"There is soreness, stiffness," she said.
Common symptoms include visual disturbance, speech problems, numbness, pain, loss of balance, loss of coordination, bladder and bowel problems, stiffness, weakness, paralysis and fatigue.
In general, FM is accompanied by other symptoms such as fatigue, sleep disorders, reduced muscular strength and endurance, parasthesis, irritable bowel and joint stiffness [ 1].
The medical term 'syndrome' of FMS reflects the multitude of vegetative and functional symptoms that patients with FMS frequently present, including sleep disturbance, depression, anxiety, fatigue, morning stiffness, irritable bowel syndrome, headache and migraine.
Nurses were asked if and how frequently they experienced potential disease symptoms of respiratory or cardiac origin, back and joint pain/ stiffness, urinary, bowel and oro-dental problems and whether they sought help for these (Table 2).
Of the 39 items, we excluded another nine items that are rather directly related to the lung (cough, asthmatic breathing); the heart (fearfulness); the spleen (loose stools, bowel incontinence); cold invasion (stiffness in the low back or knees); excess heat (constipation, high libido); excessive water intake (clear urine).
Thus, small bowel-related and gastric motility-independent factors including increased stiffness of small bowel wall with altered muscle function [ 12, 16, 60], altered motilin levels [ 61] and/or an "acidic stress" with sensorimotor disorders [ 62, 63] are likely involved in this dysfunction.
It is often accompanied by unrestorative sleep patterns, fatigue, headaches, irritable bowel and bladder syndrome, morning stiffness, paresthesias, anxiety, and depression [ 2, 3].
Patients frequently describe sensations of fatigue, sleep disturbances, morning stiffness, symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome and affective distress.
Patients were also characterized by the presence of tiredness, stiffness, nonrestorative sleep, anxiety, depression, tension headache, irritable bowel syndrome, temporomandibular dysfunction and Raynaud's phenomena.
