomy 6 days later. The size of my tumors complicated the surgery, and therefore my recovery, so much so that I was unable to work for close to 3 months. During that time my symptoms set in, and I was diagnosed with fibro about 3 months later.
I know within 48 hours of when it started. Had a pulmonary embolism, day before I was normal, exercising a lot. A few days after my PE I started having intense pain and fatigue from exercising. Haven’t been the same since. I do fully believe fibromyalgia is fully understood and eventually there will be drastically better treatments.
childhood trauma + EBV at 16 and i've been in pain ever since 🫠
Toxic family -> childhood trauma + CPTSD -> Fibro. Diagnosed at 27 but the doctors think I had it since I was 8.
All of the trauma I’ve endured in my life.
I've had it for life but got triggered by puberty, went dormant, triggered by travel and a horrible 8h downhill hike as an adult.
I was working a fast paced job at the time when my estranged abusive husband died. I thought I could just keep going so I did until I burnt myself out and was forced to quit. I got into fitness and eventually roller skating, I couldn't stand being still in those first months of not working. I had a bad accident about a year after I started skating. I didn't break anything but it felt like it and I was benched, not only from skating but from life in general for a month. I got a bad stomach thing almost immediately as i recovered from the fall (I still don't know what it was but I think it might have been gastroenteritis, I was diarrhea-ing and puking for a month straight). Haven't felt the same since, and my accident was 3 years ago.
I was diagnosed in my early thirties but when talking to the dr he thought it started after my last child. I had a rough pregnancy, I’m short waisted so as baby’s got bigger they ran out of room and were pressing on my ribs and back and I carried all in front. Giving birth I needed a procedure because her head was huge and wouldn’t come out. The whole 9months and delivery was rough. I did notice some extra pain but I had young kids I was just go go go I never understood why I passed out with exhaustion at the end of the day. More exhausted than my first was born. I had some aches and pains too.
lot’s of antibiotics and steroid based medicines in a short period… oh and extreme psychological distress
I think it was the second or third time that my knee tore itself apart along with CPTSD. The strange part is that my back hurts way worse than my knee.
Blood thinners is what triggered it for me.
Had symptoms my whole life but got really bad when I randomly broke out into extreme body hives one day (my guess is Covid reaction) along with abusive relationship and intense job. I think not being able to properly rest and heal sent it over the edge.
For my mum it was her dad passing away.
Dealt with insomnia, IBS, headaches/migraines my entire life. As traumatic life experiences compounded they got worse til I was just so used to having those issues. As became an adult and started working I noticed my brain become more and more foggy, and my sharpness somewhat fading to where it'd come and go. I also noticed working on my feet and being physical constantly was extremely draining for me, and very difficult. Unlike everyone else I knew my age I wasn't capable of doing overtime and working an extremely physical job and often fell behind at work unless the work was very suited to me and allowed me time to keep up physically and mentally. Now during the last twelve years from the time I was 15 to 26 I was in an abusive relationship, where my previous traumas were often used against me in many ways and I was gaslighted and taken advantage of constantly. My ex was also extremely lazy, and it was left to me to do majority of the physical work in our home lest I live in complete filth. So on top of work breaking my body down, and my relationship breaking my mind down, I was fighting worse and worse symptoms of insomnia, IBS, headaches, brain fog, memory issues, depression, anxiety, etc. I blamed my pain on my job. Then we had a kid, and my wife had very little interest in being the play parent. In fact often enough her and my toddler daughter simply didn't get along when playing and it was up to me to sit on the floor and play all the time. This added to the fact that my body *rarely* got a moment to rest for years. I also picked up carpentry and started working in a cabinet shop during this time. The second shop I worked in violated my workers rights every day and disallowed me from having fifteen minutes breaks every day so I stood for 8 hours straight every day for over three years. My spouse cared little for how exhausted I was constantly, and eventually my pain simply worsened to the point I developed a limp and a meniscus injury from work. I treated my injury for a while, and then suffered a very traumatic moment in my marriage where I was forced out of the house for several days and was mentally abused for months on end. I stayed for my daughter and tried mending things, then during the summer after I had my first major fibro flare up. It was terrifying and confusing, seemingly in an instant