Fibromyalgia: a still somewhat mysterious condition

by May 31, 2014

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Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be remarkably hard on its victims. It can leave victims experiencing terrible pain on a chronic basis. Among the other things fibromyalgia sufferers also sometimes experience is debilitating fatigue. 

For some, the pain and the other effects of the condition color pretty much all aspects of their life and leave many everyday activities, such as working, out of reach. One of the big concerns such individuals may have is how they are going to get by with no or minimal work income coming in. If they meet the qualifying requirements, such individuals may be able to get help from the Social Security Disability program that can be put towards meeting their everyday expenses. 

Another thing about fibromyalgia is that it is still something of a mysterious condition. Much remains unknown about the condition, including its cause. While there are treatment options out there for fibromyalgia symptoms, there is no available cure for the condition and the gaps in the current knowledge on the condition raise the question of whether there are perhaps better treatment options that we simply haven’t discovered yet.

Researchers continue to try to learn more about fibromyalgia. One recent study reached some interesting findings that its researchers hope might point towards an avenue of learning how to better treat the condition.

The study was a small one, having only 60 participants. All of them were women. Thirty-five of them had fibromyalgia, while the rest did not. In the study, researchers exposed the participants to certain non-pain stimuli (such as colors and sounds) while performing brain scans on them.

The researchers found that the fibromyalgia sufferers showed a different brain activity response to the stimuli than those without the condition and that they also showed greater sensitivity to the stimuli.

These findings point to there perhaps being more going on with fibromyalgia sufferers than just differences in pain processing and perception. This study and other research provide some evidence backing the proposition that the condition may be affecting all sorts of different types of stimuli processing. The researchers in the study hope that learning more about this potential effect and the mechanism behind it could lead to advances in fibromyalgia treatment.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds when it comes to fibromyalgia research.