WELCOME to this week's Fibromyalgia link-up hosted by Fibro Blogger Directory. We have thousands of articles about fibro here for you and you can access them by clicking Fibro Friday in the topics and then following the links. We would love you to join in this week.
Dizziness is a symptom that is often attributed to fibromyalgia but it is a complex symptom because it can have so many causes. It is also a symptom that may be overlooked, or not even mentioned to the doctor, because pain and stiffness and fatigue are just so much more demanding of our attention.
I've collected information here on dizziness from a variety of sources including people who have fibromyalgia.
DIZZINESS AND FIBROMYALGIA STATISTICS
Many people quote the statistic that 70% of people who have fibromyalgia have dizziness but they do not say where this statistic comes from. As far as I can work out it came from a study into 168 fibromyalgia patients that was done in 1996 at the Department of Audiology Karolinska Hospital, Sweden. Vertigo/dizziness was reported by 72% of these patients. The results of this study indicated "that central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction frequently occurs in patients with fibromyalgia, although proprioceptive disturbances might also explain some of the abnormalities observed."
CAUSES OF DIZZINESS IN FIBROMYALGIA
Celeste Cooper is a Registered Nurse, hospital educator, and nurse paralegal who has been living with fibromyalgia who has important recommendations for the symptom of dizziness:
NEURALLY MEDIATED HYPOTENSION (NMH) IN FIBROMYALGIA
Dr Oz says One potential side effect of fibromyalgia is a problem called neurally mediated hypotension. It simply means that your blood pressure is a bit too low. If you stand for a long time, your head may start spinning.
The best way to avoid dizziness that comes from this problem is to avoid standing for long periods, if possible. When you can't avoid standing, walk around as much as you can. You can also try wearing compression stockings, which help to relieve hypotension.According to Dr. Congdon, “Many fibromyalgia medications have dizziness – and sometimes loss of balance – as a common side effect. That’s why it is important to talk to your doctor if you are experiencing dizziness or balance trouble to see if one of your medications could be contributing.”
Specifically, she mentioned pregabalin (eg, Lyrica), gabapentin (eg, Neurontin), and zolpidem (eg, Ambien), which helps with sleep and may cause next-day dizziness. If you are taking any of these medications and experiencing issues with balance, talk with your doctor about possible alternatives. FROM PRACTICAL PAIN MANAGEMENT ARTICLE
RESEARCH INTO FIBROMYALGIA AND DIZZINESS
A 2019 study into Impaired Balance in Patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome found that many of the participants experienced dizziness in their daily life. This impacted their balance confidence as they were scared of falling over.
To evaluate disability due to vertigo the dizziness handicap inventory (DHI) was used. This is a useful multi-dimensional tool for quantifying self-perceived disability in patients with vertigo, dizziness, or instability, and its impact on activities of daily living. It contains 25 self-administered questions, with a total range of 0 to 100 points. A higher score indicates a greater degree of disability due to the vertiginous symptoms.
A 2002 study found that dizziness was the most common complaint of the patients in the study and that they had symptoms of vestibular ear disorders even though they did not have any clinically or audiologically detectable ear disease.
Symptoms of vestibular migraine can differ slightly amongst those with the condition. Two of the most common are dizziness, which VeDA describes as ‘a sensation of lightheadedness, faintness, or unsteadiness’, and imbalance, which is ‘unsteadiness or loss of equilibrium that is often accompanied by spatial disorientation’.
WELCOME! to this week's Fibromyalgia link up where you can find out new and interesting information about FMS. It's a great place to find personal stories about fibromyalgia from fibro bloggers.
While you are here you might want to check out last week's offerings as there were 21 interesting posts from heat helping pain to Ya gotta laugh!
This week please leave your own fibro-related link below and visit some of the other links too.
Who can join in Fibro Friday? Anyone who has an article to share about fibromyalgia can join in.
Firstly understand:
1. There is a thing called Google Images. It's right up there on the top right corner of your Google search page, next to Gmail. It's something that you may not give much thought to. It's the way to visually discover information on the world wide web.
2. Many people use Google Images to search for images for a variety of reasons. They may be looking for a quote or an infographic, a template or a specific type of picture.
3. It is easier to be on the first page of Google Images than it is to be on the first page of Google Search. Why? Firstly from my own personal experience over many years blogging, with multiple blogs I have seen this and secondly because of the many number of images that are shown in Google images as compared to the 10 or so on Google Search.
4. You must have an image in your post to get social media re-shares. Optimally it would be good if you had a Pinterest size image on, or hidden in, your post so that people will share your post on Pinterest.
5. Google reads text so you have to provide text to your images. Google's crawlers cannot see your image so any words you provide in the filename, ALT attribute and caption help Google to rank your images in Google images.
How to optimize your images to get more traffic.
This is a simplified version of what you must do to get the best views on your blog images and therefore your blog. It's as simple as ABC:
A. Save the image on your computer, in pictures, or downloads, with a name relevant to your post. As an example let's consider a post about The Benefits of Walking. The image below was called 'Image00957' and I renamed it 'walking benefits'.
This way Google will read it as
<img src=”walking_benefits_.png”/> which is helpful.
Whereas <img src=”IMG00957.png”/> is not helpful at all.
B. Make sure you use the ALT attribute on the image, when you put it in your post. Alt text was designed for visually impaired screen readers to explain what the image is about. It also gives Google extra information about the image. Try and use a relevant keyword in the ALT text to describe the image, if it is relevant. For example in the image above the ALT attribute could be ' two people enjoying the benefits of walking in nature'.
C. Use a caption under the image. Did you know that this is often the most read text on your page? Also it gives google extra information about the image and your post. The example in the image above could be 'Jimmy and Lee are getting out of the house and enjoying the many benefits of walking every day at their local parks. Here they are seen at the newly updated Gannons Park.'
Ranking your blog image in Google Images.
Here are the ranking elements that Google uses according to Rand Fishkin of Moz
A. The image file name
B. The alt attribute on the image.
C. The image caption.
D. Surrounding text content.
E. The page title
F. The page URL
G. Image engagement and popularity.
H. The image dimensions matter.
I. Image size.
J. Embeds of the image.
K. Traditional web ranking factors on the existing URL.
L. Image relevance and visual match
As you can see there is a lot more to this optimizing images thing but if you just make sure you are doing the ABC described above you should start getting more traffic from your images.
Go to Moz to see more explanation of these elements A to L elements of ranking images and also an in-depth video on SEO for photos, visuals, and graphics.
Bonus tip for getting more traffic by using images.
