Help for Fibromyalgia

You may have heard of this condition at one point or another. This is because a significant increase in the number of fibromyalgia cases has been noticed lately. Although the condition is not really fatal and progressive, it still pays to be better informed regarding the matter.

Contrary to popular belief, fibromyalgia is not contagious at all. Although recent results strongly imply that fibromyalgia may be passed on genetically. Another interesting fact to note is that the condition is seen more in females than males. People in the age range of 20 and 50 are usually the ones diagnosed with the condition. However, the onset of the condition can happen as early as childhood. Being a chronic syndrome, if you are afflicted with fibromyalgia, you are sure to experience the symptoms of the condition recurrently. There are a lot of symptoms associated with this syndrome. These include fatigue, and pain in the muscles, bones, and joints.

But what is defining about this symptom is the fact that the pain is widespread, and the patient feels a bit of tenderness, even to the lightest touch. The patient may have another condition known as allodynia, which is characterized by heightened sensitivity of the skin. Because of this, the patient would experience a lot of tingling on his or her skin and muscles spasms that can be prolonged in nature.

The patient may also experience sleep disturbances that are chronic in nature. These are not just from the discomfort that the condition inevitably brings. In fact, studies show a significant relation between fibromyalgia and the sleep disorder known as alpha-delta sleep. This is a condition wherein deep sleep is disrupted due to the sudden brain activity that occurs. This brain activity is in the form of alpha waves.

Diagnosis for the condition can be quite tricky. What is widely accepted is the criteria developed by the Multicenter Criteria Committee of the American College of Rheumatology. The informal name for this set of criteria is actually the ACR 1990. With these criteria, fibromyalgia is actually diagnosed due to the presence of the following: widespread pain that has been going on for more than 3 months already. This pain can be felt in your body’s four quadrants: your sides, and the areas below and above your waist.

There is also the existence of tender points. For the condition to be diagnosed, the patient should feel significant amount of pain at these tender points. If the patient feels pain in at least more than 11 tender points, then the case is definitely fibromyalgia. With this information, you no longer have to ask yourself, what is fibromyalgia?