“I'm tired of being tired” – Fatigue as experienced by women with fibromyalgia

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore how fatigue was experienced and explained in life stories of women with a long history of fibromyalgia to gain a deeper understanding of fatigue as a phenomenon. The data was drawn from the narrative interviews of 20 purposively chosen women with fibromyalgia. In the analysis, the ideas of episodic reading and paradigmatic analysis of narratives were used to find recurrent and repeated experiences of fatigue from the data. Five main themes emerged from the data: sleepless nights, physical weakness, loss of mental energy, social withdrawal and overwhelming exhaustion. The narratives indicated that in fibromyalgia, fatigue is a transient, extreme and intensive experience, which causes major disability and distress and which has consequences on every aspect of life. A deeper understanding of the multi-dimensionality of fatigue may help physiotherapists and other health professionals to increase the relevance and effectiveness of the interventions aimed at fibromyalgia patients who complain of fatigue.

Key words::

• Pain
• qualitative research
• rehabilitation

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the participants of the study for sharing their stories with us. We also thank Anu Vuolteenaho, MSc for language revisions. The study was funded by research grants from Rheumatism Foundation Hospital and Finnish Cultural Foundation's Regional Fund in Satakunta.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest in the writing of this paper.