More About FM

There’s a lot of misinformation about fibromyalgia, in part because it’s more a collection of symptoms than a disease per se.

However, largely, there seem to be three things I think are worth noting:

1. Most people with fibromyalgia get too little stage 3 and stage 4 (restorative) sleep. Fixing this lessens symptoms. In my case, 5-HTP (a form of L-tryptophan) helps immensely. A lot of people with FM may also have undiagnosed apnea.
2. There’s a generalized misperception of pain. Things that shouldn’t hurt, do. There’s no easy fix for this one, except to keep track of one’s pain and do what one can to lessen it. High-quality sleep helps. There are some drugs, including some antidepressants, that help fix the perception of pain for some people.
3. Pain signals act as a priority interrupt, so managing pain is essential to mental acuity.

Most people I know with fibromyalgia have it far worse than I do, so I feel fortunate that it only really bites me every once in a while. My current long-term plan is to get on a better exercise program.

One of the better articles I’ve read about FM can be found here. Personally, I’ve never been able to bring myself to acupuncture, but I find acupressure quite helpful.

As for something that starts the entire FM process, I’ve been suspicious about zonulin ever since I read about it.

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