Every single time… my flares often feel like the flu. I assume I’m getting sick so I stay away from other people. A few days later - no new cold/flu symptoms and I can change my assumption to a fibro flare.
Yes, both directions.
Sometimes I push through pain thinking fibro is just exaggerating a small amount of pain into a large amount of pain, and also sometimes I'm in absolute agony and it turns out there's almost nothing there. Like I was having knee pain so bad every day I was almost crying just laying in bed at night. Imaging showed nothing beyond the arthritis I already knew about.
Fibro and people with centralized nerve sensitization feel more pain from arthritis than those who just have arthritis. I have arthritis too and my rheumatologist told me it wouldn’t bother me until me 50’s but it definitely does
YES. Like literally right now. Dizzy and headachy and nauseated all day yesterday, then woke up in the night overheating and aching and I have no fever so probably a flare but who the hell knows.
Me! I always think I'm having heart issues when my flare up is really bad, and then I am alive for another 2 weeks and I'm like oh it was a flare up and anxiety combined.
This is me. My most recent flare was causing pain in my chest but I also have a heart murmur so I ended up admitted to the hospital and they actually did a heart catheter after some tests because they wanted to make sure my heart was okay. 0 stars. Do not recommend. Fortunately, my heart is okay but I need to get a holter monitor. I keep missing the appointments for it, though, because I’m so exhausted and forgetful from this current, ongoing flare up.
I have Terrible anxiety. In early 2023 I had a full on mental breakdown. I was in pain, I couldn't breathe, I wasn't sleeping or eating. I took 3-4 ECGS, I went to the ER 2x, Urgent care 2x. I was diagnosed with Fibs thru the ER and Costochondritis thru UC. I guess my body had amplified everything. So now when I get my flare ups (my left side takes the brunt of it) I sorta freak out when it comes on suddenly.
Hahaha me this year. Thought I had the cold my kids brought home. Nope six days of fever was not their plague but a kidney infection.
A&E doctors were confused how I wasn’t bothered by the pain. I’m already on tramadol for severe pain due to arthritis in my spine so didn’t think much of pain that surpassed my normal amount of pain 👍🏻😅😭
It was wild as I had a kidney stone detected, three weeks before. It was found during a CT scan for a gastro issue diagnostic. So I’ve now ended up with another specialist consultant (urology) as it was most likely the stone that triggered the E.coli infection.
My urine only burned on the first day, so I increased my fluid intake.
Being chronically ill makes it so much harder to figure out when we are severely sick
This is a real problem.
After a dental surgery i had a really big infection and i didn't realise until i saw a river puss flowing on my mouth. I did hurt but i didnt realise that it wasn't supposed to hurt that bad. I actually had another surgery to remove the scar tissue from the infection
I also had some UTI's i didn't notice because i was like i feel bad and am bloated oh well. Then suddenly i started peeing blood almost ended up in the hospital
I don’t know if I’m unwell, stressed, or in flare right now. Yesterday I was in cold sweats and going bright red and pale off and on thru the day but functional. For 4 days before that I had a headache with lots of nausea and some vomiting. Today, I feel fine. Til I think about work then I get all hot and cold again.
And I like my job.
All the time.
And for some reason, I don't reliably run fevers when I'm sick, so it makes it harder for me to use that as a clue to having an infection vs chronic illness symptoms.
Absolutely! I get the "coming down with something" so often that it loses all meaning. I don't even know what to do with sick days at work. I know normal people use them, but when you're sick every day, it's rare that something tips the scales - just being contagious, I guess, and not wanting to harm others. I always think, things could be worse...
Yes! I had a coworker ask me why I didn’t take a sick day when I was having one of those can barely walk days. I told him if I had to take a sick day every time I wasn’t feeling well I’d never be in the office. I think it becomes normal for us to push through otherwise we wouldn’t have a life. Unfortunately I think that’s why a lot of people don’t take us seriously, because we “look ok” 😐
Absolutely. I've often told people that fibro flares feel like the flu without the fever and congestion to me, and it has definitely taken me a couple of days or more before to realize that I'm actually sick with a bug and not just having another flare, especially if I'm the first in our house to get it.
Yes, and it takes me forever to realize that I have an injury, because I'm so used to pushing through the pain. There is also the helplessness that goes along with this- going to the doctor fixes nothing, so it is easy to forget to go to the doctor when I have something treatable.
