This isn't a post about what you should and shouldn't eat. That is a topic for chronic pain suffers that is up there with discussing things Like politics or religion -no this is about pain and the desire to eat.
For me food is a series of confusing signals, when to eat, what to eat, how much to eat or even can I eat? Like most chronic pain suffers I have to be really cautious about what I eat. I have an absolute intolerance of aspartame, artificial sweeteners, coloring, msg, and sadly alcohol, depending on the flare up I may have sensitivities to wheat, eggs, milk, corn and so on and because of my gallbladder issues I find myself unable to eat much greasy, fried or oily foods. This does not mean I always avoid these things, and more likely that I eat too much of these things. But all of that is just the food itself, that part is the easy part.
People who suffer from pain sometimes find food to be like a warm blanket, they crave food to stop pain, occasionally it actually does help especially if you have blood sugar issues or are deficient in vitamins, sound familiar? people who have back stomach or rib pain will tell you that some pain feels achingly similar to hunger pains initially and will eat to ease those pains. This is definitely a problem I have. Part of this I think is autonomic dysfunction; your body is being sent signals for pain that has no physical base and so it says the pain is here, maybe this pain is a result of hunger and it tells your brain to eat, also vitamin and mineral deficiencies can cause some pretty severe cravings too.
Often eating when you feel this way can cause additional discomfort instead of relief. For me I end up feeling dizzy, nauseous, overly full, cramped, or fatigued. Not the outcome I was looking for. Also, I gain weight and even though I have convinced myself that I would gladly take on a few extra pounds if I could be pain free and healthy it makes me both self-conscious and critical.
Another huge problem I have with eating is the when of it. I have severe insomnia and daytime sleepiness. In the past 6 months I don't fall asleep before 2 am and often more like 4 or 5 and then I sleep till midday, or at least lay in bed till then. This may sound lazy but sleep is super important for anyone and so much more for chronic illness. I sleep when I can and I no longer care what people think of that. But this causes another problem. My daily cycle is set back. I don't eat breakfast until lunch and lunch is at dinner and dinner, well, it doesn't happen but I am often slammed with hunger around midnight, so comes midnight snacking. This is often frozen grapes or a pear or cereal maybe, but it is also the time when my pain is the most intense and so my cravings for other things are greater. This is a war I cannot win because if I don't eat my hunger keeps me from sleeping but eating late causes problems with digestion and wakefulness and so on...
Ive tried a lot of different approaches to this problem and nothing is successful, for now I'm just accepting this as a part of my illness and hoping my schedule will in time adjust to something more natural, maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. Maybe it is natural just not normal? I will tell you that resisting food when I am in a lot of pain is very hard to do and usually affects my mood -you will not like me when I'm hangry!
The other side of this is a complete lack of appetite and it is not so much a lack of desire to eat but that everything smells wrong, makes me nauseated or won't stay down. sometimes I just can't eat, it's like I'm incapable of swallowing. Often I feel this craving that I can't name and nothing else will do, maybe protein or carbs or calcium I don't know. those times can go either way, I don't eat anything or I try to eat everything to figure out the craving.
I have realized through this whole process that fibromyalgia effects every sense, anything your nervous system controls can be overruled by bad signals, it's not just pain the entire electrical system has shorted and the code is all wrong.
My communication problems run deep.