What is fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a condition that causes widespread musculoskeletal pain, but its diagnosis is still taken skeptically in some circles. One prevailing myth is it’s a fad disease because it doesn’t show up on an X-ray, other imaging tests, or blood tests.
But fibromyalgia appeared in the medical literature as early as 1824. Significant advances came in 1880 when physicians attributed a group of symptoms to it, and new criteria were established in 1972, when researchers clearly described the widespread pain and tender points characteristic of the condition.
What we know today is that fibromyalgia produces pain and stiffness in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments throughout the body. Current thinking is that it fundamentally alters the way the brain processes pain signals, leading to increased pain sensations even in the absence of a pain trigger.
Symptoms may develop gradually over time or be suddenly triggered by trauma, infection, or stress.
Pain and other common signs of fibromyalgia
The most common symptom of fibromyalgia is widespread pain. In fact, since the pain may affect the joints as well as other tissues, it was classified as a type of arthritis for many years. But while the pain of fibromyalgia is always present, the severity of symptoms can change daily, or even hourly.
In addition to pain, other common symptoms include:
- Overwhelming fatigue
- Disturbed sleep or insomnia
- Difficulty concentrating and remembering (“fibro fog”)
- Distinct tender points that develop bilaterally on the neck, back, chest, buttocks, and hips
- Muscle stiffness or tightening
- Reduced physical endurance
The tender points occur in predictable places on the body, and they’re most often located just under the skin’s surface. It’s the fascia, the tissue that covers the muscles and joints, that leads to the pain, not the joints themselves.
People with fibromyalgia often experience two or more other chronic conditions. These include but aren’t restricted to:
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Endometriosis
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Interstitial cystitis
- Migraine
- Depression
Research is ongoing to determine why these conditions are often interlinked.
How to find out if you have fibromyalgia
Diagnosing fibromyalgia is often a process of trial and error because it doesn’t show up on an X-ray or other imaging test, and there’s no factor that’s identifiable from a blood test. It’s pretty much a diagnosis by ruling out any other potential cause.
But researchers recently discovered patients living with fibromyalgia have abnormally low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine in their brains. This knowledge may lead to definitive tests down the road.
In the past, doctors would press on the 18 specific tender points (nine on each side) of the patient’s body to see how many of them produced a painful response. You had to have at least 11 painful spots to get a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.
Updated guidelines, though, don’t require such an exam. Today, a doctor can diagnose fibromyalgia if you’ve had widespread musculoskeletal pain for more than three months with no evidence of another underlying condition that could cause it.
Treating fibromyalgia
Since there’s no cure for fibromyalgia, the goal of treatment is to relieve or control the symptoms associated with the condition. At Pinnacle Pain and Spine, we may recommend some combination of the following:
- A healthy diet
- Regular, low-impact exercise
- Acupuncture
- Physical therapy
- Medications (pain relievers, weak opioids, antidepressants)
- Trigger point injections
- Steroid injections
- Stress reduction
As we continue to learn more about the condition, we refine the treatment options to provide more comprehensive relief.
If you’ve been struggling with widespread pain and are looking for relief, it’s time to come into Pinnacle Pain and Spine for an evaluation with one of our pain specialists. Call us at any of our Arizona locations — Scottsdale, Chandler, or Fountain Hills — or send us a message online.
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