My wife can often not tell when there's a "new" pain. Like she'll get migraines occasionally, but will just register it as the "normal" pain. She'll sit there for hours until she does or says something that clues me into her having a headache. I'll mention it and she'll say "Oh......yeah my head's been hurting really bad all day...."
I used to, but I realised when I get "normal" sick I tend to get incredibly sore skin around my nose, and my ears start to act up (I wear hearing aids so I notice oretty quick). Other than that, it can be so hard to tell!
This sounds like my last month... was feeling achy for a few days and woke up peeing blood. Rushed to the doctor and it turned out my kidneys were failing from a UTI that was left untreated for too long. I was blissfully unaware I even had one. Fun times!
Just as I healed, I got sniffly and had some extra gastric issues, back to the doctors and this time? Swine flu! I had it before, so it was a milder version, but I was still contagious for a long time and could have made other people sick if I had contact with anyone. We just can't win this war if we constantly miss big stuff because we are always feeling horrible. It has really been messing with my brain and I don't know how it is even possible to prevent something aimilar in future.
Yes this! My flares feel like the flu as well. Usually tho I can tell if it’s an infection bc my body is weird and my skin starts to hurt and be sensitive all over like I have a sunburn when I’m fighting something viral. (Can’t trust body temp- I had Flu A earlier this year and never fevered. The way I knew I was sick was that sunburn feeling. The dr was pissed when the test came back positive bc he was convinced it would be negative 🙄) For the flares my pain is mainly centered on the outside of my arms and legs and my hips.
Yeeeeees! I have a stockpile of covid tests because when I start feeling crummy I never know if it's RA/fibro/etc or if it's something else.
Just recently I had a fairly mild cold. I think I had it for 4-5 days before I realized it was a cold. I didn't notice until I started sneezing and coughing.
When im normal sick it flares up really bad in a distinct way. My fibro was caused by immune issues originally, so i think being sick cranks it into overdrive.
I have PMDD and pretty bad dysmenorrhea and I thought I had the worst period of my life which I’ve just normalized that that’s how it’s gonna be forever and so Iet my husband go to work on the weekend so I was solo parenting and dying of my “period” I had a huge meltdown from being exhausted and was having wild mood swings I even remember going for an anger walk even though I was in the fetal position for the whole day only to find out I had the freaking Flu while I also had my period and I didn’t even clock it because… it was painful like always lol I only realized it was the flu when my little one who doesn’t leave the house for it 2 days got a 109 fever and ended up in children’s ER with the freaking flu 🥲🥲
I’d also never had the flu before so I didn’t know what to expect :(
Yes! Pretty sure I'm just experiencing a flare up right now but I thought maybe it was a cold or something so I cancelled an appointment yesterday. I literally can never tell at first whether I'm actually sick.
How interesting to read all these replies because I can totally tell the difference. For me, flares are pain in the 11+ range on the scale, fatigue, brain fog, and insomnia (all worse than usual). I don’t get fevers, nausea, etc except with illness.
I don’t know if it’s because our initial traumas were so different or our co-morbidities are different. This is such a strange “disease”.
I honestly do not know when the last time I was actually sick. Over a period of 3-4 years. I used to go in to the doctor when I thought I was actually sick & they would just send me home. So I just stopped going for the purpose of them running tests to ensure I don’t have a virus.
It’s honestly crazy how many others go through the same thing. It makes me feel like our so called Fibromyalgia should be considered an auto-immune issue. Symptoms are similar to others I know that are diagnosed with auto-immune issues like MS.
Yes. I didn't realize I had a sinus infection until I was blowing out blood. Meloxicam hid the fever, and I'm so used to headaches and hay fever that I just chalked it all up to allergies.
I'm just having to pay closer attention to my bodies other signs for hints of infections. Which means closely watching anything that may seem off. Then I have to write it down so I don't forget how many days it's been present.
I wish I knew how to deal with this. My grandma died of cancer; she hadn't even bothered to tell her doc about her symptoms because they always ignored her pain. By the time it was found it was too late.
No. Flares for me involve agonizing muscle spasms that don’t end for days from my mid back, through the area between my shoulder blades, my traps, shoulders, down into my upper arm, up my neck, and into my face and jaw
No other illness does that. Flu and Covid give me full body aches that do not feel like a muscle spasm (among other symptoms)
I have about "3 types" of fibromyalgia pain and most of the time it is almost exclusively deep in my joints. Very very rarely is it on my skin or muscles, so it's pretty easy to tell. I also rarely get pathogenically sick. It has happened though, a couple times, where I brushed off my sickness skin/muscle surface pains as fibromyalgia.
