How Fibromyalgia Latest Research Will Help with Future Treatments?

There are many brain conditions that are still part of a mystery. It is difficult to analyze someone’s brain because one tiny misconception and the problem can become much bigger.

We can say that brain conditions are the only ones that we haven’t determined yet.

At the same time, we cannot control them, and that is the main problem that medical researchers meet today.

That is the reason we decided to present your thorough explanation of fibromyalgia and the latest discoveries in this particular field:

What Is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder that is associated with widespread pain in the bones, muscles, as well as general fatigue and areas of tenderness.

Symptoms are mostly considered as subjective, meaning that they cannot be determined by any available test.

At the same time, because symptoms are subjective, there is no clear cause for the disease. In most cases, fibromyalgia is diagnosed as another disease.

The lack of objective and reproducible tests for this particular disorder plays the main role in doctors questioning it.

Even though, it is widely accepted as a condition, compared with the past when people didn’t know anything about it.

During the latest years, researchers came closer to understanding symptoms of fibromyalgia, so that stigma slowly disappears.

Fibromyalgia latest research 2017 has shown that some lifestyle changes, as well as a new generation of medication, can help you manage and treat the condition.

What Are the Symptoms of Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is associated with tender areas that are also called tender or trigger points. There are placed on your body and one light pressure can cause the pain.

Today, these points are not used to diagnose fibromyalgia, but to narrow the list of possible diagnosis.

Doctors use a combination of consistent symptoms and medical tests in order to determine the cause.

People with Fibromyalgia Can Also Experience:

  • Trouble sleeping
  • Fatigue
  • Headaches
  • Sleeping for long periods
  • Depression
  • Headaches
  • Inability to focus
  • Anxiety
  • Dull aching in the lower abdomen
  • Inability to pay attention

These symptoms can be a result of nerves and brain misinterpreting to normal pain signals. That can easily cause an imbalance in our brain and therefore problematic symptoms.

Fibromyalgia Trigger Points

According to fibromyalgia latest research 2017, a person is diagnosed with it in case they had tenderness and widespread pain in 11 of 18 trigger points that we have mentioned above.

Doctors check to see how many points are painful when they press firmly on them.

Common Trigger Points Are:

  • Knees
  • Tops of shoulders
  • Back of the head
  • Hips
  • Outer elbows

Even though trigger points are important, and where the main part of the diagnosis for fibromyalgia, today, they are no longer in the focus.

Instead, doctors may file a diagnosis in case you feel widespread pain for more than two months without any medical condition that can cause the pain.

What Causes Fibromyalgia?

Doctors and medical researchers don’t know the real cause of fibromyalgia. However, after decades of research, they are a step closer to understanding factors that can cause it.

These Factors Include:

  • Genetic – According to the latest research, fibromyalgia runs in family. In case you have a family member with this condition, the risks for your own problem are higher. Researchers think that certain genetic mutation plays a significant role in developing the conditions. The main problem is that those genes are still not identified.
  • Infections – Illness in the past can cause fibromyalgia or make it even worse.
  • Trauma – People who experienced emotional or physical trauma are most likely to develop fibromyalgia.
  • Stress – Similar to trauma, stress can easily create long effects on your body and hormonal disturbance that can lead to fibromyalgia.

The Latest Research

Scientists have suspected that neuroinflammation (inflammation in the brain) could cause the fibromyalgia.

After some animal testing, this theory became recognized; however, the main problem is that it is difficult to prove that in humans – because researchers cannot take a brain biopsy of a living person.

According to Swedish scientist that conducted fibromyalgia latest research 2017 levels of inflammation in the brain can cause it. They tried to explain the idea in a creative perspective:

You just have to imagine pouring milk over chocolate breakfast cereal. While the milk becomes sweeter and brown, because it is absorbing sugars and chocolate, you can send a sample of cereals in a lab in order to check whether it contains those ingredients.

They used a similar principle in order to sample CSF for fibromyalgia: inflammatory chemicals have been absorbed by brain tissue.

The reason for this understanding is because people who had fibromyalgia contained higher levels of inflammation, in particular, higher levels of chemicals that brain cells secret in order to respond to injury.

There were many different animal types of research that have shown that inflammation around neurons is the key factor that manages acute pain and leads to chronic pain, and to pain amplification that we can see in the example of people who have fibromyalgia.

Treatments to Lower Neuroinflammation

There is some evidence that can lower the inflammation levels in the brain and therefore that will lessen symptoms of fibromyalgia.

However, anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen cannot treat brain inflammation.

The most effective way to treat it is through a low dose of naltrexone (LDN) which is primarily prescribed by alternative doctors because western medicine was not familiar with it until a few decades ago.

Naltrexone is an opiate-blocking medication that is prescribed in order to treat alcohol and opiate addiction. In lower doses, it lowers inflammation in the brain.

LDN acts on receptors of immune cells and tells them to stop releasing inflammatory chemicals and to go back into hibernation. This allows brain cells to manage the pain volume.

According to fibromyalgia latest research 2017, there are some food supplements that can calm brain inflammation:

  • Green tea – The chemical called EGCG is one of the main parts of green tea, and it is highly effective against oxidative damage, inflammation and cell death, especially in the brain.
  • Turmeric – This particular spice is the main ingredient in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years. The curcumin, which is the active ingredient, has anti-inflammatory effects on the brain.
  • Medical Marijuana – There are some studies that state that marijuana can reduce inflammation of the brain, because of a psychoactive component called cannabidiol. According to Brazilian researchers, it reduced levels of inflammation in mice.

Conclusion

The main problem is that the brain is still a mystery to doctors and experts from all over the world. As part of the mystery, all problematic conditions are also something that we cannot clearly understand.

We can just hope that technological advancement will change our perspective and give us the possibility to explore further in the debts of the human brain.

Who knows what solutions we will find?

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