Poll on myalgia (muscle pain)

[MeSci]

I have put this in 'General Symptoms' to try to reduce the risk of bias that might occur if it were placed in 'Skeleton, Skin, Muscles, Hair, Teeth, and Nails'.

If you are pacing and resting very strictly so as not to get myalgia, or are unable to be active due to the severity of your illness, but you know that you would suffer this symptom if you used your muscles more, you should answer 'yes'.

Please vote only if you have ME/CFS/SEID that is not in remission.

EDIT:

Added on request:

This site describes myalgia:

Muscular pain or tenderness, especially when diffuse and nonspecific. Also called myodynia.

diffuse muscle pain, usually accompanied by malaise. Also called myoneuralgia.

muscle/muscle group pain, characterized variably by muscle stiffness (and pain on movement) or severe ongoing muscle pain (in association with intermuscular sensory neuritis [e.g. fibrositis, fibromyositis, myositis], tendinitis, muscle strains, traumatic injury and contusions)

There is a wide range of types of pain, and I think you should answer yes as long as your pain/tenderness/etc is worse than before you developed ME/CFS/SEID. Tenderness presumably leads to pain when the body part is touched or used.

My own muscle pain is a dullish ache.

 

[Bob]

Could you provide a definition of myalgia please? I have no idea what it is.

 

[WillowJ]

Could you provide a definition of myalgia please? I have no idea what it is.

muscle pain

 

[lansbergen]

ME muscle pain is not normal muscle pain like a healthy person gets from exercise. It is more like flu muscle pain.
Some influenza strains give more severe muscle pain than others.

 

[Mij]

@MeSci I was of the understanding that myalgia's can also include muscle tenderness.

I don't have pain but I do experience muscle tenderness. It feels like an all over influenza type soreness, sometimes quite severe. I would say I have this 70% of the time.

 

[Tuha]

I try to walk every day about 1 hour. I have always higher lactic acid which is maybe also kind of pain. I feel heavy legs and really small pain because of higher lactic acid. But I think it´s another pain what you mean.
The sharp pain of my muscles I have only occasionaly.

 

[MeSci]

This site describes myalgia:

Muscular pain or tenderness, especially when diffuse and nonspecific. Also called myodynia.

diffuse muscle pain, usually accompanied by malaise. Also called myoneuralgia.

muscle/muscle group pain, characterized variably by muscle stiffness (and pain on movement) or severe ongoing muscle pain (in association with intermuscular sensory neuritis [e.g. fibrositis, fibromyositis, myositis], tendinitis, muscle strains, traumatic injury and contusions)

There is a wide range of types of pain, and I think you should answer yes as long as your pain/tenderness/etc is worse than before you developed ME/CFS/SEID. Tenderness presumably leads to pain when the body part is touched or used.

My own muscle pain is a dullish ache.

 

[Sidereal]

This site describes myalgia:

There is a wide range of types of pain, and I think you should answer yes as long as your pain/tenderness/etc is worse than before you developed ME/CFS/SEID. Tenderness presumably leads to pain when the body part is touched or used.

My own muscle pain is a dullish ache.

You might wish to include those definitions in your original post to help people vote since not everyone may be aware of the exact meaning of the term myalgia.

 

[Mij]

I voted "yes" in this case. I had no tenderness at all before M.E.

 

[lansbergen]

This site describes myalgia:

There is a wide range of types of pain,.

Can you put that in your first post?

 

[MeSci]

You might wish to include those definitions in your original post to help people vote since not everyone may be aware of the exact meaning of the term myalgia.

Done

 

[MeSci]

Can you put that in your first post?

Done

 

[Sherlock]

Fwiw, the first two definitions strike me as being similar and also idiopathic, while the third is so broad that it can include torn muscles or even DOMS.

 

[MeSci]

Fwiw, the first two definitions strike me as being similar and also idiopathic, while the third is so broad that it can include torn muscles or even DOMS.

