Fibromyalgia Case Study
affectinhg young to middle-aged women.1 Fibromyalgia has a varied and fluctuating clinical spectrum. The symptoms of Fibromyalgia are musculoskeletal pain and tenderness, sleep issues and significant levels of fatigue. The other key symptoms include cognitive disturbances, particularly problems with concentration, memory, and high distress levels.2 Fibromyalgia can be considered part of a group of clinical syndromes, including chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivities and irritable bowel syndrome, whose clinical features reflect similar pathophysiological processes – termed by some as ‘central sensitivity syndromes’.3 These different diagnoses are used depending on the predominant clinical features. For example, patients
…show more content…
People with this small-fiber neuropathy get faulty signals from tiny nerves all over the body, including internal organs, causing an odd constellation of symptoms from pain to sleep and digestive problems that overlap with symptoms of fibromyalgia.
Neuroscientist Frank Rice and a team based at Albany Medical College also discovered that there are excessive nerve fibers lining the blood vessels of the skin of fibromyalgia patients — removing any doubt that the condition is physically real.
These fibers in the skin can sense blood flow and control the dilation and constriction of vessels to regulate body temperature, Rice says, as well as direct nutrients to muscles during exercise. Women have more of these fibers than men, he says, perhaps explaining why they are much more likely to get fibromyalgia.
"Blood vessel nerve fibers are an important target that haven 't been in our line of thinking to date in chronic pain conditions," says Rice, now president and chief scientist at Integrated Tissue Dynamics LLC, a biotechnology research company in Rensselaer, …show more content…
“This discovery provides concrete evidence of a fibromyalgia-specific pathology which can now be used for diagnosing the disease, and as a novel starting point for developing more effective therapeutics.”
Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood disorder that is characterized by joint pain, deep tissue pain, fatigue, headaches, depression and lack of sleep. It affects about 10 million Americans, and one in 20 people worldwide. The underlying cause of fibromyalgia has confounded physicians for decades.
To analyze the nerve endings, Rice and his colleagues used microscopic technology to study small skin biopsies collected from the palms of fibromyalgia patients. The study was limited to women, who have over twice the occurrence of fibromyalgia than men. Image courtesy of Frank L. Rice, PhD, Integrated Tissue Dynamics, LLC
The team found the extra sensory nerve fibers in tiny muscular valves or “shunts,” which form a direct connection between arterioles and venules, the blood vessels in the
People with this small-fiber neuropathy get faulty signals from tiny nerves all over the body, including internal organs, causing an odd constellation of symptoms from pain to sleep and digestive problems that overlap with symptoms of fibromyalgia.
Neuroscientist Frank Rice and a team based at Albany Medical College also discovered that there are excessive nerve fibers lining the blood vessels of the skin of fibromyalgia patients — removing any doubt that the condition is physically real.
These fibers in the skin can sense blood flow and control the dilation and constriction of vessels to regulate body temperature, Rice says, as well as direct nutrients to muscles during exercise. Women have more of these fibers than men, he says, perhaps explaining why they are much more likely to get fibromyalgia.
"Blood vessel nerve fibers are an important target that haven 't been in our line of thinking to date in chronic pain conditions," says Rice, now president and chief scientist at Integrated Tissue Dynamics LLC, a biotechnology research company in Rensselaer, …show more content…
“This discovery provides concrete evidence of a fibromyalgia-specific pathology which can now be used for diagnosing the disease, and as a novel starting point for developing more effective therapeutics.”
Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood disorder that is characterized by joint pain, deep tissue pain, fatigue, headaches, depression and lack of sleep. It affects about 10 million Americans, and one in 20 people worldwide. The underlying cause of fibromyalgia has confounded physicians for decades.
To analyze the nerve endings, Rice and his colleagues used microscopic technology to study small skin biopsies collected from the palms of fibromyalgia patients. The study was limited to women, who have over twice the occurrence of fibromyalgia than men. Image courtesy of Frank L. Rice, PhD, Integrated Tissue Dynamics, LLC
The team found the extra sensory nerve fibers in tiny muscular valves or “shunts,” which form a direct connection between arterioles and venules, the blood vessels in the