What is Fibromyalgia? What are the types? Symptoms and Treatment Methods

Fibromyalgia (FMS), also known as fibromyalgia syndrome, is a disease in which pain and fatigue are felt in sensitive bones and muscles in the body, causing cognitive disorders and sleep problems. Fibromyalgia is chronic, meaning it is a long-term disease. Fibromyalgia is really difficult to diagnose because it shows similar symptoms to many diseases. And there is no definitive test for fibromyalgia, so it is often misdiagnosed.

Fibromyalgia treatment is also difficult and complex. The person may need to make radical changes in their life, use medication and go to therapy. Even if it is difficult, fibromyalgia treatment is not impossible after trying. It is not known what causes fibromyalgia. However, genetic predisposition, inflammation, trauma and stress are thought to be triggers of fibromyalgia.

According to one theory of one of the experts, the brain, for no reason, suddenly lowers the pain threshold, gradually becoming painful for people in normal situations that were not painful before, which would not have been painful to normal people. As time passes, the pain increases and the person goes to the doctor.

Another expert theory is that it is an overreaction of the nerves in the brain to pain signals. In other words, according to this theory, the brains of people with fibromyalgia may overreact or misinterpret signals. This may be due to abnormalities in the center of the brain or chemical imbalances in the brain.

What Are the Symptoms of Fibromyalgia?

Symptoms of fibromyalgia and autoimmune disorders are almost the same. This has led experts to question whether fibromyalgia is an autoimmune disorder.

Since fibromyalgia is a hereditary disease and family marriages occur in our country, it is generally seen within the family. As a result of the researches, several genes have been found that negatively affect the chemical pain transmission between nerve cells. The transmission of these genes within families has led to hereditary fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is generally seen from middle age. As a person gets older, the likelihood of developing fibromyalgia increases. But fibromyalgia has also been seen in children in some cases. Inflammation in the person's body or any disease in the past can increase the risk of fibromyalgia or cause more severe symptoms.

It is known that diseases such as shigella and salmonella bacteria, pneumonia and flu are among the diseases that trigger the emergence of fibromyalgia. It is known that people who have experienced severe physical or emotional trauma can also suffer from fibromyalgia. In other words, fibromyalgia may be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (TSS) in some cases. Just like trauma, being attached to long-term stress affects people's psychological and physiological health. So, stress can also trigger fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia symptoms can be called pains that occur in our sensitive areas. Some of these areas are trigger points that have been accepted in the past. However, there are also points different from the trigger points that fibromyalgia affects. This means that fibromyalgia does not only affect familiar parts of the human body. In the past, a person was thought to have fibromyalgia in at least one of the 8 trigger points.

If the person felt pain when these points were pressed a little, these points were thought to be fibromyalgia points. If we give an example of these points, we can say that the chest, outside the elbow, knee, hip, upper chest, above the shoulder, back of the head and nape. Some fibromyalgia patients may feel numbness, tenderness, and tingling, other than pain. In addition to these, the person feels tired all the time. There is pain, especially in the soft muscles of the arms and legs. This is a type of pain that is deep, throbbing and similar to a burning sensation. No matter how long the person with fibromyalgia sleeps, their fibromyalgia area wakes up without rest.