‘This constant being woken up is the worst thing’ – experiences of sleep in fibromyalgia syndrome

Abstract

Theadom A, Cropley M (2010). 'This constant being woken up is the worst thing' -experiences of sleep in fibromyalgia syndrome. Disability and Rehabilitation 32(23):1939-1947 'This constant being woken up is the worst thing' -experiences of sleep in fibromyalgia syndrome Alice Theadom and Mark Cropley Abstract Purpose. Sleep disturbance affects a high proportion of people with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). This study aims to explore people's perceptions of their sleep quality and the influence sleep has on their symptoms and daily lives.Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen participants diagnosed with primary FMS, covering all aspects of the sleep experience. The audio recorded qualitative interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.Results. Poor sleep dominated participants' lives, affecting levels of pain and fatigue, engagement in daily activities and ability to cope. Participants reported experiencing blocks of sleep, with the most profound difficulty for participants being able to go back to sleep after a night time awakening. They also felt a lack of control in their ability to manage their sleep difficulties and use of day-time napping appeared to be the only perceived beneficial coping strategy for relieving daytime sleepiness and symptoms of fatigue.Conclusions. Greater emphasis on screening for sleep disorders and how to manage poor sleep is needed in rehabilitation programmes provided for patients with FMS.

How Perceived Pain Influence Sleep and Mood More Than The Reverse: A Novel, Exploratory Study with Patients Awaiting Total Hip Arthroplasty

“…We found that almost all of the patients in the present study perceived increased pain to lead to poorer sleep, corroborating the impact of pain on sleep in previous qualitative and quantitative studies (Smith et al, 2000; Breivik et al, 2006; Hawker et al, 2008; Ashworth et al, 2010; Theadom and Cropley, 2010; Henderson et al, 2013; Thomazeau et al, 2014). For example, many chronic pain patients firmly believe that when they are in pain, it is simply impossible for them to get comfortable and go to sleep (Edwards et al, 2011; Tang et al, 2012a).…”

“…The experience and expression of such pain is commonly modulated by the presence of comorbid conditions like sleep and mood disturbances (Chiu et al, 2005; Lautenbacher et al, 2006; Roehrs et al, 2006; Haack et al, 2007; Smith et al, 2007; O’Brien et al, 2011; Blagestad et al, 2012) as well as expectancies and appraisals about these conditions (Tracey, 2010; Bjorkedal and Flaten, 2012). Chronic pain patients often attribute specific causal relationships in terms of how these conditions influence each other (Morin et al, 1998; Hawker et al, 2008; Tang et al, 2009; Theadom and Cropley, 2010). Shown to shape symptom expression, such attributions also influence a person’s overall perceived symptom load (Petrie et al, 2007).…”

“…Sleep and mood disturbances are frequently experienced as a consequence of pain in chronic pain patients (Brennan and Lieberman, 2009), and often interact to worsen pain (Chiu et al, 2005; Zautra et al, 2005; Vitiello et al, 2009; Ong et al, 2010; Theadom and Cropley, 2010; Sivertsen et al, 2015). Conversely, there is also recent research highlighting the amplifying effect of improvements of sleep and mood involved in the recovery from chronic pain (Zautra et al, 2005; Davies et al, 2008; Ashworth et al, 2010; Ong et al, 2010).…”

“…In line with this, chronic pain patients often believe that their sleep problem will disappear when their pain is gone (Morin et al, 1998). Of the studies to date, only one has explored this reciprocal relationship from the perspective of sleep, finding that fibromyalgia patients directly associate poor sleep with feelings of pain and fatigue, in addition to reduced coping abilities (Theadom and Cropley, 2010). Knowledge of attributions about the perceived mutual influence of mood, pain and sleep is lacking in chronic pain patients.…”

Restorative Yoga for Symptom Management in Fibromyalgia: Results of an 8-week Intervention

“…Disrupted sleep cycles, reported as one of the most bothersome FM-related symptoms [18][19][20][21], cause individuals to wake up feeling unrefreshed [22] and have been correlated with increases in perceived severity of FM-related pain, fatigue, and depressed mood [22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. A 2014 study [29] found that the strongest predictor of new onset widespread pain in older adults was non-restorative sleep but that a return to a restorative sleep pattern resulted in resolution of the widespread pain.…”