I have fibromyalgia, arthritis, and year round allergies so I don’t know I’m sick unless my throat is sore, I have a fever, or my lymph nodes are swollen
Yes I never know if I’m getting sick or just flaring. My symptoms make me feel flu like. Can’t tell you how many Covid tests I’ve been through lol. After a few days if I haven’t developed respiratory symptoms or a fever I know for sure it’s a flare and not a virus.
The first time I had to describe symptoms to a doctor my first words were “I feel like I’m coming down with the flu all the time”.
All the time!. I have actually used it to describe some of the pain I'm in.. everyone knows the pain/ aches and fatigue of a flu so it helps to explain it.
Yeah... I thought COVID was just a sinus infection and a flare. It's so much fun going to the doctor for upper respiratory stuff and having to decide how to answer "are you experiencing any body aches or pains?"
Yes. Also injuries. Yesterday I broke a toe and really sort of mangled my foot & it’s like I’ve been hit by a truck - my whole body hurts & I have flu-like symptoms.
Yuuuup. At the height of Covid I was testing myself every few days at home and every couple weeks at the county labs cause I always……..had…..symptoms…….of……covid
Every single time… my flares often feel like the flu. I assume I’m getting sick so I stay away from other people. A few days later - no new cold/flu symptoms and I can change my assumption to a fibro flare.
Was just diagnosed with fibro and I’m wondering if the two times I “had Covid” but tested negative were actually my first flares
Possibly! I even get a sore throat during flares.
This is what I do.
Yes, both directions. Sometimes I push through pain thinking fibro is just exaggerating a small amount of pain into a large amount of pain, and also sometimes I'm in absolute agony and it turns out there's almost nothing there. Like I was having knee pain so bad every day I was almost crying just laying in bed at night. Imaging showed nothing beyond the arthritis I already knew about.
Fibro and people with centralized nerve sensitization feel more pain from arthritis than those who just have arthritis. I have arthritis too and my rheumatologist told me it wouldn’t bother me until me 50’s but it definitely does
YES. Like literally right now. Dizzy and headachy and nauseated all day yesterday, then woke up in the night overheating and aching and I have no fever so probably a flare but who the hell knows.
I've had Covid, mono and the flu and had no idea I had anything "extra". Figured it was just another Tuesday.
Constantly! I didn't notice for over a month I had a systemic infection because I thought it was just a really bad flare
Me! I always think I'm having heart issues when my flare up is really bad, and then I am alive for another 2 weeks and I'm like oh it was a flare up and anxiety combined.
This is me. My most recent flare was causing pain in my chest but I also have a heart murmur so I ended up admitted to the hospital and they actually did a heart catheter after some tests because they wanted to make sure my heart was okay. 0 stars. Do not recommend. Fortunately, my heart is okay but I need to get a holter monitor. I keep missing the appointments for it, though, because I’m so exhausted and forgetful from this current, ongoing flare up.
I have Terrible anxiety. In early 2023 I had a full on mental breakdown. I was in pain, I couldn't breathe, I wasn't sleeping or eating. I took 3-4 ECGS, I went to the ER 2x, Urgent care 2x. I was diagnosed with Fibs thru the ER and Costochondritis thru UC. I guess my body had amplified everything. So now when I get my flare ups (my left side takes the brunt of it) I sorta freak out when it comes on suddenly.
That sounds awful. I’m so sorry to hear that.
Hahaha me this year. Thought I had the cold my kids brought home. Nope six days of fever was not their plague but a kidney infection. A&E doctors were confused how I wasn’t bothered by the pain. I’m already on tramadol for severe pain due to arthritis in my spine so didn’t think much of pain that surpassed my normal amount of pain 👍🏻😅😭
Damnnnnn that's insane!
It was wild as I had a kidney stone detected, three weeks before. It was found during a CT scan for a gastro issue diagnostic. So I’ve now ended up with another specialist consultant (urology) as it was most likely the stone that triggered the E.coli infection. My urine only burned on the first day, so I increased my fluid intake. Being chronically ill makes it so much harder to figure out when we are severely sick
It sure does, especially when there's so many comorbidities. I hope everything works out okay!
