What is fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease state that affects about 2-4 % of the population. It is more common in middle-aged women and is thought to be “widespread pain.”
It is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning a thorough workup should be employed to rule out other more obvious diagnoses prior to pain treatment. This workup should include a thorough pain history, physical examination and some radiological and or blood work. While there is no true laboratory or radiological test to diagnose Fibromyalgia, other diseases should certainly be eliminated prior to arriving at the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia is now no longer based on the presence of a certain number of tender points over certain body parts.
The American College of Rheumatology (2010 Guidelines) now are the following:
- There should be no other condition to explain the pain
- There should be pain in a certain area for more than three months
- Pain and symptoms over the traditional 19 Fibromyalgia points, plus
- Waking unrefreshed
- Memory or thought problems
Fibromyalgia Treatment Options
It takes a multifaceted approach to properly treat fibromyalgia. This might involve treatment with a fibromyalgia support group so that the patient does not feel alone. Patients might be treated by a psychologist to aid in things like biofeedback, coping strategies, and sleep hygiene to help reduce stress and achieve restorative sleep patterns. If all else fails there are national Fibromyalgia treatment centers in America.
Your Primary Care Physician might have already tried some non-opioids for the presumptive diagnosis of Fibromyalgia. At NWA IP, we might be able to help make sure these medications are optimized and decide if a new medication might be an option. We can make sure a more obvious diagnosis was not missed, we can give you a fresh look at your pain picture.
The ultimate goal of treating Fibromyalgia is to reduce pain though increasing aerobic exercise. This might be as easy as setting a daily exercise goal, it might involve getting a referral to Physical Therapy to help in modeling the correct exercises for lifelong habits.