New Drug Treatment for Fibromyalgia Symptoms

If you suffer from fibromyalgia, you know how debilitating and persistent the symptoms can be! You may experience persistent muscle aches, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and frequent stiffness and joint discomfort.The symptoms can be so severe and restricting that it's difficult to complete simple daily tasks or hold down a full time job. Previously, the only effective class of drugs recommended for initial treatment of fibromyalgia have been antidepressants which don't always provide adequate symptom relief. Plus, antidepressants can cause significant side effects in users including dry mouth, dizziness, excessive sleepiness, anxiety, and weight gain which can limit their usage.

A recent double-blind, controlled fibromyalgia study, presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, looked at the effects of a drug called pregabalin or Lyrica on the symptoms of 745 patients who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The drug, although not yet approved specifically for use in fibromyalgia, was approved for use in the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy and postherpetic neuralgia in 2004. This drug has proven to be effective and well tolerated for treatment of these two conditions and have been well tolerated, in general.

In this current study, Lyrica was found to relieve the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia and improve the general quality of life for persons diagnosed with this difficult to treat disorder.Patients began to experience improvement in their levels of pain and fatigue as early as the first week on the new drug treatment. By the end of the study, many patients reported up to a 50% reduction in pain after treatment with Lyrica when compared with the placebo group. Lyrica also seemed to have positive effects on the sleep patterns of fibromyalgia sufferers and helped to reduce daytime fatigue. The most frequent side effects associated with the use of Lyrica were dizziness and excessive sleepiness.

If further studies support use of this drug to treat fibromyalgia, the consequences. could be far reaching. This disorder affects around 6 millions Americans and can cause significant disability and loss of productivity of untreated. At the present time, the cause of this disease has been undetermined.

This particular study was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, which has an application pending for approval of Lyrica for treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms. If this drug is approved and goes into widespread use, could it be the answer to successfully treating fibromyalgia? Millions of fibromyalgia sufferers who experience symptoms on a daily basis certainly hope so!