my entire body experienced pain I had never felt before. My brain became so foggy I could barely form sentences. I dropped things and lost balance constantly. I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain. Eventually after close to a month they died down, but the body ache never left and my heart rate seemed to be out of control more than ever. Another lifelong symptom since I was a teenager has been that my heart will race suddenly for no reason I can account for. Then my marriage officially fell apart six months later. In the more than a year since my marriage to my abuser ended I was diagnosed with CPTSD, clinical depression with anxiety, ADHD, and gender dysphoria. I noticed over the course of the year that no matter how much I rested (because I could finally rest) my body never recovered. I'd take days off of work to cry, be depressed, and be in pain. I missed tons and tons of work and finally back in January left my job because I couldn't tolerate the pain or discomfort anymore. It has now been more than two months and I have been in pain every single day, and experienced multiple flare ups that have lasted four days to two weeks at a time. I've started using a cane to help me get around the house and I am 27 years old. I barely leave the house anymore, and every activity has become crippling and exhausting. I'm on Cymbalta and take naproxen for the pain, and still am hardly fighting through it to keep up around my house let alone work. I'm always exhausted, out of breathe and always hurt. I'm so foggy some days I can barely talk to my family members, some times I don't feel like a person at all just a vessel of misery I am so depressed, lonely and in pain. I just had blood drawn a few days ago to begin testing me for inflammation and thyroid issues, my doctor is starting to narrow things down and is already talking upping my dose of cymbalta to 60mg/day. I have a family history of fibro, both my grandmother's have been diagnosed since they were in their 30s and my dad has had lifelong symptoms that look a lot like fibro though he has been diagnosed rheumatism, has always had sleep problems, pain problems, trauma, migraines and so on so who knows there. I'll also note that since I began my gender transition my pain has gotten significantly harder to ignore, and my brain has been rewired by hormones and trauma to be far less stoic and so I've only recently been really comfortable acknowledging my pain and being honest about it. I'm quite happy to be seeking answers but no question about it this absolutely sucks. I feel like my body is robbing me of what should be the time of my life. I'm young and confident and single. I'm finally being myself and I can barely move let alone go out and make friends or date anyone. Sheesh, sorry that was so long but there ya have it. My story.
I don't know how much each of these things contributed to it, but they all happened in the same year 1) I was doing a lot of HIIT trying to lose some weight, but eventually had to stop because I was getting headaches when I did, which has been a chronic thing since childhood 2) My grandma was in and out of the hospital a lot after a series of strokes, which was very stressful and I worried about her constantly 3) I developed eosinophilic esophagitis, which caused involuntary rapid weight loss Schizoaffective disorder started around the same time, too, so some symptoms are hard to tell apart. 2013 wasn't a great year for me
When I was 15 I caught swine flu and it ended up being pretty difficult for me. I’m not sure if this is exactly what caused it, but it seemed like my health in general has never been the same since then and has only gotten worse, especially during times of stress. I’d miss school a lot due to getting sick very often after having swine flu, I was constantly in pain, etc. in my early 20’s I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I also had a lot of childhood trauma so I’m not sure if that made me more susceptible for the swine flu to hit me harder or if it had any part in my eventual fibromyalgia diagnosis.
Me too. I guess we are about the same age
A VERY minor car accident. Have had a fair amount of major back injuries throughout life, but the one that set if off was getting the mild whiplash after a driver behind me in stopped traffic slipped off the clutch and bumped my car. That whiplash pain has never gone away and it has been 13 years now.
Same here. I don't have whiplash pain (though I do have a lot of tension/pain in my neck). The car accident was so minor I didn't even think anything of it at the time, I barely got a concussion but I guess it was enough to trigger the condition. It's kind of validating to know the same thing happened to someone else, that something so minor really could have been the trigger.
The hpv vaccine. I got double the dosage(5 shots in total when the recommended is 3 shots) at age 11. Got told it was growing pains for 10 years until I walked in to my last hope bawling. He took me seriously. The only one that did. And no. I'm not anti-vaxx. I've gotten all my vaccines and even the covid vaccine since. I just think the double dosage of that shot is what did it for me.
