Blog ❯ Fibromyalgia – is that a real diagnosis!?

Fibromyalgia – is that a real diagnosis!?

Contents

What is fibromyalgia?
Signs and symptoms of fibromyalgia
What are the causes of fibromyalgia?
Diagnosing fibromyalgia
Is fibromyalgia treatable or manageable?
Combat fibromyalgia with LIVV Natural

Is fibromyalgia an autoimmune disease with real symptoms and patients? Answering this all-important question is key, especially for those with a history of unexplainable pain and fatigue that affect their daily routine.

Fibromyalgia syndrome is a disease characterized by soreness and achiness in the muscles. It comes with abnormal pain processing and intensified perception. Science has shown it to be a deadly killer that’s best addressed timeously.

Want to know more about this uncomfortable phenomenon? Hang around as we discuss fibromyalgia in detail. We talk about its nature, signs, triggers, diagnosis, and possible treatments.

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a health condition that causes musculoskeletal pain and fatigue. The body-wide pain and tenderness induced by this disease are often chronic. It can interfere with your regular daily living.

The disease frustrates your body by heightening painful sensations. It influences how your spinal cord and brain process painful and non-painful signals.

There’s no permanent remedy for fibromyalgia. Medications, natural treatment, and peptide therapy are some ways to manage it.

History of fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is not a recent medical condition. It has been around for centuries when it was considered a mental disorder. There has also been contention over its legitimacy in the healthcare community. Some medical practitioners didn’t regard it as a real condition for years.

In the early 1800s, fibromyalgia was categorized as a rheumatic disorder. It was also initially named fibrositis before getting renamed in 1976 to fibromyalgia. The first treatment prescription for the sickness came in 2007.

This era of controversy is gradually ending. The advancement in science and medical practice has made many doubting Thomases believers.

Fibromyalgia is a real disease with actual symptoms and patients. Today, estimation shows that around 4–10 million Americans have this disease. The condition is also a chronic one. It requires serious medical attention, just like EBV, CMV, HSV, mold, or Lyme.

The International Diagnostic Criteria for fibromyalgia as of 2019 are:

  • 3 months history of pain in 6 of 9 general body areas
  • Sleep disturbance on a moderate level
  • Fatigue

Is fibromyalgia an autoimmune disorder?

The likelihood of fibromyalgia as an autoimmune disorder has generated several medical arguments. While some practitioners believe it to be autoimmune, others disagree. There’s currently no official classification of fibromyalgia‌.

Autoimmunity happens when your immune system turns against your body. It confuses a healthy cell or tissue for a dangerous microbe. Your immune system fights the tissue or cell, attempting to destroy it. The end result is inflammation and tissue damage, among others.

For many, any categorization of fibromyalgia as an autoimmune disorder can’t be right. Such classification error only occurs because fibromyalgia often manifests alongside other autoimmune diseases. Evidence also seemed to corroborate this for decades.

Recent research, however, seems to be swinging opinions back towards autoimmunity. Fibromyalgia may really result from your immune system attacking healthy cells.

In 2013, a study claimed there’s a link between fibromyalgia and small nerve fiber neuropathy. This evidence has received little recognition in the medical community.

Another 2021 study suggested a likelihood of autoimmunity for fibromyalgia. This time around, the evidence seemed insufficient to prove the association. Other recent evidence waves also keep hinting at a likely autoimmune origin.

Signs and symptoms of fibromyalgia

The symptoms of fibromyalgia may overlap with those of other autoimmune diseases. Some of these include:

  • Widespread pain: A minimum of three months of body-whole pain is a major symptom. The pain must be on the two sides of your body. It must have also persisted around the waist (below and above).
  • Fatigue. Fibromyalgia overwhelms you with extreme tiredness. This fatigue comes with sleep issues. Pain-induced irregular patterns, sleep apnea, and restless legs syndrome are some of them.
  • Headaches and migraines: The condition often comes with debilitating and throbbing pain inside your head. This may get you bedridden for days, unable to carry out normal activities.
  • Digestive issues: It’s not uncommon to experience digestive problems like constipation and diarrhea, among others.
  • Cognitive difficulties. People with fibromyalgia may develop memory issues. This is also known as brain fog or fibro fog. It impairs your ability to concentrate and focus on mental tasks.

Other mental, physical, and emotional conditions that may come with fibromyalgia are:

  • Irritable bowel syndrome
  • Painful bladder syndrome
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Postural tachycardia syndrome
  • Insomnia
  • Temporomandibular joint disorders

What are the causes of fibromyalgia?

