Fibromyalgia diet

Diet can go a long way in helping fibromyalgia

There is a noticeable link between diet and fibromyalgia. Certain food products that normally trigger a mild reaction can, in fibromyalgia sufferers, have a more adverse effect. It is important to identify these trigger foods and remove them from your diet. Here, our joint and muscle expert Earle Logan describes the best dietary habits for fibromyalgia patients and helps us to recognise harmful patterns in our own diet.

Ask our muscles & joints advisor Earle your fibromyalgia question.

An introduction to diet and fibromyalgia

Many people suffering from fibromyalgia find that the food they eat can have an impact on the symptoms they experience.

However, to date, no-one has designed a dietary programme that has been shown consistently to improve the symptoms of fibromyalgia. This isn't surprising when you consider that everyone with fibromyalgia experiences their own, unique set of symptoms. This is also the reason why the condition is so difficult to diagnose.

The better approach is to tailor any dietary changes to your own experience, rather than search for a 'one size fits all' plan. This is achieved through the use of a diet diary.

A diet diary

A diet diary isn't a big commitment, it's just a case of remembering to keep it handy. Every time you eat or drink, make a note of what it was. Also note down the symptoms you experienced that day, throughout the day, using the time of day markings on the page. You could end up with a day worth of entries that look like this:

2am woke up, toilet, back to sleep.
7am alarm. Feel achy, exhausted.
8am Breakfast - coffee, weetabix, milk.
8.45 - Toilet, diarrhoea.
10am - coffee at work
10.40 - Toilet (again!!)
12.00 - neck and shoulders bad today
12.30 - cheese sandwich on white. Coffee.
2pm - tummy grumbling, headache.
3pm - headache, feel lousy and back hurts. Can't focus on work.
6.30 - still aching, didn't want to cook so went out for Chinese. Glass of wine.
12pm - can't sleep. Mind racing aaarh! So tired.

Recognising patterns

Recognising a pattern between the foods you eat and the onset of symptoms is the best way to create your personal dietary plan.

In the example above, I would have commented that coffee is being used to compensate for poor sleep but that it is also overly stimulating the bowel. You'll also see that in the example, wheat-based foods are eaten at every meal and may account for the bowel sensitivity (IBS).

The cheese at lunch would be the likely cause of the headache as it contains the known trigger L-tyramine. The sleeplessness may be down to the Chinese meal because these commonly contain MSG, a known excitotoxin to the nervous system known to cause insomnia. Excitotoxins, which also include aspartame, are also known to increase pain perception.

The other thing that is easily overlooked is that the example drank no water at all during the 24hrs - another recipe for a headache and lower back pain.

The above example might contain a few day’s worth of symptom episodes condensed into 24hrs but it's quite conceivable that many people with fibromyalgia would think this was a typical day!

You'll need to keep the diary for a fortnight before any meaningful patterns become apparent and to eliminate the possibility that a symptom may have arisen by chance, but most food sensitivities will trigger symptoms within 2 hours, so you'll soon begin to construct links along the way.

6 Golden rules

Regardless of any personal dietary patterns, there are a few golden dietary rules to follow and these should form the basic diet to which any personal discoveries should be added:

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Eat oily fish for their anti-inflammatory oils and failing that, linseeds
Eat as many colourful foods as possible to combat the oxidative stress of this inflammatory ailment. By this, I mean foods such as carrots, beetroot, red grapes etc.
Replace tea, coffee and nicotine as they are all anti-nutrients and stimulants
Watch out for the common allergens such as dairy, wheat, citrus and eggs
Cut down or eliminate sugar and salt as they are anti-nutrients. Salt can cause calcium retention and so tight muscles. Sugar lowers immunity, causes fatigue and bloating
Drink water! Dehydration causes headaches, mental fog, backache and fatigue

Other things you can do

Make every effort to eat slowly, get some sunshine and improve your sleep quality.

These three measures help you slow down, improve mood, reduce stress and aid cell repair and energy levels. You can't always change the nature of your commitments, so don't try, but only you can improve your diet, lifestyle and sleep quality.

For more advice on lifestyle and sleep there's a great deal of information on our stress and sleep pages. Imagine the impact on your fibromyalgia if you improved those!

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Some foods can increase inflammation and discomfort, whilst others can actually reduce it and relieve pain. Discover which foods you should eat fewer of (some might surprise you) and what you should eat more of instead, when suffering from muscle & joint pain.

Discover suprising foods you should avoid

10 Comments

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Joann Rawlings — 09.11.2017 20:41
Hi I've had these symptoms for four years and getting worse, my mother had ostioarthritus and when I developed the pains I got blood tested. Came back negative, twelve months later still in pain spreading to my joints and spine. Again I got tested for rumatoid arthritis came back negative. I changed my bed to a no 5 firmness I'm still in pain so I think along with severe headaches I'm convinced it's fibromyalgia do you agree
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- Earle — 10.11.2017 11:22
  Hi Joann I’m afraid you’ll need your doctor to test a little more comprehensively to rule out other possible conditions before fibromyalgia is officially diagnosed. What you have might be fibromyalgia but Diagnosing fibromyalgia is very difficult as it share many of its symptoms with other conditions such as polymyalgia rheumatica, rheumatoid arthritis, Lymes disease, chronic fatigue and menopause. Doctors like to start by testing for these first and so it can take a long time to eliminate them all. An added complication is that sometimes people with fibromyalgia are going through the menopause (which can make you tired and achy) or have another painful condition at the same time, so a positive test for one of these can sometimes lead the doctor to think 'case solved'. There is also no test or scan that identifies Fibromyalgia so some doctors doubt it even exists, so my best advice is first, see your doctor and ask for a referral to a rheumatologist (they're much better informed) and, if you're still not happy, just treat it yourself and don't bother waiting any longer for a diagnosis.
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Carole — 26.07.2017 09:22
I have fibromyalgia and have got to a point that I don't know what to eat anymore dairy upsets me sets migraine off as do citrus fruits. I'm allergic to tomato so white sauce and tomato based sauce are out. I get fed up of potatoe dinners and wish to have more varieties I can't stand to cook for long so need quick easy snack foods spiced foods also upset my body.
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- Earle — 28.07.2017 13:41
  Hello Carole When people have multiple sensitivities, it makes more sense to strengthen the function of the digestive system than to cut out food after food. You might find it worth your while to take a digestive enzyme complex for a couple of weeks to establish whether better digestion can help you tolerate those various foods. If it does help, switch thereafter to a herbal bitter complex such as our Yarrow complex to stimulate the body's own production of digestive substances (using supplemental enzymes long term may cause your own production to decline).
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- Beverley Davis — 28.01.2018 23:45
  I have Fibromyalgia and other health challenges I am taking herbs 3 times a day seeing a medical Herbalist. I is slow but definitely progress, definitely worth trying.
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- Earle — 31.01.2018 11:30
  Hello Beverley Thanks for contributing. You’re absolutely right that chronic conditions require some patience and perseverance, so thanks for emphasising this. It’s also true to say that complex health stories benefit from consulting someone who can look at the whole case objectively and comprehensively. Best wishes for your continued progress from us all.
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Earle — 03.07.2017 07:34
Hello Johanna Sorry to hear your complex health worries. I'm afraid that they are too complex for us to address over the internet and you need to have a practitioner assess your medical history and diet in order to advise you properly. Qualified nutritionists are registered with www.bant.org.uk and medical herbalists at www.nimh.co.uk.
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