It's All in Your Head
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Fibromyalgia has few fixed symptoms. Patients go from one doctor to another in search of answers, and, if lucky, are told that they have chronic fatigue, systemic candidiasis, myofascial pain, irritable bowel or vulvar pain syndromes. Just as often they are given the demeaning "it's all in your head--get a life" dismissal, or a host of other diagnoses. Pursuing some symptoms while ignoring others may lead to a medical dead end: An erroneous diagnosis. Only symptoms germane to a given specialty may get the attention the much larger problem requires. All of the above listed entities are actually one single condition. They all look the same upon mapping and respond to the same treatment.
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Daily variations are interwoven in combinations
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 Central Nervous System: Fatigue, irritability, nervousness, depression, apathy, listlessness, impaired memory and concentration, anxieties and suicidal thoughts. Insomnia and frequent, awakening from pain result in non-restorative sleep.
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| Musculoskeletal: Pain and generalized morning stiffness in the muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia arise from the shoulders, neck, upper and lower back, hips, knees, inner and outer elbows, wrists, and chest. Injured or old operative sites are often most affected. Fibromyalgia is described as a
non-articular disease but those with the illness know better. Joint pains with or without swelling, redness
and heat are frequent.
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| Irritable Bowel: (Often called leaky gut, spastic colon or mucous colitis). Symptoms include nausea (often brief, repetitive waves), indigestion, gas, bloating, cramps, constipation alternating with diarrhea and sometimes mucus in the stools.
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| Genitourinary: Pungent urine, frequent urination, bladder spasms, burning urination (dysuria) with or without repeated bladder infections and interstitial cystitis are common. Vulvodynia (or vulvar pain syndrome) includes vaginal spasms, irritation of the vaginal lips (vulvitis) or opening (vestibulitis) and painful intercourse (dyspareunia). It typically mimics a yeast infection but without the typical discharge. Intense PMS and cramping are common, and all symptoms of Fibromyalgia are worse
premenstrually.
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| Dermatological: Various rashes may appear with or without itching: hives, red blotches, tiny bumps or blisters, eczema, seborrhea or neurodermatitis. Nails are often brittle and poor quality; hair falls out prematurely. The skin may give off sensations such as cold, heat (especially palms, soles and thighs), crawling, electric vibrations, prickling, super-sensitivity to touch, or flushing sometimes with heavy sweating.
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| Miscellaneous Symptoms: Headaches (even migraines); dizziness, vertigo (spinning) or imbalance; dry eyes with itching or burning and blurred vision; nasal congestion and postnasal drip; irritated tongue or abnormal tastes (bad, scalded or metallic); ringing or swishing sounds; numbness and tingling hands, feet or face; leg or foot cramps; weight gain; low grade fevers; greater susceptibility to infections and allergies; heightened sensitivity to sounds, lights, odors or chemicals; morning eyelid and hand swelling from fluid retention that gravitates to the lower legs where it stretches tissues causing the restless leg
syndrome.
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| Hypoglycemia Syndrome: This is a separate entity that can be induced or intensified by Fibromyalgia. Forty percent of female and 20 percent of male fibromyalgics suffer from fibroglycemia --
what we call the combination of both conditions. Symptoms greatly overlap those of Fibromyalgia, but sugar craving accompanied by tremors, sweating, anxiety, panic attacks, heart palpitations, faintness, and frontal headaches, especially if hunger-induced, are solid clues to the diagnosis. Hypoglycemia must be treated concurrently or the patient will not totally recover despite reversal of Fibromyalgia. |
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| The cyclic accumulation of symptoms begins earlier than most patients suspect and can be elucidated with a careful history. Thirty percent recall growing pains in childhood that actually disappeared during the major growth spurt of puberty. Widespread symptoms eventually reappear in an adult phase and cycle with progressive intensity. We believe that improperly treated, Fibromyalgia ultimately leads to a "tartar of joints" -or osteoarthritis. Many years of joint complaints long precede any discernible X-ray damage.
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| Trauma, infection or stress can nudge susceptible individuals into Fibromyalgia but are rarely its fundamental cause. We believe it is an inherited disease. We have treated family members that spanned three generations including one two-year-old, as well as a few patients who became symptomatic only in their seventies. This age spread strongly suggests a multi-genetic disease in various combinations but predominantly X chromosome linked since 85 percent of patients are women.
A paternal inheritance certainly exists, obviously pointing to a defective gene or genes on at least one other chromosome.
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