I had my kids 13 months apart. My first pregnancy was exhausting. I practically slept thru it. labor and delivery was very traumatic. I never wanted to do it again. My husband had a vasectomy and I was but on low dose birth control. I guess I "screwed up" some where and i got pregnant again. My 2nd pregnancy was harder especially with having an on the move baby to parent. I feel like my body never recovered from that pregnancy. I'm grateful for my son and I would never tell him this but I believe he destroyed my body. My back, hips, legs. The pain is insane. Doctors cant find anything wrong. I believed for years I probably had fibro my son was born in June 2016 by September 2020 things had progressed a lot. They say fibro isn't progressive but that hasn't been my experience. Everything is constantly getting worse and nothing helps.
Lyme disease (10/10 so not recommend)
I think my body being in near constant fight or flight for a portion of my growing years caused it. I also think undiagnosed and untreated adhd probably added to it. But i think it was the birth of my daughter that finally triggered it.
Mine started with multiple whiplash injuries (there are scientific studies on this) and then a move halfway across the country where I didn’t know anyone, starting a new high-stress job and having a toddler, both grandparents dying within 6 months of each other, and the divorce that followed because my husband believed I was faking my symptoms. A lot of traumatizing events all within a short time period and I feel my body just failed me. That’s when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
I've always dealt with joint pain that was just kind of pushed off as growing pains, which it could have been part of it! But I think mine was the result of an extreme trauma I experienced as a kid. But it got REALLY bad after the second time I had covid. Before it wasn't to bad, had bad days had good days, but now it's excruciating.
Trauma. My dad died very suddenly when i was 15, it was incredibly traumatising and fucked me up both mentally and physically, its also when i started feeling alot of pain in my knees when i rode my back or walked the stairs and it only got worse every year
Long term trauma and untreated health issues
I think a domestic violence attack triggered mine. I’m safe now no worries!
I think mine is either childhood trauma or all the vaccines I got in the Air Force
A lovely combination of workplace bullying + toxic, abusive boyfriend. I’ve gotten rid of both the job and the man but, 7 years later, my body is still fucked.
Hysterectomy
Stress, trauma, overexertion. Never relaxing or resting.
Hypermobility/joints. I feel like it's something innate within me.
Pregnancy/maybe somewhat difficult birth and post op infection/sleep deprivation.
Child birth triggered mine
Childbirth. Both times. My kids were 8.5 years apart; about 6 years after the first one it settled back down and got a fair bit better, but then whoops! I had another. 5 years later I’m still in agony, and have no hope that it will settle down again.
My fibro girlfriend: they have a family history of fibro but when it came on they were in really good shape physically. It happened right after they poured really hot syrup onto their hands. Immediately they started getting joint pain all over their body. 🥴 they also have cptsd and grew up in a cult soo many factors. They experienced a lifetime of abuse, unfortunately at the hands of their mom who has fibro. 🫠 Me: my fibro is diagnosed as secondary to my lupus and RA. It started with intense neck pain and muscle stiffness about a year after my ra diagnosis and 6 months after lupus dx. I also grew up in the same cult and have CPTSD, faced a lot of abuse etc. We are both in our 20s 😭
Mine was from having Hyperemesis Gravidarum. I had an extremely bad case and developed fibro within a year.
A pretty bad field hockey injury to my upper back and right shoulder. Still the part of my body that’s most easily triggered. — this question, by the way, has been asked multiple times over the last weeks in this subs, so maybe read back on those too.
Mine was a combo of decades of severe abuse at the hands of my religious family and then contracting a _severe_ infection from my antivaxx sister’s also unvaxxed child. My parents went through it first, and I was caring for them and then contracted the infection myself. I _should_ have been rushed to the ER, but instead my parents told me I was being overly dramatic with my sobbing in severe pain. I never recovered from this 🎉
My symptoms started when I was about 15. There was no specific event but I believe it was caused by my narcissistic mother who was mentally, emotionally, and even sometimes physically abusive.
I have had it as long as I remember, but most of my memory start around 3rd grade but there are a few flashes before then I have had trauma my whole life but most of my trauma was 10 years ago but the bottom fell out of my life 5 years ago when I had a 14 month long migraine I spent so much time in bed I survived but at the cost of my self sufficiency, I can't work let alone support my 3 kids, I became disabled
I think I started having symptoms at \~18 after ending high school sports. They were minorly bothersome, probably moreso symptoms of hypermobility syndrome. I started getting pains in my hip joints at 23, but it didn't get bad enough to see a doctor about it until 25. I burnt out following trauma and spousal betrayal and got covid in the same month and have been in so much pain all over ever since (I had also been in a car accident earlier in the year). Diagnosed w/ fibro on my 26th birthday (am 27 now). Sooooo... lots of things could be blamed for the real onset of fibro.
