If you feel like all of the muscles in your body hurt, that's a sign of infection or illness. Health conditions that cause whole body aches include flu, COVID-19, fibromyalgia, and autoimmune disorders.
Body aches are a common symptom of many health conditions, including illness and vitamin deficiency. If it lasts more than a few days, is severe, or occurs with other symptoms, it may be a sign of something more serious.
Muscle pain that affects a small part of your body is usually caused by overuse -- sore arms from lifting boxes all day, for example. Or it could be a minor injury, like a bruised shoulder after a fall. But when you ache all over your body, it's more likely caused by an infection, illness, or medicine you've taken.
The flu, the common cold, and other viral or bacterial infections can cause body aches. When such infections occur, the immune system sends white blood cells to fight off the infection. This can result in inflammation, which can leave the muscles in the body feeling achy and stiff.
Who's affected. Anyone can develop fibromyalgia, but it's more common in women than men. The condition typically develops between the ages of 25 and 55, but people of any age can get it, including children and older people.
Fibromyalgia is diagnosed based primarily on having pain all over the body, along with other symptoms. Currently, there are no specific laboratory or imaging tests for fibromyalgia.
A major risk of leaving fibromyalgia untreated is that symptoms such as chronic pain, fatigue, headaches, and depression can become excruciatingly worse over time. Fibromyalgia also has a huge impact on mental health and anxiety and mood disorders can also worsen if you don't treat fibromyalgia.
If you don't have a fever or other symptoms, and you experience body aches often or for prolonged periods of time, make an appointment with your PCP. It could be a sign of a drug reaction or a more severe and chronic underlying medical condition, such as an autoimmune disease.
Several rheumatic diseases can mimic fibromyalgia. These include sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Lyme disease, polymyalgia rheumatica and lupus. They have symptoms of widespread pain along with joint involvement.
If you have fibromyalgia, one of the main symptoms is likely to be widespread pain. This may be felt throughout your body, but could be worse in particular areas, such as your back or neck. The pain is likely to be continuous, although it may be better or more severe at different times.
Symptoms of fibromyalgia may appear suddenly after an illness, physical trauma, or significant psychological stress. In some people, however, fibromyalgia symptoms appear gradually, and a specific event is not believed to trigger pain and fatigue.