Looking for New Ways to Ease the Pain of Fibromyalgia

FAITH LAPIDUS: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I'm Christopher Cruise. Today, we talk about fibromyalgia syndrome. American officials say fibromyalgia affects up to six million people in the United States each year. In some countries, the disease is said to affect more than three and a half percent of adult women and one-half percent of all adult men.

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FAITH LAPIDUS: Fibromyalgia can have many symptoms, including depression and low energy levels. But pain -- often throughout the body -- is the main problem. Patients often have pain in their muscles and joints. And they always feel tired.

Many people with fibromyalgia have trouble persuading doctors that their pain is real. Some of the most common symptoms of fibromyalgia are the same as those of other diseases. As a result, doctors often have trouble recognizing and confirming the presence of the disease.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Treating fibromyalgia can be difficult. Since there is no cure, doctors may experiment with different treatments and medicines. Some drugs work with some patients, but do not work with others. Patients with mild fibromyalgia often do not need any drugs. Their condition can improve with a combination of low-impact exercises, a good diet, getting enough rest and patient education.

Treatment of fibromyalgia patients can be costly and difficult for doctors, because the pain only lessens. It never goes away completely.

America’s Food and Drug Administration has approved three drugs for fibromyalgia – Lyrica, Cymbalta and Savella. These medicines have been shown to reduce pain for about half of patients.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Doctor Russell Rothenberg is a leading expert on fibromyalgia. For many patients, he says, a thirty percent reduction in pain is enough so they can work and take care of their family. Once fibromyalgia is treated, patients can be stable for many years -- not getting better, but not getting worse, either.

Some patients have described fibromyalgia as taking control of their lives and making them a prisoner of their own body. Plenty of physical activity in one day can make muscles sore for days afterwards. Foot pain can be so intense that wearing shoes is impossible. Even after getting eight hours of sleep, some sufferers wake up feeling tired. Normal activities like socializing with friends can be impossible.

What Is Fibromyalgia Disease >> Symptoms >> Treatment, Tips for ...

Is Fibromyalgia a Long-term Disease?

Fibromyalgia is actually a long-term illness.

Signs

Fibromyalgia is characterized by a continuous and prevalent dull pain. The triggers of fibromyalgia are unfamiliar, based on MayoClinic.com.

Danger Factors

Fibromyalgia most usually occurs throughout early or center adulthood, according to MayoClinic. Loved ones history in the illness or getting a rheumatic disease, which include lupus or rheumatic arthritis, raises the risk of fibromyalgia.

Complications

Fibromyalgia just isn’t progressive, based on MayoClinic. The condition can trigger sleeplessness as a result of pain and also the melancholy associated with continual circumstances.

Therapy

Anti-seizure medicine, painkillers, or anti-depressants may be recommended to battle the signs of fibromyalgia. Counseling and bodily therapy can aid individuals handle the illness.

Fibromyalgia is usually a label that is ascribed to some significant quantity of patients who describe long-term pain. Fibromyalgia just isn’t a distinct situation having a single pain generating mechanism. What exactly is often seen is really a broad range of presenting complaints, for example headaches, shooting pains in the extremities, irritable bowel syndrome, generalized aching, as well as other endocrine problems.

Nobody knows the trigger of fibromyalgia. College professors active researchers, and skilled clinicians simply do not know the exact purpose that folks wind up with the prognosis of fibromyalgia . Pre-adolescent sexual abuse can lead to numerous professional medical challenges down the street like fibromyalgia, continual migraine headaches, along with the prospective for autoimmune diseases and hypertension. Given that we don’t know the cause of fibromyalgia we can say that melancholy is not always the trigger on the illness, however it often goes along with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is often a really irritating disease. Luckily in the current clinical treatment era, there are various medicines which have been shown to help drastically with individuals symptoms of fibromyalgia . Opioid medications are currently falling from favor for fibromyalgia because of their ineffectiveness and several side effects.

What’s fibromyalgia? Perhaps this question is greatest answered by likely more than some diseases that are mistakenly believed to become fibromyalgia. Persistent exhaustion syndrome is a illness like fibromyalgia, in that nobody understands what will cause it. If you feel that this seems pretty unmistakable, plenty of physicians often get wonder about fibromyalgia just before they ring in osteoarthritis.

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