Allodynia: Fibromyalgia Skin Pain

Published: // Updated: March 13, 2021

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Do you experience pain from a simple touch? Do you cringe when someone goes to give you a hug? Do these simple gestures result in excruciating pain? Skin pain is another one of those fibromyalgia symptoms that just doesn’t seem to make sense. This type of pain is called Allodynia and is usually felt as a burning sensation.

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Allodynia is believed to be a hypersensitivity to stimuli that would normally not cause pain. The pain can be provoked by a light touch to the skin, pressure from clothing, showering, combing or brushing your hair. Even a light breeze blowing across your skin can feel like agony.

What Causes Allodynia?

Allodynia is considered to be the result of a process called central sensitization. The pain comes from a malfunction of specialized nerves, called nociceptors. These nociceptors sense information about things like temperature and painful stimuli right at the skin. For some reason, our nociceptors become chronically activated and send persistent pain signals. Any sensation felt by the skin becomes painful.

Allodynia is a fairly rare type of pain. It is only associated with a handful of conditions. These conditions include fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia (shingles) and migraine. Allodynia is also linked to the lack of restorative sleep.

There are three sub-types:

  • Tactile Allodynia: pain caused from something touching your skin.
  • Mechanical Allodynia: pain caused by movement such as your clothing brushing against your skin or the breeze from a fan or the wind blowing across your skin.
  • Thermal Allodynia: pain caused from mild heat or cold temperatures.

Allodynia often overlaps with hyperalgesia (abnormally heightened sensitivity to pain), which seems to be the case with fibromyalgia. So not only are we experiencing pain from stimuli that should not cause pain, the pain is amplified.

Treating Allodynia

The skin pain comes from a malfunction of specialized nerves. It is also related to a lack of restorative sleep. Standard treatments for fibromyalgia can also help ease allodynia. This includes eating healthy, exercising, reducing stress and improving your sleep.

Medications that work for some people include:

  • Tricyclic antidepressants (amitriptyline, desipramine, doxepin, imipramine, nortriptyline)
  • Lyrica (pregabalin)
  • Neurontin (gabapentin)
  • Lidocaine patches

Some people also get relief from topical pain creams. You may have to be careful about the way you dress, as well. Loose fitting clothing made from soft natural fibers are recommended.

If your skin itches, burns, tingles or you have numbness, it could be a condition called Paresthesia. It’s also seen in Fibromyalgia and migraine patients. The sensations are usually felt in the hands, arms, legs, or feet, but can also occur in other parts of the body.

Painful skin is a new symptom for me. It seems to be triggered by temperature. It doesn’t even have to be hot. When I feel a little warm, my skin starts stinging and burning, then anything touching or moving across my skin intensifies the pain. Being exposed to the sun makes it worse.

My doctor increased my dosage of amitriptyline and said if that doesn’t help we would try gabapentin. It’s been three weeks since the dosage increase and so far it hasn’t helped. Since summer is almost over, I am wondering if the skin pain will lessen when the weather gets cooler.

Or is that just wishful thinking?

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173 thoughts on “Allodynia: Fibromyalgia Skin Pain”

  1. When I eat certain foods, the skin on top of my feet starts hurting and I get the sensation of fire ants crawling across my skin. Other times it feels like someone is squeezing my foot in a vise. Thank you for explaining this.

    Reply
  2. Wow I have all these issues and more. I have had fibromyalgia for almost 40 years. I remember my boss ,who is a physician ,tell me I had it but don’t tell anyone else as they don’t believe it is real. Thank goodness we have come so far in that time. For me my journey was my boss sent me to someone who was like minded and a rheumatologist. He advised that even back then, he felt getting restorative sleep is the key. He placed me on Amitriptolene 3 at bedtime and also Klonopin 3 at bedtime. It definitely helped with my level of pain but it is always there. I do have a question. Does anyone’s scalp literally feel numb. I don’t feel the heat of the water when I shower or shampoo my hair. But I feel migraine pain?

    Reply
    • Hi Linda. I agree with your doctor about restorative sleep. I think it is the most important issue to address. I have never had my scalp feel numb but it tingles at times. Also when I feel overheated the first that happens is that my scalp feels prickly.

      Reply
  3. I have MS and I have both allodynia and parathesia. My clothing options are limited. I haven’t worn a bra in years. I wear soft cotton loose camisoles. It’s so bad that sometimes I have to go commando and just wear a loose fitting cotton dress. It’s not fun.

    Reply
    • Kate, are you taking b12 and b-complex supplement? B12 is important for the myelin sheath. And certain medication can cause deficiencies in the b vitamins. Also, low dose naltrexone has been used for at least 20 years by people with autoimmune disorders. It only now being looked at by the MS society, but it is something you can talk to your doctors about.

      For more info: https://ldnresearchtrust.org/what-is-low-dose-naltrexone-ldn

      Reply
  4. How do you know that you have fibromyalgia? I have had pain and burning under my skin since August 2020 and have no rash or anything. Just constant burning when anything touches my skin from my breasts to my waist. Now it is starting to go under my arms. It is also on my back between my shoulder blades. Don’t know where to go to next. I hope someone on this sight has similar pains and can help me with what to do next. I have been to my Primary Care Physcian and my dermatologist.

    Reply
  5. Deficiency in B12 can cause tingling, numbness and burning sensation as b12 is a ‘nerve nutrient’. The most absorbable form of B12 is methylcobalamin. If anyone is experiencing these symptoms adding a good quality B-complex vitamin (100 mg at least daily; start low and work up if you are sensitive) as all of the b vitamins in some way support happy and healthy (not hurting) neurons (aka nerve cells) and a separate sublingual B12 1,000 mcg minimum, ideally 5,000 mcg as you will notice results faster. Ideally a methylated B-complex if you have the MTHFR deficiency. I take the methylated version as it is the only version of b-complex that doesn’t make me nauseated, but I’ve never been tested for MTHFR. Getting your all your ‘b’ levels up will help with nerve pain.

    The amino acid GABA is wonderful for my sciatica nerve pain. I take 1/4 tsp of the powdered GABA in a bit of water when my sciatica pain is bad. Medications like gabapentin and lyrica work on the gaba receptors but they also cause many nutritional deficiencies such as: biotin, calcium, b6, vitamin A, copper and zinc, b12, vitamin d and K.

    So if you take pregabalin or neurontin (generic forms of gabapentin and lyrica), be sure to take supplements to prevent deficiencies. It is said that GABA doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier but that is based on one study done more than 40 years ago, my experience with sciatic relief and my daughter’s experience with taking GABA for anxiety attack tells me that the study is wrong and that it does cross the blood brain barrier but please feel free to try it for yourself. GABA powder is readily available online without a prescription, it is cheaper than gabapentin or lyrica and doesn’t cause deficiencies in vitamins or minerals.

    Reply

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