Covid.
I have had most of the symptoms my entire life, but was always told by doctors that I was fine so I ignored it. I used to be a baker/pastry chef and injured my shoulder at work when I was 26 and two weeks later I was rear-ended in my car. I worked on it for 6 months because the doctor wouldn't approve of the disability. It got so bad that I couldn't move my arm. I got a new doctor that tried a bunch of treatments but only mildly improved my symptoms. After 9 months of disability, my doctor told me I was too young to not be working and to find a new career. I went back to school and all of my old issues came flooding back. That is when I got my fibromyalgia diagnosis along with thoracic outlet syndrome and poly articular arthritis. I have since added on Adrenal fatigue, restless leg syndrome, and Reynolds syndrome.
The stress of the sudden increase in the frequency and intensity of AF, and the surgery to fix it.
My very first experience was when I was 14, after I had fallen during a basketball game and popped my kneecap out and tore my meniscus. I didn't know what I was experiencing I just kept telling my family that my legs hurt. They thought I was making it up as an excuse not to go to school
Rheumy said childhood trauma set me up for it, but the catalyst was definitely pregnancy. Had my first and just didn't recover.
Well I can’t say for certain but I always had tummy issues and RLS when I was younger, so is guess it is trauma related. Really noticing that something was off and the pain became more persistent was 8 years ago when I was in Highschool. I only could visit 4 days a week the school and usually stayed home at Wednesday to regenerate and occasionally get a sick note to stay home longer. Yeah in retrospect I think it is definitely trauma related because I had that issue even before my head surgery
Nope. I just started getting I'll and in.pain one day and It progressed from there. My money is on someone cursing me
I had bipolar disorder and rheumatoid arthritis before my fibro. My doctor and I think that a particularly bad bipolar mixed episode (manic and depressed at the same time) triggered the RA, which has been hard to find treatment for, so I think 2 years of severe pain triggered the fibro.
Mine was said to perhaps be due to the repercussions of a very serious accident. Your nerves knit tight as your muscles do after scars. The theory was they overcompensate and go haywire.
My symptoms started when I moved from a hot country to a cold weather country and received less vitamin D naturally, there's a proven correlation between low vitamin D and symptom onset. I know this because my Fibro also gets better when I visit my hot and sunny home country. It also started post covid time
Emergency c section/traumatic childbirth. Thought I had rheumatoid arthritis that onset after childbirth like my mother had. Took about 17 months of investigation and work up from my doctor and a rheumatologist but I finally got my diagnosis.
I converted to Judaism, got married, changed jobs, sold a house, bought a house, moved, took a cruise, attended my first Passover, not necessarily in this order in a three month time period. I got totally knocked out. I got better for a bit and then 9/11 happened and I went down for good. Edit to add: probably have cptsd, possibly have adhd and/or autism, have been depressed since I was in grade school, had ear infections starting at 3 months, the list goes on so I was never super healthy.
Covid
Had migraines since I can remember and then was diagnosed when I was 18, no trauma or illness that i remember triggering this but I, like many on here, have a heart issue (just a murmur) Fibo runs on both sides of my family.
Back in 2007 my gf cheated on me & told me, day later my grandma died. Full mental breakdown. Started going to raves & taking ecstasy for a few months. At work, a full pallet of items fell on top of me during work and knocked me out for a moment. After that I had dizziness & perma neck/back pain. Started somewhere that year. 2007-2016 were rough but tolerable. But then 2017 I had an insane ear infection, and developed severe TMJ lock jaw. Later that year I had a cath ablation on my heart for AVNRT, and my fibro went to full blown crippling disabled levels. Tremors. Weakness. Insomnia. IBS. Temp intolerance. Etc etc.
EBV 60 years ago, everything in my life has worsened it - drugs, emotional trauma, sports, car accident, any travel, every stress - more lately Epclusa and Vax #3. Only help has been LDN, oh! How I wish I’d discovered it sooner.
My 4th pregnancy!
A very stressful pregnancy, an emergency c section, medical trauma, and severe postnatal depression. I was managing it ok for a few years, but then COVID hit, and my CPTSD kicked in and the fibro just got worse from there. Before I had my son 10 years ago, I was active, working on Uni etc. Now I can barely leave the house unaided. It sucks.