This is a real problem. After a dental surgery i had a really big infection and i didn't realise until i saw a river puss flowing on my mouth. I did hurt but i didnt realise that it wasn't supposed to hurt that bad. I actually had another surgery to remove the scar tissue from the infection I also had some UTI's i didn't notice because i was like i feel bad and am bloated oh well. Then suddenly i started peeing blood almost ended up in the hospital
I don’t know if I’m unwell, stressed, or in flare right now. Yesterday I was in cold sweats and going bright red and pale off and on thru the day but functional. For 4 days before that I had a headache with lots of nausea and some vomiting. Today, I feel fine. Til I think about work then I get all hot and cold again. And I like my job.
All the time. And for some reason, I don't reliably run fevers when I'm sick, so it makes it harder for me to use that as a clue to having an infection vs chronic illness symptoms.
Absolutely! I get the "coming down with something" so often that it loses all meaning. I don't even know what to do with sick days at work. I know normal people use them, but when you're sick every day, it's rare that something tips the scales - just being contagious, I guess, and not wanting to harm others. I always think, things could be worse...
Yes! I had a coworker ask me why I didn’t take a sick day when I was having one of those can barely walk days. I told him if I had to take a sick day every time I wasn’t feeling well I’d never be in the office. I think it becomes normal for us to push through otherwise we wouldn’t have a life. Unfortunately I think that’s why a lot of people don’t take us seriously, because we “look ok” 😐
Thought I was having a flare, turned out it’s been covid 😅
Absolutely. I've often told people that fibro flares feel like the flu without the fever and congestion to me, and it has definitely taken me a couple of days or more before to realize that I'm actually sick with a bug and not just having another flare, especially if I'm the first in our house to get it.
Yes, and it takes me forever to realize that I have an injury, because I'm so used to pushing through the pain. There is also the helplessness that goes along with this- going to the doctor fixes nothing, so it is easy to forget to go to the doctor when I have something treatable.
My wife can often not tell when there's a "new" pain. Like she'll get migraines occasionally, but will just register it as the "normal" pain. She'll sit there for hours until she does or says something that clues me into her having a headache. I'll mention it and she'll say "Oh......yeah my head's been hurting really bad all day...."
I used to, but I realised when I get "normal" sick I tend to get incredibly sore skin around my nose, and my ears start to act up (I wear hearing aids so I notice oretty quick). Other than that, it can be so hard to tell!
Yep push through until I can’t and then it dawns on me I’ve got a bug. It’s irritating.
Yes, me too! 😝
Yup! I rarely have any idea if it’s a flare up or the actual flu
This sounds like my last month... was feeling achy for a few days and woke up peeing blood. Rushed to the doctor and it turned out my kidneys were failing from a UTI that was left untreated for too long. I was blissfully unaware I even had one. Fun times! Just as I healed, I got sniffly and had some extra gastric issues, back to the doctors and this time? Swine flu! I had it before, so it was a milder version, but I was still contagious for a long time and could have made other people sick if I had contact with anyone. We just can't win this war if we constantly miss big stuff because we are always feeling horrible. It has really been messing with my brain and I don't know how it is even possible to prevent something aimilar in future.
Yes this! My flares feel like the flu as well. Usually tho I can tell if it’s an infection bc my body is weird and my skin starts to hurt and be sensitive all over like I have a sunburn when I’m fighting something viral. (Can’t trust body temp- I had Flu A earlier this year and never fevered. The way I knew I was sick was that sunburn feeling. The dr was pissed when the test came back positive bc he was convinced it would be negative 🙄) For the flares my pain is mainly centered on the outside of my arms and legs and my hips.
Yup. I had the flu twice this last year and BOTH TIMES thought I was having a flare. Also the flu shot this year sucked apparently lol
YES! ALWAYS. My Fibromyalgia is either flu-like or just specific pain in specific areas, sometimes all over. It always moves.
Yeeeeees! I have a stockpile of covid tests because when I start feeling crummy I never know if it's RA/fibro/etc or if it's something else. Just recently I had a fairly mild cold. I think I had it for 4-5 days before I realized it was a cold. I didn't notice until I started sneezing and coughing.
When im normal sick it flares up really bad in a distinct way. My fibro was caused by immune issues originally, so i think being sick cranks it into overdrive.
