What is Fibromyalgia?

You're not old. You're in your twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties. Most likely you're a woman, but sometimes this happens to men, too. You're tired all the time. When someone touches you--on an arm, a leg, your shoulder--it feels like they're stabbing you. You can't sleep, and none of the tests your doctors run on your urine or blood point to any one problem.

You get sent to specialist after specialist. It isn't your thyroid, says the endocrinologist. it's not your heart, says the cardiologist. And just when you're ready to see a psychologist, the rheumatologist tells you: you have fibromyalgia.

What is fibromyalgia? Most "fibro" sufferers experience pain in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons--in what's called the "oft tissue." Unlike arthritis, which attacks the joints and causes joint pain, fibro makes everything else hurt--even fingertips, soles of feet, and the scalp. Rarely do over the counter pain medications help; while painkillers help with joint pain and arthritish, fibromyalgia patients have to make do with heat packs, rest, and the hope that certain prescription drugs will help.

The slightest pressure causes pain for fibro patients. Rheumatology specialists are still trying to understand what causes fibro, an illness that only recently gained legitimacy. For years, women with the soft tissue disoder were told they were depressed, anxious, or lazy. Because this disease attacks women at a rate four times greater than it attacks men, it became a dismissed disease by some doctors, a fancy term for "neurosis." But recent research confirms that the pain patients feel is very, very real, and it is not in their head.

Fibromyalgia was once known as chronic muscle pain syndrome, tension myalgia, and fibrositis. More than fifty percent of fibromyalgia patients, too, go on to lose their diagnosis and to be diagnosed with something different--this makes receiving the diagnosis of fibromyalgia difficult at times, because it is hard to be told that you have a condition that some doctors dismiss, and that your illness may change over time.

Common treatments include certain anti-depressants NOT for depression, but to help patients achieve proper sleep cycles. Researchers have determined that broken REM sleep may make fibro patients feel pain more acutely; by restoring good sleep to the patient, the flare-up of fibromyalgia may be lessened. Rheumatologists also work to control flares by giving patients extra vitamin D and certain amino acids, all designed to suport the immune system and to help fibro patients feel less pain overall.

There is no cure for fibromyalgia, and the diagnosis is on the rise. Rest, proper nutrition, thirty or more minutes of moderate exercise a day, and monitoring by a rheumatologist are the best methods for controlling the disease. Family and friends of fibro patients need to be understanding and flexible; when a patient is in a flare, most non-essential activity must be stopped, so the patient can be comfortable and ride out the flare. Until researchers unlock the
key to understanding this soft tissue pain disorder, these methods need to be enough, and patients must work to find balance in their daily lives to prevent or lessen the severity of flares.