There’s no definite cause of fibromyalgia. What exists are speculative guesses which experts consider only as possible triggers. Let’s talk about some of them.

Genetics

Fibromyalgia may be a genetic issue. It’s possible there are certain genes that make it more likely to develop the condition.

These genes may control how the body responds to certain stimuli. Therefore fibromyalgia patients react to pain more sensitively than others do. While there’s no direct connection yet, this theory of genetic mutations is strong.

It’s possible that fibromyalgia patients inherit this genetic anomaly from their parents. Studies have even established a link to show such an association. It’s not uncommon to see a parent and their child both having fibromyalgia.

Inconsistent sleeping patterns

Despite being one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia, sleep issues could also be a cause. You may develop the condition if you’re having trouble sleeping well. Inconsistency in sleeping patterns generally impacts the brain’s functioning.

Emotional and physical trauma

Emotional and physical traumas may contribute to the development of fibromyalgia. In some patients, the symptoms manifest after trauma-inducing incidents. The influence of such events may not be direct. They most likely heighten the susceptibility of people already at risk.

A textbook example of an emotional trauma is the death of a dear person. Divorce or a horrible breakup may also lead to such psychological stress. A physical event that could cause such trauma is a car accident.

Other possible traumatic triggers are infections, surgery, childbirth, and recurrent injuries, among others. It’s not in all cases that fibromyalgia is triggered by a single incident. The symptoms may also pile up.

Abnormal pain signaling

Fibromyalgia patients may have a nervous system that reacts to pain signals strangely. This could be due to abnormal chemical levels in their brain and spinal cord. This abnormality may also affect the neurotransmitters that transport these pain signals.

Hormone imbalances

Hormones like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine commonly process pain. An insufficient amount of these hormones in your body may also cause fibromyalgia. It may interfere with pain signals, making you more sensitive to them.

Cytokines

The cells in your immune system produce certain substances that control inflammation. These compounds are IL-6 and IL-8 cytokines. They’ve been established as being connected to fibromyalgia.

Risk factors

Fibromyalgia can affect anyone, but some are more predisposed than others. The factors that make you more susceptible to having this condition are:

  • Gender. The condition is more rampant among women than men. Women are twice at risk as men, according to the CDC.
  • Age: Fibromyalgia affects people of all ages, but the risk increases with old age. Most diagnoses start from middle age.
  • Family history. Since fibromyalgia may have genetic origins, your family history is a risk factor. Your parents or siblings having it increases the possibility of also developing it.
  • Depression: Being depressed makes you more likely to have fibromyalgia. Mood issues (including anxiety) may link to fibromyalgia.
  • Other disorders. Other disorders like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid, lupus, and arthritis are also risk factors. Rheumatic diseases, for instance, affect your joints, bones, and muscles. Having one rheumatic disease means you could also develop fibromyalgia.

Diagnosing fibromyalgia

Is fibromyalgia an autoimmune disease that can be diagnosed? This question is inevitable even when it’s established that the condition is real. The answer to it isn’t a straightforward one.

Diagnosing fibromyalgia can be quite difficult, but not impossible. The signs are invisible on a blood test, X-ray, and other tests. It’s even worse for female patients with a history of painful menstrual cycles. They may just confuse the symptoms for a regular hormonal problem.

Some experts developed the FM/a test. They claim that the blood test can make an accurate diagnosis of fibromyalgia. It isn’t widely accepted, though, and many other specialists doubt its effectiveness.

The approach used to diagnose the condition by most medical practitioners is indirect. They use an elimination process to rule out other possible causes. Imaging scans and blood tests are the exams they typically rely on. This determines if your pain isn’t coming from another condition.

The duration of the pain is another crucial factor that healthcare professionals consider. It must have persisted for at least three months.

Fibromyalgia tender points?

Tender points are areas that feel pain upon the application of minimal pressure. Physicians conduct tender point examinations as part of the diagnosis process. They press on 18 points in your body using their fingertip.

The aim is to know if you feel pain in those areas. Tender point examination is no longer a requirement of fibromyalgia’s official diagnostic criteria. This doesn’t prohibit doctors from still conducting it to fulfill all righteousness. Some of the 18 body points are:

  • Edge of the upper chest
  • Back of the head
  • Upper outer buttock
  • Hips
  • Front of the neck
  • Outer elbows
  • Knee
  • Hip sides
  • Back of the shoulder

Is fibromyalgia treatable or manageable?

