How is my fibromyalgia affecting my thinking?

Fibromyalgia can affect your thinking in several ways. Called "fibro fog," cloudy thinking from fibromyalgia may make it more difficult to learn and remember things you just heard. It may be hard to focus on a problem you are trying to solve. Researchers believe two factors contribute to fibro fog: pain and lack of sleep. When you are in pain, that's all you can think about, which makes it harder to focus on anything else. Poor quality sleep, waking unrefreshed, and feeling tired -- defining symptoms of fibromyalgia -- also contribute to fibro fog. Everything is connected, so treating your primary fibromyalgia symptoms of pain and poor sleep should help improve your thinking skills.

Problems with thinking and memory when you have fibromyalgia are called “fibro fog.”

The cognitive disturbance, inability to remember or stay focused is a common characteristic of fibromyalgia and is sometimes called brain fog. This condition can be an obstacle to coping.

It can cause:

• short-term memory problems
• loss in sense of direction
• difficult finding or forming words
• dyslexia
• transposition of letters when writing
• lose a train of thought mid-sentence

It can be exacerbated by:

• hormonal fluctuations
• sleep disruption
• non-restorative sleep
• anxiety, stress or depression
• mental or physical fatigue
• diet high in carbohydrates
• undiagnosed or under treated hypothyroidism

Tips for learning to cope with fibrofog can be found in the book.

http://store.innertraditions.com/isbn/978-1-59477-323-5