Fibromyalgia and overlapping symptoms A-Z
Allergy
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Anxiety Disorders
Arthritic Conditions
Back Pain
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Cervical (neck) Disk Disease
Cervical (neck) Myofascial Pain
Cervical (neck) Sprain and Strain
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic Swollen/Tender Lymph Nodes
Cognitive Dysfunction
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (RSDS)
Depression
Dysmenorrhea
Endocrine Disorders
Endometriosis
Enthesopathies
Esophageal Dysmotility
Female Urethral Syndrome
Functional Bowel Disorder Syndromes
Hypermobility Syndrome
Hyperthyroidism
Hyperventilation
Infections
Interstitial Cystitis
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Lumbar (low back) Degen. Disk Disease
Lumbar (low back) Facet Arthropathy
Lupus/Autoimmune Diseases
Lyme Disease
Mechanical Low Back Pain
Meralgia Paresthetica
Migraine Headaches
Mitral Valve Prolapse
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)
Myofascial Pain Syndrome
Nondermatomal Paresthesia
Osteoarthritis
PLMS (Periodical Limb Movement)
Postpolio Syndrome
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
Pulmonary Symptoms
Raynaud Phenomenon
Restless Leg Syndrome
Sleep Disorders
Sjögren’s Syndrome
Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome
Thyroid Dysfunction
Vestibular Disorders
Vulvar Vestibulitis (Vulvodynia)
Ankylosing Spondylitis is a distinct disease entity characterized by stiffening of a joint, while spondylos means vertebra. Spondylitis refers to inflammation of one or more vertebrae. Ankylosing spondylitis usually is classified as a chronic and progressive form of seronegative arthritis.
Formation of bony bridges between adjacent vertebrae (syndesmophytes) and progressive ossification of extraspinal joint capsules and ligaments are characteristic of the disease.
Spondylitis Association of America – http://www.spondylitis.org/main.aspx
Anxiety Disorders are a unique group of illnesses marked by persistent, irrational, uncontrollable anxiety. These include generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, social phobia and specific phobias.
Researchers have found that anxiety disorders and chronic pain often occur together. In some patients, the stress associated with living with chronic pain may exacerbate conditions such as anxiety disorders and depression. Feelings of helplessness, loss of control and interference with daily activities from chronic pain can trigger mental health disorders in some pain patients. In some cases, the symptoms of an anxiety disorder may be similar to those of chronic pain and go undiagnosed. It is important to get a correct diagnosis since anxiety disorders are treatable.
The Most Common Anxiety Disorders:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) involves excessive and uncontrollable worry about everyday things, such as health, money or work. It is accompanied by physical symptoms such as restlessness, irritability, muscle tension, fatigue and difficulty sleeping or concentrating.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) entails persistent, recurring thoughts (obsessions) that reflect exaggerated anxiety or fears. Someone with OCD often will practice repetitive behaviors or rituals (compulsions). For instance, obsessing about germs may lead someone with OCD to compulsively washing hands—perhaps 50 times or more per day.
Panic Disorder includes severe attacks of terror or sudden rushes of intense anxiety and discomfort. Symptoms can mimic those found in heart disease, respiratory problems or thyroid problems, and individuals often fear they are dying, having a heart attack or about to faint. The symptoms experienced during a panic attack are real and overwhelming, but not life threatening.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can follow exposure to a traumatic event, such as a car accident, rape, a terrorist attack or other violence. Symptoms include reliving the traumatic event, avoidance, detachment or difficulty sleeping and concentrating. Though it is commonly associated with veterans, any traumatic event can trigger PTSD.
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by extreme anxiety about being judged by others or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or ridicule. People who have SAD have what feels like exaggerated stage fright all the time. SAD is also called social phobia.
Specific phobias are intense fear reactions that lead a person to avoid specific objects, places or situations, such as flying, heights or highway driving. The level of fear is excessive and unreasonable. Although the person with a phobia recognizes the fear as being irrational, even simply thinking about it can cause extreme anxiety.
Visit http://www.adaa.org for more information or contact ADAA at 240-485-1001
Arthritic Conditions
Arthritis Foundation – http://www.arthritis.org/index.php
Back Pain Causes of mechanical back pain (BP) generally are attributed to an acute traumatic event, but they may also include cumulative trauma. The severity of an acute traumatic event varies widely, from twisting one's back to being involved in a motor vehicle collision. Mechanical BP due to cumulative trauma tends to occur more commonly in the workplace.
