Fibromyalgia weight gain is a symptom that can often put the Fibromyalgia sufferer over the top. If the pain that Fibromyalgia sufferers experience isn’t enough, Fibromyalgia can present a host of other symptoms. Many of these symptoms are somewhat hidden from the rest of the world, and the Fibromyalgia sufferer just endures their disease on their own. But their weight gain is something that is more “in the public eye” and just seems to add to the burden of this disease.
The Fibromyalgia symptom complex is complex. I’ve called Fibromyalgia a vicious cycle because so many of the symptoms of the disease seem to reinforce one another. Weight gain as a Fibromyalgia symptom is no exception.
There are a number of factors that can cause weight gain with a sufferer of Fibromyalgia, and those factors can all be directly or indirectly related to one another. We’ll first start with the biochemical issues of Fibromyalgia.
In research that has been done on Fibromyalgia sufferers all over the world, scientists have found a few hormonal imbalances that seem to be common among them, typically in the levels of thyroid, serotonin, growth hormone and cortisol. The result of hormonal imbalances such as these is reflected in an overall slowing of metabolism, and that can cause weight gain. This slowing of the metabolism essentially means that the body uses fewer calories each day in its normal functioning. With fewer calories being processed, and no reduction in calories being consumed, the Fibromyalgia sufferer will experience weight gain over time. In fact, there are statements in the literature that the onset of Fibromyalgia can be accompanied by as much as a 25 to 30 pound gain of weight in the first year of the onset of the disease.
