Fibromyalgia is a musculoskeletal disease that may cause pain, muscle tension, joint stiffness, fatigue, sleep problems, and even memory issues. While these symptoms vary in severity and are manageable with proper treatment, certain things can exacerbate them. One of the triggers is not drinking enough water. Can dehydration make fibromyalgia worse? Well, it can, but how? Let’s find out!
ANF Therapy®️ is the newest treatment for fibromyalgia. It is a frequency-based treatment that aims to address pain and inflammation from the root cause. Unlike Western medicine that targets fibromyalgia symptoms only, ANF Therapy®️ is designed to activate the body’s own natural healing process.
Let’s explore how dehydration makes fibromyalgia worse and how to manage fibromyalgia effectively:
Effect of dehydration on people with fibromyalgia
Water is important for almost all body activities. When your body doesn’t have enough water to perform essential body functions, it enters a state of dehydration. Dehydration can affect a person’s overall health, causing fatigue, headaches, and dizziness. But if you’re someone with fibromyalgia, dehydration may worsen your symptoms.
Increased pain sensitivity
People with fibromyalgia already experience increased pain sensitivity due to a condition known as central sensitisation. This makes their pain receptors highly reactive, and dehydration may make this even worse. When your body is dehydrated, it becomes less efficient at managing pain and may have lower pain threshold levels, leading to an increase in the perception of pain.
In addition, without enough water, the body produces low levels of endorphins, which are natural painkillers. When endorphins are low, the pain sensitivity increases. Moreover, dehydration can disrupt serotonin production, which helps regulate sleep, mood, and pain. This imbalance can also worsen the pain in people with fibromyalgia.
Inflammation
As chronic inflammation is associated with fibromyalgia, dehydration can intensify this inflammation, making muscles, joints, and tissues even more sensitive to pain.
People with fibromyalgia often have chronic low-grade inflammation. Since water plays an important role in regulating the body’s inflammatory response, dehydration may increase this inflammation. This is because water helps flush out toxins and inflammatory by-products. But without adequate hydration, these toxins accumulate in the body, increasing inflammation that eventually worsens fibromyalgia symptoms.
As a result, you might feel stiffness and redness, which can make muscles, joints, and tissues even more sensitive to pain.
Increased muscle tension
Since muscle tissue is made up of around 75% water, proper hydration is necessary for optimal muscle function and joint lubrication. In case of dehydration, muscle cells lose water and electrolytes, such as sodium and potassium. This, in turn, leads to poor muscle elasticity and contraction, which contributes to cramps and spasms. For a person with fibromyalgia, who may already feel frequent muscle pain and stiffness, dehydration makes symptoms worse.
In addition, when your body is dehydrated, synovial fluid (which lubricates the joints) becomes thicker, reducing its ability to cushion the joints. Consequently, joint friction increases, which may lead to discomfort, adding to the pain of fibromyalgia.
Beyond this, the cartilage in joints can also become brittle and susceptible to damage due to dehydration, which can make the symptoms of fibromyalgia even worse.
Increased fatigue
Fatigue is another symptom of fibromyalgia, which worsens with dehydration. When the body lacks sufficient water, the cardiovascular system may struggle to circulate blood efficiently. This leads to reduced oxygenation of tissues and a general feeling of exhaustion. Since people with fibromyalgia already have low energy levels, dehydration may worsen their fatigue, making it even more difficult to manage daily activities.
Dehydration also interferes with sleep, as it disrupts hormone levels and often leads to poor sleep quality. Poor sleep quality, in turn, increases fatigue and leaves those with fibromyalgia feeling even more drained.
Poor cognitive function
In addition to physical pain, fibromyalgia can impact cognitive function, often leading to a condition known as “fibro fog.” This cognitive fog can make it hard to concentrate, remember details, or stay mentally sharp. Dehydration makes fibro fog worse.
This is because the brain struggles to function optimally without sufficient hydration. Research shows that dehydration can impair memory, mood, and concentration, which are already compromised in fibromyalgia. However, rehydration quickly can improve these cognitive functions.
Headaches and migraines
People with fibromyalgia often experience headaches and migraines. Dehydration may make these symptoms worse, as it results in constriction of blood vessels in the brain. This reduces the blood and oxygen flow to the brain, which triggers headaches.
In the case of fibromyalgia, these headaches are often severe due to increased pain sensitivity and thus make everyday tasks difficult.
How to treat Fibromyalgia effectively?
ANF Therapy®️ is the newest and most advanced treatment for fibromyalgia. It focuses on restoring the body’s natural ability to heal itself. It applies specially designed ANF Devices to certain body parts. These devices emit unique frequencies to support neurological function and reduce inflammation. This noninvasive therapy aims to provide rapid and noticeable improvements, often from the very first session. ANF Therapy®️ aims to identify and correct imbalances in the body’s electrical and biochemical systems that contribute to the widespread pain and fatigue in fibromyalgia patients.
This treatment involves the following steps:
History
Your ANF Therapist will first take a detailed history. Comprehensive history-taking includes assessing pain severity, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms and reviewing previous treatments and other medical conditions.
Physical Examination
In physical examination, your ANF Therapist will focus on detecting muscle tenderness, trigger points, nerve sensitivity, posture, and range of motion to understand the extent of fibromyalgia’s impact.
Application of ANF Devices
After history and neurological examination, your ANF Therapist will apply certain devices to your body. These devices include positive and negative anti-inflammatory devices, antioxidant devices (glutathione and carnosine), energy devices, nitric oxide devices, and many others designed to support all systems of your body.
You will need to drink at least 1-2 glasses of water per hour to stay adequately hydrated and detox your body.
Expected Outcome
According to Dr. Mikel H-G Hoff (founder of ANF Therapy®️), most patients experience significant pain reduction and symptom relief, often achieving around 50% improvement in the first session. However, individual responses may vary according to the severity of the disease.Follow-Up
Your ANF Therapists will conduct regular follow-ups to monitor progress, adjust treatment plans, and provide guidance on changing ANF Devices every 72 hours for optimal results. The treatment of fibromyalgia may take 2-6 months.