The pathophysiology of mechanical BP remains complex and multifaceted. Multiple anatomic structures and elements of the spine (eg, bones, ligaments, tendons, disks, muscle) are all suspected to have a role. Many of these components of the spine have sensory innervation that can generate nociceptive (a sensory receptor that responds to pain) signals representing responses to tissue-damaging stimuli. Other causes could be neuropathic (dysfunction of the nervous system--e.g, sciatica). Most chronic BP cases most likely involve mixed nociceptive and neuropathic etiologies.
The National Pain Foundation – http://www.nationalpainfoundation.org/cat/862/back-and-neck
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a common disorder of the wrist and hand characterized by pain, tingling, and muscular weakness, caused by pressure on the median nerve in the wrist area and often associated with trauma, rheumatoid arthritis, or edema of pregnancy.
National Institutes of Health's Medline Plus – http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/carpaltunnelsyndrome.html
Cervical Disc Disease encountered in physiatric practice include herniated nucleus pulposus (HNP), degenerative disc disease (DDD), and internal disc disruption (IDD). HNP implies extension of disc material beyond the posterior margin of the vertebral body. Most of the herniation is made up of the annulus fibrosus. DDD involves degenerative annular tears, loss of disc height, and nuclear degradation. IDD describes annular fissuring of the disc without external disc deformation. Cervical radiculopathy (disease of the spinal nerve roots) can result from nerve root injury in the presence of disc herniation or stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal), most commonly foraminal (openings in the vertebrae for the nerve bundles to enter) stenosis, leading to sensory, motor, or reflex abnormalities in the affected nerve root distribution.
Understanding cervical disc disease requires basic knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics. The intervertebral disc absorbs shock, accommodates movement, provides support, and separates vertebral bodies to lend height to intervertebral foramina. No disc exists between C1 and C2, and only ligaments and joint capsules resist excessive motion. Disc degeneration and/or herniation can injure the spinal cord or nerve roots and result in stenosis and/or myofascial pain.
Spine-health – http://www.spine-health.com/conditions/degenerative-disc-disease/cervical-degenerative-disc-disease
Cervical Myofascial Pain originates from the vertebral spine in the neck correlating to muscle and its surrounding fascia (sheath of connective tissue supporting or binding together internal organs or parts of the body.). The diagnosis of this syndrome in clinical, with no confirmatory laboratory tests available. Thus, myofascial pain in any location is characterized on examination by the presence of trigger points located in skeletal muscle. In the cervical spine, the muscles most often implicated in myofascial pain are the trapezius, levator scapulae, rhomboids, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus. A trigger point is defined as a hyperirritable area located in a palpable taut band of muscle fibers. According to Hong and Simon's recent review on the pathophysiology and electrophysiologic mechanisms of trigger points, the following observations help to define them further:
Trigger points are known to elicit local pain and/or referred pain in a specific recognizable distribution.
Palpation in a rapid fashion (ie, snapping palpation) may elicit a local twitch response (LTR), a brisk contraction of the muscle fibers in or around the taut band. The LTR also can be elicited by rapid insertion of a needle into the trigger point.
Restricted range of motion (ROM) and increased sensitivity to stretch of muscle fibers in a taut band are noted frequently.
The muscle with a trigger point may be weak because of pain. Usually, no atrophic change is observed.
Patients with trigger points may have associated localized autonomic phenomena (eg, vasoconstriction, pilomotor response, ptosis, hypersecretion).
An active myofascial trigger point is a site marked by generation of spontaneous pain or pain in response to movement. This phenomenon is in contrast to the case of latent trigger points, which may not produce pain until they are compressed.
eMedicine – http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/305937-overview
Cervical Sprain and Strain is one of the most common musculoskeletal problems encountered by generalists and neuromusculoskeletal specialists in the clinic.
One cause of cervical strain is termed cervical acceleration-deceleration injury; this is frequently called whiplash injury. Whiplash, one of the most common events of nonfatal car injuries, is one of the most poorly understood disorders of the spine, and the severity of the trauma is often not correlated with the seriousness of the clinical problems. A history of neck injury is a significant risk factor for chronic neck pain. Pretorque of the head and neck increases facet capsular strains, supporting its role in the whiplash mechanism.
The Quebec Taskforce on Whiplash-Associated Disorders has suggested the following system for classifying the severity of cervical sprains:
- No neck pain complaints, no physical signs
- Neck pain complaints, only stiffness or tenderness, no other physical signs
- Neck complaints and musculoskeletal signs (decreased range of motion [ROM] and point tenderness)
- Neck complaints and neurologic signs (weakness, sensory and reflex changes)
- Neck complaints with fracture and/or dislocation
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/306176-overview
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) also known as chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), is a debilitating illness that has long been misunderstood by the public and by health care professionals. The illness has proven to be both complex and mysterious, and there is still no known cause or cure.
