Friday, November 11, 2011

Fibromyalgia pleasing or unpleasing immune response, you decide.

I met some resistance regarding my answer to the question, “Could fibromyalgia be caused by an aberrant immune response?” The comment suggested it was a waste of the readers time and requested that I “Stop repeating the same from 20 years ago. PLEASE!”

I believe it is important to validate my response to the question, so others understand why I answered the question the way I did.

YOU DECIDE.

Here is my original answer to “Could fibromyalgia be caused by an aberrant immune response?”

“Good question. It’s really about which came first the cart or the horse.
We do not know the cause of fibromyalgia, but we do know that there is centralization of pain. Comorbid conditions, those that occur more frequently with FM also indicates there is an upset in communication between the brain and the periphery, including the autonomic nervous system. Certainly, an aberrant immune response could exist, and research has been done and continues on this possibility, but it has also been hypothesized that FM is the result of a poor immune system.”

The research does continue today. Fibromyalgia is a comorbid condition to Lupus, RA, Sjorgrens, Hashimoto's, and AS, all autoimmune disorders. The following study was done in 2008, not 20 years ago. X. J. Caro, E. F. Winter, and A. J. Dumas, “A subset of fibromyalgia patients have findings suggestive of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy and appear to respond to IVIg,” Rheumatology 47, no. 2 (2008): 208–11

‎2011. Coaccioli S, Varrassi G. Chronic degenerative pain: an update on abdominal pain in comparison to rheumatic diseases. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2011 Aug;45 Suppl 2:S94-7." Extra-articular syndromes, notably fibromyalgia, can be a lifelong rheumatic condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain and functional impairment, without any known structural or inflammatory cause. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) occurs in around half of patients with fibromyalgia raising the possibility of a possible overlapping or underlying pathophysiology. The dysfunction of bidirectional neural pathways and viscerovisceral cross-interactions within the central nervous system has been proposed as a possible central hypersensitization disorder responsible for the extraintestinal manifestations of IBS. Common inflammatory and molecular pathways may also be present in which a dysregulation of the immune system leads to a chronic inflammatory response. "

Possibly the most exciting research of late suggesting immune dysfunction is Light AR, Bateman L, Jo D, Hughen RW, Vanhaitsma TA, White AT, Light KC. “Gene expression alterations at baseline and following moderate exercise in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia Syndrome.” J Intern Med. 2011 May 26. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02405.x. [Epub ahead of print]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21615807
“FM-only patients showed no postexercise alterations in gene expression, but their pre-exercise baseline mRNA for two sensory ion channels and one cytokine were significantly higher than controls.”
Cytokine=referring to the immunomodulating agents (interleukins, interferons, etc.).

All blogs, posts and answers are based on the work in Integrative Therapies for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Myofascial Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by Celeste Cooper, RN, and Jeff Miller, PhD. 2010, Vermont: Healing Arts press and are not meant to replace medical advice. www.thesethree.com

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