What causes Fibromyalgia

[Guest guest]

what do you all think ??go look at www.HopeMD.com and read rest of

his articles this is so interesting.

My Dr thinks it came from my two wrecks I had in 1994 and in 1999.

heidi

The question of what causes fibromyalgia is foremost in many of our

minds. But the answer is fairly simple:

WE DO NOT KNOW.

It does seem that fibro begins with some trauma to the system. This

can be physical-many people can trace the onset of their illness to

an auto accident, fall, or other physical trauma. It can be

infectious-the flu, mono, Lyme's disease, etc. And it may be

psychological-loss of a loved one, divorce, verbal (and certainly

physical) abuse.

It is as if a significant trauma starts a vicious circle. We respond

with a fight or flight response. This, and the pain we experience,

affects our balance of neurotransmitters-the chemicals that transmit

nerve impulses in the nervous system. Substance P, a pain modulator,

increases in the central nervous system. However, rather than going

back to normal as the trauma subsides it stays elevated. Other

neurotransmitters (NTs), such as serotonin, norepinephrine and

dopamine, may be affected as well. This imbalance makes us extra-

sensitive to pain. Thus the vicious circle.

Trauma/pain –> NT imbalance –> increased sensitivity to pain –>

further NT imbalance –> more pain

and so on.

So while we have ideas about what happens biochemically in fibro,

CFS, and chronic pain we still have not answered the question…what

causes it to begin with?

For many of us who suffer from fibro and, in fact, many of the

other " invisible illnesses " this is very frustrating. We believe that

if we can find the cause then we can find the cure. This is not

really true.

Western medicine does not really have answers to this question for

most chronic illnesses. So what do we do? We treat the symptoms. If

you have pain we treat you with pain medications. If you cannot sleep

we give you a medication for that. We try to bring the

neurotransmitters back into balance. Thus anti-depressants to boost

serotonin and norepinephrine (Cymbalta being the latest-Elavil-

amitryptalline-being one of the first and still very useful). We try

to regulate substance P and other pain modulators (Lyrica may work in

this area-we are not entirely sure of it's mechanism).

Therefore, if we could answer the question " What cause fibromyalgia

(and for that matter the other invisible illnesses) how would we

benefit? How would it change our treatment? Could it help us get well

again?