Is Your Pain Migrating?

Pain Migration

Do you have pain that moves around your body? If so, you are not alone. Many people suffer from this type of pain. In fact, it is one of the most common complaints that doctors hear. Pain migration can be a real challenge to treat. It can be hard to determine the source of the pain and even harder to find a cure. In this blog post, we will discuss what pain migration is and some of the possible causes. We will also offer some tips for how to manage this type of pain.

Migratory Pain

What could be worse than severe and unrelenting chronic pain that disrupts your life and keeps you from enjoying the simplest of pleasures? For those who have experienced it, migratory pain might be the answer.

Pain is a complicated subject. Since Pain means different things to different people depending on their experiences in life. Pain can vary in intensity, but can also trigger memories of past events.

Environmental Triggers

Pain can be caused by a number of factors, including temperature, humidity, air quality, and barometric pressure. Certain meals, medicines, or connections might either lessen or exacerbate the discomfort. Pain intensity does not always indicate pain duration in the same way that pain duration does not always equal pain intensity.

In addition to the pain itself, other symptoms might develop. These include fatigue, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and depression. The pain might feel like a dull ache or throbbing, burning, shooting, or stabbing sensation. It might be intermittent or constant.

Fibromyalgia: Pain That Moves, Changes, and Increases

Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 15 million Americans and is not well understood. Researchers believe that a variety of factors—including genetics, infections, and physical or emotional trauma—may work together to cause fibromyalgia pain, which is characterized by:

• General fatigue
• Sleep disturbances
• Widespread pain that can wax, wane and migrate to all parts of the body

Researchers believe that repeated nerve stimulation causes the brains of people with fibromyalgia to change. This change involves abnormal increases in levels of certain chemicals in the brain that signal pain. With fibromyalgia, pain memories stored by the brain can be reactivated and amplified, and these amplified signals cause body changes to occur that can include decreasing serotonin levels, brain wave fluctuations, and disturbed sleep stages.

Causes

Currently, no one knows what causes people to have fibromyalgia. It seems that there is an association between arthritis –traumatic events and mental health and well-being. Fibromyalgia is a condition of nonspecific inflammation that can cause a person pain. This also affects your nerve endings and may cause pain from little or no pain at all. The condition has its roots in problems in the central nervous system whose functions control all the sensations of movement. Researched areas of the brain causing pain are different in fibromyalgia patients compared to the normal symptoms.

Getting Diagnosed

Pain that moves around the body is one of the most frustrating chronic pains especially when there are no obvious factors that are triggering your pain. Fibromyalgia could be diagnosed with migratory pain because all the other symptoms fit what fibromyalgia is defined as.

Pain migrates because it is felt in different parts of the body at different times and can be easily misdiagnosed as something else such as a pinched nerve, an inflamed muscle or tendon, arthritis, or even heart attack.

Pain with No Warning

Unfortunately, pain migration can happen at any time with no warning and is not easily explained by doctors. Pain that moves around the body is something you will need to learn how to cope with and manage.

Migratory pain affects different parts of the body at different times. It can manifest as:

• Muscular aching
• Throbbing
• Burning
• Shooting
• Sharp or stabbing pain
• Or, it can produce an overall body ache that mimics flu-like symptoms.

Migratory pain is common in people who suffer from fibromyalgia and different types of arthritis. 

Arthritis: Migrating Pain Through the Body’s Joints

Arthritis is a broad term—classified into over 100 categories—that defines joint pain and inflammation. Migratory arthritis is characterized by rapid onset of swelling in one or two joints. As symptoms resolve, similar symptoms begin to emerge in another joint, usually in an asymmetric location.

The symptoms then generally fade within the next few days before they flare again. Migratory arthritis is mostly associated with the following forms of arthritis:

• Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks healthy tissue
• Osteoarthritis is a breakdown of the cartilage that covers the joint bones
• Gout, caused by urate crystal buildup between joints
• Lupus, an inflammatory disease in which your immune system attacks the body’s joints and tissues

Other medical conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and various bacterial infections can also cause migratory arthritis. No matter the type of arthritis a person experiences, it’s impossible to predict where or when the pain will move.

Treatment of Migratory Pain

Treat migratory pain as early as possible to break the pain cycle. Pain that moves around the body can be very difficult to diagnose and treat and will require a doctor or doctor’s team who is knowledgeable about pain management.

A pain management specialist will begin the diagnostic process with a physical examination, evaluation of the pain’s medical history, and blood tests that can check for markers that would indicate certain conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

There are also things you can do to help yourself, including getting proper exercise and sporting a good attitude. While managing pain can be frustrating, exhausting, and even depressing, a recent study has shown that patients who maintain generally positive emotions experience about 28 percent less pain than those who don’t.

Get Help Today!

PMIR has helped hundreds of thousands of people relieve their chronic pain symptoms. At PMIR we do not just treat your pain, we help you create a Pain Management Plan that is right for you. The first step to finding relief is to take our Pain Assessment and connect with an expert Pain Management Specialist. Find your path to relief, pain that moves around the body can be managed.

At Pain Management and Injury Relief, our pain management specialists use the latest technologies and most advanced equipment to accurately diagnose and manage your pain. Our continuum of services includes innovative, minimally invasive procedures and non-narcotic pain-relief methods.

We also encourage complementary alternative medicine (CAM) options for migratory pain that include acupuncture and massage. If you’d like to learn more about options for addressing your chronic pain, we encourage you to call Pain Management and Injury Relief at (877) 724-6349 to make an appointment today

REFERENCES:

http://ra.newlifeoutlook.com/migratory-rheumatoid-arthritis/
http://time.com/4085001/pain-tolerance/
http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/migratory-arthritis
http://www.everydayhealth.com/autoimmune-disorders/autoimmune-disorders-and-pain.aspx
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/basics/causes/con-20019243
http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=13702