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Fibromyalgia makes you more likely to develop a lot of different conditions, including autoimmune disease. And a high percentage of people with fibromyalgia will develop some form of autoimmune disease at some point. But there are a lot of different kinds of autoimmune disease, and each can cause different kinds of complications. For instance, autoimmune disease can lead to hydrops, which is a condition where fluid builds up inside the ear.
Hydrops can lead to a number of different symptoms, and if you have fibromyalgia, it’s something that you should be aware of. So, what is hydrops? What is the link between it and fibromyalgia? And what can you do to treat it?
What Is Hydrops?
Hydrops is any condition where fluid builds up inside the skull. But when it comes to autoimmune disease, the most pressing concern is a specific condition called autoimmune endolymphatic hydrops. The condition causes a number of symptoms like an intense feeling of pressure in the skull, ringing in the ear, dizzy spells, and hearing loss that comes and goes. And over time, the hearing loss can even be permanent.
It’s caused by the immune system attacking the tissue inside the ear. As a result, the tissue inside the ear gets inflamed and fluid begins to build up inside the inner ear. There are a number of different autoimmune disorders that can cause this to happen like Sjogren’s syndrome or systemic lupus.
And people with fibromyalgia are more likely to develop all kinds of autoimmune conditions, which makes them more likely to suffer from the fluid build-up inside the ear.
Fibromyalgia And Autoimmune Disease
We know that fibromyalgia makes you more likely to develop autoimmune disease. Many people have speculated that this link suggests that fibromyalgia itself might be an autoimmune disease. But doctors have begun to discount this possibility. And there is some evidence to suggest that fibromyalgia is actually not an autoimmune condition.
For instance, people with fibromyalgia don’t have elevated levels of antibodies in the blood, which is a key sign that someone is suffering from an autoimmune disease. In addition, fibromyalgia doesn’t cause the kind of tissue inflammation that most autoimmune diseases due. That suggests that the link between fibromyalgia and autoimmune disease is a bit more complex.
At the moment, we don’t fully understand what that link is. But it could actually be psychological. We know that chronic stress makes you more likely to develop autoimmune disease. And there are few conditions that cause the kind of chronic stress that fibromyalgia does. It could be that the stress of fibromyalgia actually makes you more likely to develop autoimmune diseases.
How Can You Treat It?
The first step in treating any autoimmune disease is a diagnosis. The problem with diagnosing hydrops is that many doctors who specialize in inner ear conditions aren’t experts in autoimmune disease and vice versa. And there aren’t many effective tests for checking for this condition. It’s important that your doctor has a full understanding of your medical history so they know if you are at risk of autoimmune disease.
When it comes to treatment, the options are the same as those for treating all autoimmune disease. The first step is to tackle the inflammation that causes damage to the inner ear. To do that, doctors usually prescribe a few different kinds of drugs.
The first is basic, over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen. These drugs belong to a class of medications called NSAID’s, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. They work by blocking the production of a specific enzyme that triggers inflammation. And these drugs can also help manage the pain that comes with hydrops.
In addition, doctors can prescribe corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are a type of hormone that your body naturally produces to fight inflammation. But your doctor can also give you synthetic corticosteroids to help your body’s natural response.
Finally, doctors often prescribe immunosuppressant drugs to fight autoimmune disease. These drugs work by weakening the body’s immune system. That means that the immune system is less able to attack the tissue inside the ear, and that limits the inflammation.
The good news is that with these treatments, most cases of endolymphatic hydrops can be managed well. And if you get treatment soon enough, they can even stop or reverse the damage, which limits the risk of hearing loss.
So, what do you think? Have you suffered from hydrops? Do you think it’s related to fibromyalgia? What treatment worked for you? Let us know in the comments.
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