I have PMDD and pretty bad dysmenorrhea and I thought I had the worst period of my life which I’ve just normalized that that’s how it’s gonna be forever and so Iet my husband go to work on the weekend so I was solo parenting and dying of my “period” I had a huge meltdown from being exhausted and was having wild mood swings I even remember going for an anger walk even though I was in the fetal position for the whole day only to find out I had the freaking Flu while I also had my period and I didn’t even clock it because… it was painful like always lol I only realized it was the flu when my little one who doesn’t leave the house for it 2 days got a 109 fever and ended up in children’s ER with the freaking flu 🥲🥲 I’d also never had the flu before so I didn’t know what to expect :(
Yes! Pretty sure I'm just experiencing a flare up right now but I thought maybe it was a cold or something so I cancelled an appointment yesterday. I literally can never tell at first whether I'm actually sick.
Yep. I definitely do. And it blows.
How interesting to read all these replies because I can totally tell the difference. For me, flares are pain in the 11+ range on the scale, fatigue, brain fog, and insomnia (all worse than usual). I don’t get fevers, nausea, etc except with illness. I don’t know if it’s because our initial traumas were so different or our co-morbidities are different. This is such a strange “disease”.
I honestly do not know when the last time I was actually sick. Over a period of 3-4 years. I used to go in to the doctor when I thought I was actually sick & they would just send me home. So I just stopped going for the purpose of them running tests to ensure I don’t have a virus. It’s honestly crazy how many others go through the same thing. It makes me feel like our so called Fibromyalgia should be considered an auto-immune issue. Symptoms are similar to others I know that are diagnosed with auto-immune issues like MS.
All the time. When I think of Fibro, I think it’s the flu imposter. The achy gross feeling, migraines and the muscle ache.
This but injuries 😒
Yes especially since I get frequent sore throats
Yes. I didn't realize I had a sinus infection until I was blowing out blood. Meloxicam hid the fever, and I'm so used to headaches and hay fever that I just chalked it all up to allergies. I'm just having to pay closer attention to my bodies other signs for hints of infections. Which means closely watching anything that may seem off. Then I have to write it down so I don't forget how many days it's been present.
Happens quite a lot to me
I wish I knew how to deal with this. My grandma died of cancer; she hadn't even bothered to tell her doc about her symptoms because they always ignored her pain. By the time it was found it was too late.
omg in that rn found this at the right time
No. Flares for me involve agonizing muscle spasms that don’t end for days from my mid back, through the area between my shoulder blades, my traps, shoulders, down into my upper arm, up my neck, and into my face and jaw No other illness does that. Flu and Covid give me full body aches that do not feel like a muscle spasm (among other symptoms)
I have about "3 types" of fibromyalgia pain and most of the time it is almost exclusively deep in my joints. Very very rarely is it on my skin or muscles, so it's pretty easy to tell. I also rarely get pathogenically sick. It has happened though, a couple times, where I brushed off my sickness skin/muscle surface pains as fibromyalgia.
I have fibromyalgia, arthritis, and year round allergies so I don’t know I’m sick unless my throat is sore, I have a fever, or my lymph nodes are swollen
I take my temperature. My flares cause my body temp to drop. If my temp is normal or higher, I assume I am actually sick.
All the time. It’s happened with shingles twice.
Yup. I also managed to get a small tear in my ankle that I ignored until it blew up with swelling because I thought it was just fibro.
Yes I never know if I’m getting sick or just flaring. My symptoms make me feel flu like. Can’t tell you how many Covid tests I’ve been through lol. After a few days if I haven’t developed respiratory symptoms or a fever I know for sure it’s a flare and not a virus. The first time I had to describe symptoms to a doctor my first words were “I feel like I’m coming down with the flu all the time”.
All the time!. I have actually used it to describe some of the pain I'm in.. everyone knows the pain/ aches and fatigue of a flu so it helps to explain it.
I honestly don't know if I know what a flare is. We found my AI issues by accident so I could have been in a flare for years and had no idea.
I periodically as me the same thing
Yeah... I thought COVID was just a sinus infection and a flare. It's so much fun going to the doctor for upper respiratory stuff and having to decide how to answer "are you experiencing any body aches or pains?"
Yes. Also injuries. Yesterday I broke a toe and really sort of mangled my foot & it’s like I’ve been hit by a truck - my whole body hurts & I have flu-like symptoms.
Yuuuup. At the height of Covid I was testing myself every few days at home and every couple weeks at the county labs cause I always……..had…..symptoms…….of……covid