Do you, or someone you know suffer from widespread pain, muscle stiffness and chronic fatigue? Have you been sent for blood tests, scans and x-rays which all came back “normal” but you still feel pain? You may have a condition called Fibromyalgia.
What is fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia causes widespread muscle pain all over the body that can fade or intensify. The pain may start due to an injury to a part of the body, which then spreads to the entire musculoskeletal system (McGrady & Moss, 2013). Pain memory such as trauma, extreme exertion or strain may also trigger the intense severe pain. In addition to muscle pain fibromyalgia is often associated with:
o Fatigue
o Low energy
o Poor sleep
o Morning stiffness
o Irritable bowel syndrome
o Depression and anxiety
o Poor concentration
What causes fibromyalgia?
It is still unknown what exactly causes Fibromyalgia as there is no clear trigger. We know it is a complicated condition that affects around 2% of the Australian population, most common in middle aged women (Guymer, Littlejohn, Brand & Kwiatek, 2016). It causes the body to become extra sensitive to pain due to how the pain is perceived, this is called allodynia (Staud, Vierck, Cannon, Mauderli, & Price, 2001). A stimulus that would not normally be painful is now extremely painful. If you think about a computer, with the hardware being your nervous system and its software programs being your pain receptors. With fibromyalgia there isn’t a problem with your hardware but there is a glitch in the software which changes how the brain interprets pain. Neuroplasticity is a type of treatment that is able to help reprogram the software so the nervous system is able to respond to pain correctly.
What can a Myotherapist do to help with fibromyalgia?
As there is currently no cure for fibromyalgia, the best treatment is to control and reduce the pain. Neuroplasticity is one essential treatment for fibromyalgia as it is able to help reprogram the way the brain interprets pain. As a Myotherapist, we use specific manual therapy techniques to stimulate the skin to decrease the neural response to pain stimulus (Lundy-Ekman, 2018). These manual therapy techniques help the brain to focus on calming touch signals and not pain signals.
What can you do to help with fibromyalgia?
o Heated pool therapy
o Tai chi
o Yoga
o Meditation
o Hypnosis
o Guided imagery (Lundy-Ekman, 2018)
Reference
Guymer, E. K., Littlejohn, G. O., Brand, C. K., & Kwiatek, R. A. (2016). Fibromyalgia onset has a high impact on work ability in Australians. Internal Medicine Journal, 46(9). 1069-1074.
Lundy-Ekman, L. (2018) Neuroscience: Fundamentals for rehabilitation. (5th ed.) St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
McGrady, A., & Moss, D. (2013). Pathways to Illness, Pathways to Health. Fibromyalgia Syndrome. New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media.
Staud, R., Vierck, C. J., Cannon, R. L., Mauderli, A. P., & Price, D. D. (2001). Abnormal sensitization and temporal summation of second pain (wind up) in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome. Pain, 91(1). 165-175.