October 23, 2008
LIVESTRONG.COM
Fibromyalgia, FM, is a disorder of tactile allodynia and come-and-go pains, with symptoms varying greatly from day to day. Learn about fibromyalgia, including treatments and symptoms, in this health video.
Dr. Stallworth is board certified in rehabilitation and phsycial medicine. She graduated from Baylor College of Medicine and finished her residency at Baylor. Dr. Stallworth is known for being a superb and compassionate physician that believes in not only health of the body of the mind as well. She currently serves on the board of Centennial Medical Center and is a former board member of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She now resides with her family in middle Tennessee.
DR. CATHERINE STALLWORTH: Hi. I am Dr. Cathy Stallworth, and I would like to talk to you about fibromyalgia. What is fibromyalgia? Fibromyalgia typically presents as pain involving all four quadrants of the body. And when I say four quadrants, I mean above and below the navel and on the right and the left side. In order to meet the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia, you must have had pain for at least three months. There's no specific medical test for fibromyalgia rather we refer to it as a diagnosis of exclusion. So it's very important that if you do have pain in all four quadrants of your body, that you see a physician and get checked for other medical illnesses that could mimic fibromyalgia. These include things such as: sleep apnea (they can disturb your sleep patterns), depression, hypothyroidism, post-viral illnesses and really many, many others. If you have had pain for more than three months and it is involving all four quadrants, there's one more criteria that you need to meet. And the American College of Rheumatology has defined these criteria as having 11 of 18 specific points on your body that are tender. This picture describes those 18 points, typically, the back of the neck, the elbows, the hips, the knees, and you can find this on many, many Web sites. So how is fibromyalgia treated? Certainly, there are many studies that show that large muscle exercise can really help reduce the symptoms of fibromyalgia. This means getting out and starting to move your body. I recommend walking. It's a very simple, very inexpensive form of exercise that most people have available. There are also some integrated approaches that we are finding can be very helpful anecdotally with fibromyalgia. And those include movement-type therapy such as yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais. Many patients get relief from massage. There are also some reports that acupuncture can be very, very helpful. I am also a big proponent of healthy diet. And when I say healthy diet, I mean consuming a diet that is high in whole foods and primarily plants and vegetables, getting the table sugar, the high fructose corn syrup out of your diet. Certainly, if these more simple interventions are not helping you, many patients have found benefit from using tricyclic antidepressants or some of the antidepressants that are in the serotonin reuptake inhibitor category. If you think that you might have fibromyalgia, it is certainly very important that you get in to see a physician and make sure that you are being evaluated and checked up for other conditions that can cause fibromyalgia.
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