Fibromyalgia Syndrome

FMS is not new. It was first described by William Balfour, a surgeon at the University of Edinburgh, in 1816.

The medical profession called it many different names, including chronic rheumatism, myalgia, pressure point syndrome, and fibrositis. The condition was also thought to be psychological by some physicians, but that notion must now be relegated to the Dark Ages of medicine.

General Background

In 1987, the American Medical Association (AMA), recognized FMS as a true illness and a major cause of disability. Now, more than ten years later, it is still ,unfortunately, too often dismissed as the "newest fad disease", and most physicians still lack the training to diagnose and treat it.

FMS is not a catchall, "wastebasket" diagnosis. FMS is a pain condition which is:

• specific
• chronic
• non-degenerative
• non-progressive
• noninflammatory
• systemic

Diseases have known causes and well-understood mechanisms for producing symptoms. FMS is called a syndrome, which means it is a specific set of signs and symptoms that occur together. Don't let this fool you into thinking that fibromyalgia is any less serious or potentially disabling than a disease. Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other serious afflictions are also classified as syndromes.

Lab tests for fibromyalgia are valid only to rule out other conditions. There is no blood test that can accurately identify fibromyalgia.

The official definition requires that tender points must be present in all four quadrants of the body -- that is, the upper right and left and lower right and left parts of your body. You must have had widespread, more-or-less continuous pain for at least three months.

It is important to understand that the FMs definition of "11 out of 18" tender points is for patients to enter a clinical FMS study only. Tender points occur in pairs on various parts of the body. Because they occur in pairs, the pain is usually distributed equally on both sides of the body. In traumatic FMS, tender points are often clustered around an injury instead of, or in addition to, the 18 official points.

These clusters can also occur around a repetitive strain or a degenerative and/or inflammatory problem, such as arthritis. FMS can occur at any age. Most patients, when questioned carefully, reveal that their symptoms began at an early age. About 25 percent of the FMS patients I see are men. This ratio differs from most sources in the literature. I think that this is due to FMS being underdiagnosed in males.

Flu-like achiness is frequently the most prominent symptom of FMS, but there are many others. For example, your eyes may be too dry, but at other times they will water. Your thermal regulatory system is out of whack. You may notice this thermal fluctuation when you get out of bed (which may be often, due to bladder irritability) during the night. You may have to wait for your temperature to cool down after getting back in bed before you can pull the bedcover up. Another symptom of FMS is spasticity (tightness) which can constrict the peripheral blood vessels -- those close to the skin. This symptom, especially in the winter, makes certain parts of our bodies -- most often the buttocks and thighs -- feel like cold slabs of meat. You may experience skin mottling, and nail ridges Fingernails can break off, often in crescent-shaped pieces. If nails do grow, they sometimes start to curve under.

FMS is a sensitivity-amplification syndrome. This means that "people with Fibromyalgia" can be sensitive to smells, sounds, lights, odors, pressure and temperature fluctuations and vibrations. The noise emitted by fluorescent lights can drive you crazy. FMS sensitizes nerve endings and the rest of the autonomic nervous system, the ends of the nerve receptorsmay have changed shape. Because of this, for example, your body might interpret touch, light, or sound as pain.

Your brain knows pain is a danger signal -- an indication that something is wrong and needs attention -- so it mobilizes its defenses. Then, when those defenses aren't used, you become anxious.

Sleep plays a crucial role in FMS. Perhaps you aren't getting enough sleep, or the right kind of sleep. You may have insomnia, or a host of other sleep-related problems. People with FMS often have the alpha-delta sleep anomaly. As soon as we reach deep delta level sleep, alpha waves (awake) intrude and either jolt us to an awakening or to a lighter stage of sleep.

Our body heals and many neurotransmitters are restored during delta sleep, so we soon suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation. Neurotransmitters are electro-biochemical agents that cross nerve synapses. They are the vehicles that carry information back and forth between your body and mind. One might say that neurotransmitters are the "information superhighway" between the body and mind.

Much of our mental and physical sense of continuity and security depends upon our ability to repeat appropriate and predictable actions, but this is disrupted in FMS. Healthy people think nothing of picking up a glass of water and bringing it to their lips. They know just how tightly their hand has to grip, how heavy the glass of water feels, and how much speed is appropriate to accomplish this act smoothly. people with Fibromyalgia, however, lack proper sensory feedback. The thumb grasps with too little pressure, and the wrist muscle lets go when flexed. The economy of effort is not there. To enable us to sit , walk, and stand, the entire musculature must be able to feel its own activity, and we often can't do that.

Only about 20% of FMS cases have a known triggering event that initiates the first obvious "flare." During a flare, current symptoms become more intense, and new symptoms frequently develop.

Myofascia

Myofascia is a thin almost translucent film that wraps around muscle tissue.

