To call managing fibromyalgia uncomfortable, difficult, and frustrating is putting it mildly. This life-altering pain condition affects about 4 million people (mostly women) in the United States, forcing them to deal with widespread pain, fatigue, sleep issues, fogginess, and more.
Our team here at Pain Medicine Consultants can certainly do our part to help you manage your fibromyalgia symptoms through our comprehensive pain management services. That said, managing conditions like fibromyalgia benefits from a comprehensive approach that includes other areas, such as your diet.
Here, we explore some do’s and don’ts when it comes to your diet and how you can help reduce symptoms through nutrition.
Before we get into more specific fibro-friendly dietary tips, we want to emphasize the importance of an overall good diet that includes:
The human body is designed for these foods and functions best when your diet contains a good balance of nutrients.
The foods we list above are chock full of everything your body needs and, more importantly, devoid of those things that can harm your body, such as fructose (sugar), trans and saturated fats, and additives.
When you have a condition like fibromyalgia that involves so many areas of your body, it’s more important than ever that you ensure your body has what it needs to fight back through a balanced diet.
For tips on how to optimize your general health through your diet and what you should be eating, check out myplate.gov.
Beyond ensuring that your overall diet is well-balanced, there are a few areas in which people with fibromyalgia would do well to change, such as:
The American diet is full of additives and many of these can be toxic to the human body, including monosodium glutamate (MSG) and artificial sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin.
These additives aren’t doing your body any favors and can excite neurons in your brain and worsen your fibro symptoms.
Many people with fibromyalgia also have gastrointestinal issues like irritable bowel syndrome. A good way to help your digestive tract is to eat foods with soluble fiber, such as fruit, beans, and oats.
If you have fibromyalgia, you need plenty of vitamin D, which supports a healthy nervous system. This vitamin is naturally found in tuna, salmon, eggs, and vitamin D-fortified orange juice and milk.
To fight back against system-wide inflammation, which can exacerbate fibro pain, add more omega-3s to your diet. Omega-3s are found in nuts, fish, flaxseed, and avocados.
Fermentable oligosaccharide, disaccharide, monosaccharide, and polyols (FODMAPs) are foods that can ferment in your gut, and they’re known to trigger symptoms in some people with fibromyalgia. Foods that are considered FODMAPs include:
We’re going to stop here, as we’ve given you plenty of dietary changes to work on. We urge you to try some of these and see what a difference your diet can make when you have fibromyalgia.
If you’d like help with your diet or a more customized plan, please contact one of our offices in Pleasanton, Pleasant Hill, or Corte Madera, California, to schedule an appointment.