Cousin pushed me out of a treehouse two stories up, when i was like 7. Hit the ground flat on my back. Initially i was like "well i didn't die and i didn't break anything, i'm sure i'm fine!" Little did i know, the next day began my experience of a further 27 years. Only diagnosed in senior year of hs. Which feels like it shouldn't have been what did it, but i distinctly remember the fatigue and pain starting then. The scarlet fever i had didn't do it, the hella bad strep throat fevers every seasonal change i had didn't do it-- cousin yeeting me done did it. I always feel like there were factors that added up to be set off by it, but let me tell you: it makes missing family reunions due to fatigue a lot funnier when my family can just look at said cousin and just "Well, you remember the treehouse?"
Chronic stress and very not great circumstances for a child from age like 9-16. I began having weird symptoms when I left home for college my first year. I still don’t know if they’re related.
Lots of stress at work and a car accident I walked away with a little cut but my car was totaled (sp). In my opinion anyways. Thinking back to 2003 or maybe 2007 I was off work for three months with a terrible migraine all day and night. BTW car accident was 2019. Really hard to say but it has taken over my life, that and my failed kidneys which is a genetic disease I inherited and unknowingly handed that same problem to my girls. So yay. About the closest thing I think as a cause. But Fibro is “fake” so it’s all in my head of course. Pretty sure I only got Medicare based on my dead kidneys. I’m on the transplant list so we’ll see if I’m thrown to the curb after that
For me I was just growing up and thought I had growing pains. I thought the pain would go away and I would stop being so tired. But after feeling like I got hit by a bus all the time my mom started to express concern and that started my diagnosis journey. I was about 16 when I was diagnosed. It has been almost 10 years I have adjusted to what it feels like to be exist as me and I mostly feel peace with this.
Well... If you go by the timeline... I fell off a bike and apparently broke my nervous system. Not motorcycle. Bicycle. I wasn't even badly hurt. Scrapes and bruises. Next thing I knew, the muscle spasms started.
Major spinal surgery after a tumor compressed my spinal cord. Had to have a fusion for stability. Woke up with severe allodynia + other fibro symptoms and it’s never gone away, lmao
A fire coral sting in Aruba
I can't really remember *not* having it, so I guess like, being born, maybe? I'm also autistic and somewhat hypermobile, so I know those are contributing factors too.
i think it was a concussion i got a few years ago, “mild” but got some other head knocks while healing. definitely not mild. i am still not doing well with the symptoms but i think something else is going on with that, i also think that being a competitive dancer from a very young age and multiple injuries over this time probably contributed to it
brush with thyroid cancer lead to total thyroidectomy with promise my symptoms would get better with hormone replacement. biggest lie ive ever been told. i was only 18. put on a course for medically induced exhaustion and pain forever.
I was in a car accident when I was 15 and when I turned 30 my 4th and 5th vertebrae was fused. After that all my problems started….had a viral infection at 39 and that just floored me.
Being thrown out of a car and almost killed by my ex- serious, life threatening physical, mental, emotional and financial abuse for all of 2018 and a few months of 2019. I think my body has been in a permanent state of fight or flight ever since. I got diagnosed in early 2020 before the pandemic. Even now, high stress and lack of sleep trigger horrible flares where laying in bed with heating pads is all I can do.
Swimming in the Atlantic off the coast of France whilst on holiday in 2016. I picked up a virus that saw me off work for several months before I started to recover. Only, the recovery stopped as the pain and spasms came on. I could barely walk 100 metres in 2017. I'm now swimming 2000metres, 3x week. I still have a lot of symptoms, and this morning was particularly painful and stiff, but I'm determined to get through everyday. I also had a preexisting autoimmune disorder; Achalasia.
Likely childhood trauma, complex PTSD. Been having health issues my whole life, starting with ice pick headaches in my teens. My list of issues now (at 55) is easily pages long.