It is the tissue that holds all the other parts of the body together. It gives shape and supports all of the body's musculature. You can see myofascia if you cut up a fresh chicken. It is the thin, sticky, somewhat filmy material that wraps around the muscle tissue. It wraps around muscle fibers, bundles of fibers, and the muscles themselves, and then goes on to form tendons and ligaments.

For people with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and/or chronic myofascial pain (CMP), the myofascia takes on a new importance. Tightening and thickening of the myofascia occurs in many cases of FMS and/or CMP. If both of these conditions are present, this tightening causes more than double the trouble.

When the myofascial tissues become thickened and lose their elasticity, the neurotransmitters' ability to send and receive messages between the mind and body is damaged, and the communication between the mind and body is disrupted. Myofascia, then, may well be the key to what is wrong with people with FMS&CMP Complex. In the myofascia there is a material called ground substance. This material can exist in a solid, semisolid, or fluid state. When ground substance changes from a liquid to a gel, the myofascia tightens, and it is difficult to get it to reverse to a liquid state again without intervention.

Myofascial Trigger Points

Trigger Points (TrPs) are found as extremely sore points occurring in ropy bands throughout the body. They can also be felt as painful lumps of hardened fascia. The bands are often easier to feel along the arms and legs. If you stretch your muscle about 2/3 of the way out, you might be able to feel them. Sometimes the muscles get so tight that you can't feel the lumps, or even the tight bands. Your muscle feels like "hardened concrete".

TrPs can occur in the myofascia, skin, ligaments, bone lining, and other tissues. They can be caused by a surgical incision, as is often the case with abdominal surgery. You have probably never heard of TrPs, yet they are quite common. Each specific TrP on the body has a referred pain or other symptom pattern that is carefully documented in the Trigger Point Manuals.

The first time I opened the Trigger Point Manuals ("Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual Vol I & II" by Janet Travell M.D. and David Simons M.D.), I was dumbfounded. After being told for so many years by medical experts that the pain patterns I described did not and could not exist, seeing them illustrated in a medical text brought a flood of emotions.

I felt so relieved I cried. I felt validated. Then, as the truth started to hit home, I started to get angry. Why didn't these "experts" have knowledge of Travell and Simons' work? Why hadn't I learned about these texts in medical school! Most specific pains commonly attributed to FMS are actually from trigger points. TrPs seem to form throughout life as a response to many things that happen to our bodies. Overuse, repetitive motion trauma, bruises, strains, joint problems, etc. Pain creates a neuromuscular response, and the muscle around the pain site tightens, "guarding" the hurt area.

When muscles are in a state of sustained tension, they are working, even if you're not. A working muscle needs more nutrition and oxygen, and produces more waste, than a muscle at rest. This creates an area in the myofascia starved for food and oxygen, and loaded with toxic waste -- a trigger point.

Dr. Janet Travell, in her autobiography, "Office Hours Day and Night" explains how dizziness, ringing of the ears, loss of balance, and other symptoms can all be caused by TrPs in the side of the neck, in the muscle group called the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) complex. This muscle has many functions, one of which is to hold your head up. Receptors in the SCM complex transmit nerve impulses inform the brain of the position of the head and body in the surrounding space. With TrPs, the receptors lies. What they tell the brain is not what the eyes tell the brain.

If there are TrPs in the muscles of the the eyes, they are lying too -- only probably not in the same way as the SCM. When head movement changes the SCM message -- when you turn, or look up from changing kitty litter, you get dizzy. This, coupled with poor balance, can make it seem that the walls are tilting. When we take corners while driving, we get the impression that we're "banking" the turn at a steep angle, as if we're on a motorcycle.

Cold drafts alone can bring on neck TrPs. And be careful how you move in bed. When you turn, roll with your head flat, and use your arms to help. Don't lift your head and "lead with it" as you roll. That puts a great strain on the neck area and electrically "loads" the SCM TrPs, just as climbing steps or walking uphill "loads" the muscles of the thighs. This means that the electrical potential of the muscles are changed, and the change is not to our benefit. A common symptom of SCM TrPs is a "drunken" walk, as we bump into doorways and walls.

An active TrP not only hurts when it is pressed, like an FMS tender point, but it "triggers" a referred pain pattern somewhere else in the body. This pain pattern is similar from patient to patient. These trigger points often produce other symptoms, also usually in the referred pain zone. Such a TrP hurts whenever you use the involved muscle. When the point becomes very active, pain and other symptoms occur even when the muscle is at rest.

The fact that these pain patterns are very much similar from patient to patient really helps make a diagnosis IF the person doing the diagnosing is familiar with the patterns so well described by Travell and Simons. That's why familiarity with TrPs and an ability to take a good medical history is so important. An educated doctor will know where to look for TrPs before the physical exam begins.