Fibromyalgia has no cure. Healthcare attention currently focuses on pain management through various treatment options. The objective is to help patients reduce symptoms and live with the condition.

Medications are the most common treatment recommendations. Healthy living through self-care routines and lifestyle choices are also viable suggestions. We’ll now consider these options‌.

FDA-approved medications

Fibromyalgia is most often managed through medications. There are two categories of these medications. The first category is for those already approved by the FDA. There are three such drugs.

The first medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is pregabalin. It’s an anti-seizure drug that’s ‌effective in mitigating fibromyalgia signs.

Two other medications have gained approval, namely duloxetine and milnacipran. Both drugs are antidepressants. Duloxetine is also approved as a treatment for anxiety and painful diabetic neuropathy.

The two drugs enhance consistent and quality sleep patterns by increasing serotonin levels. This lets them mitigate the pain that comes with fibromyalgia. Duloxetine and milnacipran also contribute to the rebalancing of neurotransmitters.

Other medications

There is a second category of medications yet to gain FDA approval. They’re mostly pain relievers, so they help in treating fibromyalgia autoimmune disease. Muscle relaxers once belonged to this class, but not anymore. We will talk about them below.

Pain relievers

Chronic and regular pain that affects day-to-day living is fibromyalgia’s biggest symptom. This is why pain relievers are such a great recommendation.

The fact that they’re not officially approved doesn’t make them inappropriate. Just ensure you consult your physician to discuss your options before taking anything. Acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen can all deal with moderate pain.

Opioids are also sometimes included in prescriptions for fibromyalgia treatment. Their long-term efficacy seems to be uncertain based on certain research findings.

A commonly prescribed opioid for managing the condition is tramadol. It’s shown to provide relief for the pain associated with the syndrome. The only thing is that some experts don’t regard it as a traditional opioid.

Peptides may be an effective alternative to opioids. While more research is needed, they’re effective and may have fewer side effects.

Can you use anti-inflammatory drugs to treat fibromyalgia?

Inflammation isn’t one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Despite this, anti-inflammatory drugs are prescribed as medications for the condition. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may have side effects when used for a long time. Be careful when using them to manage fibromyalgia.

Natural remedies

You can also go the natural way with treating fibromyalgia. Most of the natural remedies aim at pain and stress reduction. They help you feel relieved mentally and physically without adverse effects. You can even combine some of them with normal medications.

Self-care practices and lifestyle choices

Taking good care of yourself and making lifestyle changes can help with fibromyalgia. These practices and changes center on exercise, relaxation, and sleep.

Working out

Create an exercise schedule that’s suitable for your situation. The level and areas of pain you feel should help you determine this. This way, you can effectively manage the systems and boost your general well-being.

Relaxation techniques

Stress can intensify the pain that comes with fibromyalgia. Letting the body and mind take enough rest helps to cope with this. Consider various relaxation techniques and aids that can mitigate pain. This is also a way of saving yourself from depression, another risk factor.

Sleep improvement practices

Sleep disturbances are both a trigger and a symptom of fibromyalgia. This means improving your sleeping patterns can be very effective against the condition. Some of the different approaches you can take to achieve this include:

  • Creating a bedtime schedule, for instance, going to bed at a fixed time
  • Relaxing your body before going to bed
  • Avoiding drinks or food that can affect your sleep routine. Caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine fall under this category.
  • Creating a comfortable temperature in your bedroom
  • Ensuring quietness and darkness in your room
  • Not eating heavily before going to bed

Help and support

Another self-care remedy for fibromyalgia syndrome is getting help and guidance. Start by joining a support community. You can also see a therapist.

When can we expect a permanent cure for fibromyalgia?

The beauty of science lies in its innovativeness. Due to this, we can expect a cure soon. Experts have continued conducting experimental treatments to that effect. The possibility of getting it right soon seems strong.

Combat fibromyalgia with LIVV Natural

There’s no atom of doubt that fibromyalgia is a real health condition. It’s also most likely an autoimmune disease and it affects women more.

Pain and fatigue are the major signs of fibromyalgia. We’ve now reached a point in medical practice where the focus is on treatment. Medications, self-care routines, and natural remedies are ways to cope with the condition.

You can trust LIVV Natural for premium treatments to help manage fibromyalgia. Our team of seasoned naturopathy professionals can create quality protocols for you.

We also embrace the use of peptide therapy, which provides amazing results. Book a call with our team today to get started.