Researchers have uncovered biologic abnormalities in CFS patients, producing a “critical mass” of scientific evidence that CFS is a real biologic illness, not a psychiatric condition. Abnormalities have been found in the immune system, the brain, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the cardiovascular system, the autonomic nervous system, and the endocrine system of CFS patients. Although the cause of CFS isn’t yet understood, there is a growing body of research showing that physiologic, environmental and behavioral events experienced over the lifespan—combined with a genetic predisposition—may lead to CFS.
What Are the Symptoms of CFS?
As the name chronic fatigue syndrome suggests, this illness is accompanied by fatigue. However, it’s not the kind of fatigue we experience after a particularly busy day or week, a sleepless night, or stressful events. It’s a severe, incapacitating fatigue that isn’t improved by bed rest and that may be worsened by physical or mental activity.
Although its name trivializes the illness as little more than tiredness, CFS brings with it a constellation of debilitating symptoms. The fatigue of CFS is accompanied by characteristic symptoms lasting at least six months. These symptoms include sleep difficulties, problems with concentration and short-term memory, flu-like symptoms, pain in the joints and muscles, tender lymph nodes, sore throat, and headache. A hallmark of the illness is postexertional malaise, a worsening of symptoms following physical or mental exertion that can require an extended recovery time.
The severity of CFS varies greatly from patient to patient, with some people able to maintain fairly active lives. For others, CFS has a profound impact on work, school and family life. About 25 percent of CFS patients are disabled by the illness. There’s often a pattern of relapse and remission, and patients may cycle between different levels of function. Most symptoms are invisible to others, which makes it difficult for friends, family members, and the public to understand the challenges a person with CFS faces.
What are Common Comorbid Conditions?
In addition to the “diagnostic symptoms” of CFS listed above, it’s not uncommon for CFS patients to have symptoms of other illnesses. These may include visual disturbances (blurring, sensitivity to light, eye pain); psychological problems (irritability, mood swings, anxiety, panic attacks); chills and night sweats; irritable bowel (abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, intestinal gas); allergies and sensitivities to foods, odors, chemicals, medications; brain fog and cognitive impairment; difficulty retaining upright posture, dizziness, balance problems, and fainting; gynecological problems including PMS and endometriosis; and many other health problems.
Because these symptoms are shared with many other illnesses—and because many of these conditions lack a diagnostic test or biomarker—unraveling which illnesses are present can be difficult. Some patients actually receive diagnoses for multiple conditions. Common comorbid conditions include fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis, temporomandibular joint disorder, chronic pelvic pain ,and multiple chemical sensitivity.
Because CFS can resemble other comorbid conditions—as well as medical disorders like mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis, chronic Lyme disease, and lupus—it’s frequently misdiagnosed. For more information, call the Association’s resource line at 704-365-2343.
CFIDS Association of America – http://www.cfids.org/
Chronic Swollen/Tender Lymph Nodes
Lymph nodes are an important component of the body's immune system and help in fighting infections.
They are small, soft, round or oval structures that are found throughout the body and are connected to each other in chain-like (lymphatic chains) fashion by channels similar to blood vessels. Each individual lymph node is covered by a capsule made up of connective tissue.
Within the capsule, lymph nodes contain certain kinds of immune cells. These cells are mainly lymphocytes, which produce proteins that capture and fight viruses and other microbes, and macrophages, which destroy and remove the captured material.
Where are the lymph nodes located in the body?
Lymph nodes are located throughout the body. Some are directly under the skin while others are deep inside the body. Even the most superficial (close to the skin) lymph nodes are usually not visible or palpable (felt by touching), unless they are swollen or enlarged for some reason.
They are connected to each other by loosely bound lymphatic vessels. Lymph nodes generally coalesce in different regions in the body where they are responsible for filtering the blood and performing their immunologic function for that particular area of the body. Fluid from the lymphatic vessels eventually feeds into the venous system (veins) in the body.
Symptoms of swollen lymph nodes vary widely. A person could be completely free of symptoms (asymptomatic) and only found when they are noted by a doctor during a general physical examination. Sometimes referred to as "swollen glands" (lymphadenopathy or lymphadenitis). In general, lymph nodes become swollen when they are active either due to an infection, inflammation, or cancer.