Describing the Indescribable: Explaining FM Pain to Others

Does anyone else get the burn on their skin like their whole body is sunburned while any pressure feels like it's on a bad bruise?

depends. i dont work and i dont do much physically so my pain is usually pretty tolerable, only enough to keep me awake if i don't take pain meds and it flares if i do too much. though i guess "too much" includes grocery shopping. i'm also on gabapentin, thc, daily tylenol, a ridiculous number of supplements, try and watch what i eat (fast food kills the me) and am seeing 4 physical therapists. so my lifestyle isnt exactly manageable. i used to have a physical therapy home routine that helped too but it wasn't manageable for me either. i dont know that i really feel any physically better for all of it, but i'm not in the excrutiating pain i was in when i worked retail (daily begging for death even though i had ada accommodation)... most of what bothers me now is the fog, the fatigue, the fact that i have to avoid flares, and the financial limitations that come with no income + having to spend endless money on healthcare needs. i am also suffering from severe mental illness and that affects my fibro symptoms a lot.

It feels like that game in Saw 2, The Needle Pit. And the pit is filled with needles that debilitate, exhaust, burn, ache. It’s like if that pit let you experience a scrapbook of every terrible painful experience you could live with. Also the pit is 50 foot deep, and the more you try to get out the deeper you sink.

It’s like running a marathon while you have a really bad case of the flu !!!

this is exactly it! i’ve been looking for another way to describe it to people besides feeling like i have the flu all the time

Best way I describe it is if they have ever seen those telephone poles with all the crazy wires wrapped all around it in all which way. I say that just like electricity pulses everywhere seemingly uncontrollable on that pull, that is what it would look like in my body. I say that fibromyalgia is over reactive nerves throughout the entire body. So it might look something like that. Another explanation is to compare it to arthritis. Most people can imagine what that is and feels like. I say that it is kinda like that, but the pain is everywhere. Another explanation is like it is is having the body aches, pains, and fatigue of having the flu after hiking 10 miles the day before. But that is every day. Hope this helps!