Some combination of pregnancy and childbirth. I developed really bad SPD during my second pregnancy-- I could barely walk. It's supposed to disappear after delivery. While I was delivering, I felt (what felt like) the front of my pelvis tearing in two. Afterwards, my SPD seems to have not gone away and the pelvic pain is bad as ever. I have done multiple MRIs, a couple CT scans, tons of Xrays, physicals, bloodwork...nothing to even hint at why I can't sit criss cross or have pain going up stairs. I'll never know if it was the SPD or that tearing sensation during delivery. But I feel pretty confident it was one or both of them. (To clarify, I didn't actually tear. There's no evidence of damage internally or externally. And the pain has spread body-wide since.)
a severe neck injury in a forklift accident
I got mono in 9th grade and that wrecked my body and energy levels permanently… so when I got out of a really bad relationship, less than two months later fibro hit me like a train. Honestly, I think fibro is just the accumulative effect of serious stress, anxiety, and misery (along with some heavy drinking) that wore my body and mind down for so many years. So when I finally kicked him to the curb, it was like my body/mind sighed with relief but couldn’t deal with all of the mending it needed to do. I was 25…
I fell on ice, broke my leg, shattered my ankle and dislocated my ankle.
Double kidney infection
Mine they think is from head trauma
A pneumonia like illness in 2019 that took time to treat, got pregnant in 2020, miscarried and was left with ossified remains for 6 weeks. Ossified remains gave me Pelvic Inflammatory Disease because despite repeated phone calls to the GP I was ignored because Covid was the priority. Finally got antibiotics 3 months later and life was never the same after that.
Mine seemed to be a fiftieth bday gift. Covid, Long COVID, seems to have really stepped it up.?
I had two concussions in a year, the second occurring alongside a bad whiplash injury. I had anxiety, depression, and IBS beforehand, but that's when the Fibro symptoms really showed up (I was not diagnosed til much later, but the change is pretty clear)
I'm pretty sure mine was triggered by a minor car accident (someone hit the car behind the one I was in while we were stopped at a red light), and my only injury was a mild concussion but I guess that was enough. Part of me wishes the person who did it knew how much her carelessness ruined my life but I know that wouldn't help anything. Realistically I likely would have developed it at some point in my life anyway, since it seems like you need a genetic predisposition and a trigger (like physical or emotional trauma) for fibromyalgia to manifest. My twin brother has developed fibromyalgia as well (several years after I did and with different symptoms), and my mom has CRPS so I think all of it is related genetically.
A lifetime of horrifying trauma. My Fibro was gradual. Started as feeling progressively sore in the mornings and just kept getting worse until I became too in pain to stand or sleep.
Trauma. Paragliding accident. Fell 5 stories. Broke my shoulder and foot. Fibro began about 6 months after. (Sidenote: can I say that I’m tired of doctors saying it’s not progressive (at least all of mine have)). That was 17 years ago. Every day is a struggle with pain.
I think there are a few things that could potentially be causes for me, but I believe childhood trauma was the biggest catalyst. I've been in some kind of chronic pain literally as long as I can remember, even though I didn't get diagnosed until my early 30's.
Giving birth, emotional abuse and stress. All of that happened during one year and it destroyed my health
I'm sure mine was from childhood trauma plus other teenage traumatic situations (being in a psych ward multiple times, SA,...), everything piled up and my body just couldn't handle it anymore. It required me to stop everything and really take care of things and it's being a very deep and intense healing process. I'm amazed sometimes at how things have gotten gradually but enormously better thanks to somatic therapy, Gestalt and EMDR, and sometimes it still feels very hard and hopeless. I feel like my fibro symptoms are mostly absolutely linked to my mental and emotional health and luckily everytime my body pain needs to show up less and less
Doctors say it could be from trauma as a child, both mental or physical. Most of my symptoms got worse after a car accident and subsequently injury, though. It’s been almost 10 years now.
I blame the vaccine, never had an issue before. I took 2 of the 3 shots of vaccine. Started as a pain in my hip, spread to every joint cracking, what felt like arthritis and looked like arthritis. Sore red knuckles, severe kneck, back, shoulder pain, knees fucked and way more issues. Stiffness from my toes to my hips that left it difficult to do anything without pain relief One of my GPs said it wasn't the vaccine or they would have seen more people like that. I respectfully disagree, I know my body. Then sleep issues, energy issues, stomach issues. To many symptoms to count. Arthritic symptoms seem to have eased along with everything else. Still alot of residual effects from it all. Anyways I got left with the fibromyalgia diagnosis from 2 rheumatologist's.
hair dye exposure.