One of the biggest frustrations doctors face with fibromyalgia is poor exercise compliance; why is that?
Every person who has fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue will tell you that it hurts to exercise, and it does. It hurts in a way our brains can't make sense of. When normal people experience a painful stimulus the brain sends out its warning; ouch! Pain! Then it levels out and starts shutting down those pain signals. When fibromyalgia people experience pain the brains sends out a disproportionately strong warning; OUCH! OMG! PAIN PAIN PAIN! But instead of leveling out, the pain remains consistent and the signals take a lot longer to shut down. So you can imagine our fear response to pain is much greater; and fear/pain is a huge motivator in all animals.
This fear doesn't just occur with exercise, it happens everywhere in our lives. How we move, how we interact socially. Basically, we go from doing to thinking. Instead of having the luxury of just reacting to our environment we have to be conscious of what could happen in every moment in order to avoid future pain. we become creatures of avoidance.
I think sometimes doctors forget about this aspect of pain and so become frustrated with what seems to them a very simple solution.
It took me years to understand my relationship with pain. And for years I avoided exercise because it scared the crap out of me and everything I tried made things worse. I was also unable to admit my fears about pain because it felt irrational. When I could finally admit I was afraid of pain, even the idea of pain then I could also admit that I could take it slow, very very slow and that was something.