A "latent" type of TrP also occurs. The latent TrP doesn't hurt at all, unless you press it. You might not even know it's there, but your body does. It restricts movement, weakens, and prevents full lengthening of the affected muscle. If you press on the TrP, it refers pain in its characteristic pattern. Latent TrPs may be activated by overstretching, overuse, or chilling the muscle.

People who get little exercise have a greater chance of developing latent points. This is important, because some people feel that by restricting their range of motion, they are getting rid of their TrPs. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Physical stress isn't the only thing that can cause TrPs. Tension TrPs can occur. These are not the psychological result of tension, but they are physiological biological effects of long term emotional abuse or mental trauma. If you are constantly holding your muscles tight in a "fight-or-flight" stress response, this changes your body patterns. When you have TrPs, muscle strength becomes unreliable. You may have also have noticed that if one part of your body turns over another while you sleep, the part being compressed goes numb.

Some other symptoms include: stiffness, muscle tightness and weakness, localized sweating, tearing, salivation, poor balance, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus, goosebumps, runny nose, buckling knees, weak ankles, illegible handwriting, staggering gait, headaches, and muscle cramps.

TrPs often form as a result of other medical conditions. A case of arthritis may be otherwise well managed, for example, but the accompanying TrPs are overlooked. The pain load of that patient could be substantially lessened if the secondary TrPs were treated successfully.

Chronic Myofascial Pain

If TrPs are treated immediately and vigorously, and perpetuating factors (conditions that aggravate and perpetuate the TrPs, are avoided or remedied, TrPs can be eliminated.

Unfortunately, if TrPs are left untreated, are inappropriately treated, or muscle action is restricted to avoid pain, the TrP usually becomes latent.

If the muscle is pushed to work in spite of the pain, especially if perpetuating factors exist, active TrPs may develop secondary and satellite TrPs.

Secondary trigger points develop when a muscle is subject to stress because another muscle with a trigger point isn't doing its job. Satellite TrPs develop when a muscle is in a referred pain zone of another TrP. Without proper intervention, and with perpetuating factors, the TrPs can lead to severe and widespread chronic myofascial pain (CMP).

Developing secondary and satellite TrPs can give the false impression that CMP is a condition that will steadily worsen with time -- that it is progressive.CMP is not progressive. With proper intervention, these trigger points can be broken up and eliminated.

FMS and CMP are different syndromes. However, the vast majority of physicians lump them together because they see many patients with the FMS&CMP Complex. Unless doctors have a thorough knowledge of and familiarity with individual TrPs, they can't sort out the symptoms.

One interesting difference between the two syndromes is that more women than men have FMS, but CMP affects men and women in equal numbers. Another difference is that muscles in locations that are some distance from the trigger points of CMP have normal sensitivity. In FMS, there is a generalized sensitivity.

FMS is, among other things, a systemic neurotransmitter dysregulation, with many biochemical causes. There are other problems as well, but they are all systemic in nature, such as the alpha-delta sleep anomaly. Chronic Myofascial Pain , however, is a neuromuscular condition. CMP happens because of mechanical failures -- the mechanics of physics, not biochemistry. Due to the nature of trigger points, some of the symptoms may seem to be systemic, but they are not. Initiating events, such as repetitive motion injury, trauma, and illness, can start a cascade of TrPs.

FMS & CMP Complex

People with the FMS&CMP Complex face more than just the two sets of symptoms of both conditions. Today, a few researchers are realizing that FMS and CMP not only occur together, they reinforce each other. Therefore, physical therapy and all other forms of treatment must proceed carefully. Any treatment regimen will be both more complicated and less successful than if the patient had only one of the two conditions.

In FMS&CMP Complex, a chronic pain condition exists, with many different symptoms and the trigger points of CMP, which are all magnified by the pain amplification aspect of fibromyalgia (FMS).

Furthermore, some of the treatments normally prescribed for FMS patients can cause damage to CMP patients, and the reverse is also true.

In the context of FMS, many different neurotransmitters are affected to different degrees and in different combinations in each patient. Also, other biochemicals in the body are affected to different degrees. Various hormones may be involved. Histamine (a neurotransmitter) is often a important factor when there are many allergic manifestations.

The possible combinations are endless, so this is no place for a doctor who practices "cookbook" medicine, especially when you figure in the possible combinations of TrPs. FMS perpetuates CMP and the reverse is also true.

The spiral of pain/contraction/pain/contraction continues until it is interrupted by an outside force in some form. Chronic pain, all by itself, causes stress and lack of sleep. That's another reason why many cases of FMS are accompanied by CMP.

But don't despair. A lot can be done to relieve CMP and lighten the pain load. There are many therapies that work for FMS as well. It's important for people with FMS&CMP Complex to take on the responsibility of managing their own treatment. It isn't easy, and it takes concentrated focus to change the habits of a lifetime.

Getting as well as possible -- optimizing your quality of life -- takes commitment. What is done to or for you can help, but getting better is primarily a function of what YOU do.