It is estimated that as many as five percent of Americans suffer from Fibromyalgia every year. Most of these people who are affected with it are women, though men and even teenagers can still get it too. Fibromyalgia has been a very mysterious disease, as it causes immense pain, fatigue, anxiety, and sometimes even depression throughout the body, but the many symptoms of it are all too similar to other diseases making it very hard to diagnose, let alone treat.
It’s also been very difficult to know what specifically has been causing the pain in Fibromyalgia. There are very few doctors who are experienced in the field of fibromyalgia and similar medical issues, meaning that sometimes people would have to spend months or even years of going from doctor to doctor in an attempt to find answers and treatment for the pain.
Recently, however, there have been scientific and medical efforts that have yielded some breakthroughs in the field of fibromyalgia, and our knowledge of the condition is beginning to finally increase.
The Background to Fibromyalgia
As we have said, Fibromyalgia has long been among the most mysterious diseases, and apparently without any real justification or cause. In previous years some doctors even told their patients that they were making their pain up (due to all of the many different symptoms). For a while, many doctors and medical professionals believed that fibromyalgia was purely a mental or emotional disease, and that people were telling themselves that they were enduring all of their pain.
But in recent years, the medical community has largely shifted away from this viewpoint. And even more recently, some breakthroughs have been discovered by researchers from Albany Medical college, which some may believe could be the cause of the disease.
The Root Cause of Fibromyalgia?
There is a unique blood flow to the nerves in fibromyalgia patients, a unique neurovascular structure. Some doctors believe that this could be the cause of fibromyalgia, as people who don’t have fibromyalgia also don’t have this unique blood flow to the nerves.
These nerve fibers are located around blood vessel structures in the hands. The tightening of blood vessels can be controlled by nerves, but it’s just that patients with fibromyalgia have a high number of these nerve fibers that surround the blood vessels. This is definitely a new discovery in the field of fibromyalgia, and can perhaps provide a bridge to finding out the root cause for good. It’s also an excellent way to officially diagnose the disease.
There also have been people who are born without these special nerve fibers, and they were able to live on perfectly with their lives. While they do have nerve endings near the blood vessels in the skin, it was believed that the nerve fibers were important to how we touch and physically feel things. Instead, we have found the opposite to be true, and that the blood vessels also help our sense of touch and how we feel pain.
Many of the drugs used for treating fibromyalgia have been made to work on the brain. But now it’s time to find drugs that can also work on the nerve fibers and blood vessels on the skin. Some of the drugs that we already have been using should be able to work on the skin, however. Many medical researchers and professionals even suspected that the nerve fibers and blood vessels in the skin had a link to fibromyalgia, since the molecules that were involved in the brain were also involved in the nerve fibers and blood vessels. As it turns out, these medical researchers were right in their hypothesis.
To clarify their theory, the research team at Albany Medical College looked at skin samples from fibromyalgia patients and found that they had a large increase in the nerve fibers at the blood vessels in the skin. It is here that the flow of blood between the blood vessels inside the skin is controlled, but when they block the blood flow, it can cause immense pain that falls in line with some of the symptoms that people report who are diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The link is becoming more and more clear.
This may also explain why the skin of fibromyalgia is extremely tender, sore and soft, especially around the pressure points of the body. This will also largely explain why fibromyalgia patients typically don’t respond well to drastic changes in temperature, both hot and cold. But these nerve fibers that bridge the blood vessels under the skin could also be blocking the flow of blood to the muscles, causing the true pain that fibromyalgia patients feel.
A sizable portion of our blood is sent to the feet and hands, and when blood isn’t needed in other parts of the body, it can be sent to the hands and feet to essentially act as a reserve of blood, and it can be sent to other tissues and parts of the bodies as needed, such as when we perform physical exercises and activities. When this blood flow is interrupted, it can cause immense pain in the muscles in the body where the blood is needed, and can also build up a feeling of fatigue and inflammation. As a result, this can in turn lead to higher levels of activity in the brain, which makes it much more difficult for people with fibromyalgia to get some sleep at night, and subsequently feel tired and exhausted throughout the day. All in all, it appears as we may have gotten close to finding the root cause of fibromyalgia.
This has been a positive breakthrough in the medical field, and provides a relief to people with fibromyalgia to know that progress is being made on their condition. It will take time, but hopefully doctors and medical researchers will be able to further expand on what they have found.
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