Yes - it is very broad, but the question is about whether it is worse since getting ME. I'm not sure that people are more likely to suffer torn muscles due to ME, and DOMS (I had to look this up - Delayed onset muscle soreness) seems to me to encompass a type of muscle pain that can be more common or worse in ME and is thus included in the 'myalgic' part of myalgic enecephalomyelitis.

 

[Sherlock]

Yes - it is very broad, but the question is about whether it is worse since getting ME.

That's how I interpreted the poll: are (or were) muscles worse after CFS?

I'm not sure that people are more likely to suffer torn muscles due to ME,

Actually, I have found that to be rarely but nevertheless sometimes true: getting torn muscles from a light weight. More common is this: getting what seems like a mildly torn bicep just from holding a phone out in front of me, while talking on speakerphone. Yes, from such a very light weight. I've heard at least one other person here say the same thing. There seems to be something particularly bad about isometric contraction. Maybe that's because the metabolites aren't getting carried away so well while motionless. (This relates to why I'd once posted about Kaatsu training http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/kaatsu-blood-flow-restriction-training.34510/)

and DOMS (I had to look this up - Delayed onset muscle soreness) seems to me to encompass a type of muscle pain that can be more common or worse in ME and is thus included in the 'myalgic' part of myalgic enecephalomyelitis.

It seems to be sometimes (but not usually) more easily achievable.

 

[Sushi]

When I get PENE I ache all over but I don't think this is muscle pain but rather general inflammation so I haven't voted.

 

[CBS]

NOW my muscle pain is relatively non-existent (most of the time - never a primary complaint). BUT, intense sharp stabbing pain everywhere was an issue for the first four years (now 21 years).

 

[Seven7]

1) I didn't use to have it it started on year 6 maybe.
2) I realized that my pain was bizarre not the normal muscle I lifted weight type of regular cfs I overdid pain. And I realized I get tendonitis. For sure vit D triggers it and Now I am suspecting wheat. But need to test further.

 

[MeSci]

That's how I interpreted the poll: are (or were) muscles worse after CFS?

Actually, I have found that to be rarely but nevertheless sometimes true: getting torn muscles from a light weight. More common is this: getting what seems like a mildly torn bicep just from holding a phone out in front of me, while talking on speakerphone. Yes, from such a very light weight. I've heard at least one other person here say the same thing. There seems to be something particularly bad about isometric contraction. Maybe that's because the metabolites aren't getting carried away so well while motionless. (This relates to why I'd once posted about Kaatsu training http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/kaatsu-blood-flow-restriction-training.34510/)

It seems to be sometimes (but not usually) more easily achievable.

Yes - it's hard to know what wording to use when you start a poll - problems always seem to arise later! I had to reword it about 3 times to get all the important aspects (as I thought) into the word limit.

Maybe it should have said something like 'Do you get more muscle pain/tenderness from a small amount of activity than before developing ME/CFS?'

I did think again about the muscle tearing, and I think I have pulled muscles more often since getting ME when I have been having a weak spell as part of PEM. I also had a bad sprain from a fall that happened due to poor coordination and weakness. But I wasn't thinking of these when posting the poll.

I think we are getting a good idea anyway, and the comments are useful too!

 

[Vic]

I have to comment on this . So far almost 80% have myalgia. Thought experiment:

Pretend we lived a few hundred years ago and didn't have any doctors with their fancy technology (blood tests, MRIs, 23andME, EKG, blood pressure, heart rate monitors, etc) or learned opinions to help us figure out why we were so debilitatedly tired all of the time. We have nothing but what is available to us: food, ourselves, maybe friends/family. Our only guide, then, is the sensation of our bodies.

So what if pain and discomfort wasn't simply an indicator to be careful, a warning of past or future injury? What if the pain was also a compass directing us to a problem that not only exists, but what we can fix or improve?

Even if you don't suspect that the cause of your disability (CFS/ME) is in your muscle, it's still a problem isn't it? Wouldn't it still be good to try improving just for the sake of reducing pain and improving function by itself? After all, what you feel is really the ONLY thing you have to go on.