My wife was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia about 6 years ago. Good old Wikipedia can explain better than I can. Fibromyalgia - Wikipedia
She gets flare ups in which her muscles, joints, whatever, becomes very painful. Some days she is immobile and bedridden. She is a stay-at-home mom with a 5, 3, and 1 year old. So lying in bed does not fly.
Doesn’t happen when she is pregnant, most likely due to some hormones being produced. Well I got snipped because we are done having kids. Now she is starting to get the fibro flare ups again.
[b]Does anybody you know have this and what do they do to maintain the flare ups or totally prevent them?[/b]
I was thinking of getting her Flame Out as it does work as an anti-inflammatory. Any thoughts on that as well such as dosage and efficacy.
We did see a local Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue specialist nearby. Too bad the entire program is not covered by insurance and costs a measly $6,000. Treatment takes a year and has 85% success rate.
All help and ideas are greatly appreciated.
I did do a search on here and a product was mentioned - Myalgistat. Well that company/website does not exist anymore.
[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
My wife was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia about 6 years ago. Good old Wikipedia can explain better than I can. Fibromyalgia - Wikipedia
She gets flare ups in which her muscles, joints, whatever, becomes very painful. Some days she is immobile and bedridden. She is a stay-at-home mom with a 5, 3, and 1 year old. So lying in bed does not fly.
Doesn’t happen when she is pregnant, most likely due to some hormones being produced. Well I got snipped because we are done having kids. Now she is starting to get the fibro flare ups again.
[b]Does anybody you know have this and what do they do to maintain the flare ups or totally prevent them?[/b]
I was thinking of getting her Flame Out as it does work as an anti-inflammatory. Any thoughts on that as well such as dosage and efficacy.
We did see a local Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue specialist nearby. Too bad the entire program is not covered by insurance and costs a measly $6,000. Treatment takes a year and has 85% success rate.
All help and ideas are greatly appreciated.
I did do a search on here and a product was mentioned - Myalgistat. Well that company/website does not exist anymore.[/quote]
See one of these guys or one of their affiliates. The treatment is cheaper and more effective:
[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
She is currently taking Lyrica. Probably should have mentioned that. I was hoping there was some long term herbal supplement that could help.
Lyrica also cost us $125 after insurance. If you can’t gather, my income is not very large.
Thanks for mentioning anyway.[/quote]
Lyrica doesn’t do anything. I was on it. Like you pointed out, it’s also expensive.
My mom has this and noticed a big difference when she started taking Ribose Creatine. The effects of it aren’t as strong as they were a few years ago but it still helps. Whenever she started taking it, the flare-ups went away completely for a long while.
It is worth a shot as it is fairly inexpensive as just a supplement. I’m sure you can shop around and find one cheap just using google.
This is just what worked for her but then again it’d be worth a shot.
My wife also has fibromyalgia. She was on Lyrica for about 3 months which worked great for her pain management, but she was having a hard time waking up in the mornings which is no good when you have an infant to take care of. So, she decided to go off of Lyrica with tapering guidance from her fibromyalgia specialist (Harris McIllwain). She started having severe vertigo, vision problems, and the “fibro fog” dramatically worsened. She’s now had serious vertigo and vision problems for 3 months. After many visits and tests with neurologists, ophthalmologists, and ENT specialists, everything points to Lyrica. They’re hoping that with time, her brain will straighten itself back out, but there are a lot of class-action lawsuits popping up now for lyrica causing “neurological injury.”
Obviously, like most meds, these symptoms are individualistic and some people are fine on Lyrica. Just be aware because none of these symptoms are mentioned anywhere and doctors just don’t know about these possible effects. I know a lot of fibro dr’s are pushing cymbalta (sp?) now, but my wife hasn’t tried that one yet. Good luck with everything, I know how trying it can be.
No specific nutritional/medicinal protocol to suggest but I’m sure this can’t hurt:
The “Trigger Point Therapy Workbook” by Claire Davies (male) which has been referenced on this site. It’s a very in-depth manual on how to massage your own trigger points - which are basically ‘sick’ patches of muscle tissue. The effects and presence of trigger points are scientifically proven, look up Dr.Janet Travell’s work if yer interested. Anyways, fibro at the very least will probably set up tons of trigger points in the body and may be a symbiotic sort of half brother of rampant trigger points. In any case, learning how to massage yourself safely and effectively (as the site of pain usually isn’t the origin of the problem) is pretty useful, it’s helped me a lot. I don’t have fibro, but I have perhaps a mild version of it, thus not actually classifying as fibro.
Second, the “mind body medicine” link given above is in reference to Dr.Sarno’s work. His deal in a nutshell (though perhaps a butchered nutshell) is that many vague musculoskeletal pains and disorders are the by-product of a psychological issue. Not saying “you’re imagining the pain” but rather that subconscious fear/anxiety/anger/etc “expresses itself” through a manifestation of physical pain, basically to distract you from what the brain feels is worth avoiding at all costs - exploring those buried emotions.
All I can say about Sarnos work is to read it and consider it deeply, but don’t take it for absolute. The mental changes that can occur in response to chronic pain are immense, and can definitely further complicate and perpetuate the issue. I don’t always think its PURELY the psychological thing though. As usual, the situation is a vague combination of many things.
[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
She is currently taking Lyrica. Probably should have mentioned that. I was hoping there was some long term herbal supplement that could help.
.[/quote]
Try all or some of below:
Consider that she might have a mercury burden. See my mercury detox thread.
Take thyroid hormone, I think Armour thyroid is relatively cheap. Anyway you want T3 alone or T3+T4
Large amounts of magnesium. Magnesium glycinate is best tolerated. Can also bathe in Epsom salts which both supplies some magnesium, plus helping muscle aches.
Tricyclic anti-depressants.
Exclusion of trans fats.
Large amounts of good quality fish oil.
Co-enzyme Q-10
Acetyl l-carnitine
Ginger
Exclude high sulfur foods, including cruciferous vegetables (brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower)
[quote]kudante wrote:
All I can say about Sarnos work is to read it and consider it deeply, [/quote]
I agree with you about Sarno’s work regarding back pain. It worked for me BIG TIME. I was regularly having to take time off from workouts at least 2X per year, due to what I thought were back problems triggered by my weight training. When I seriously and diligently followed his advice during one of my bouts, I resolved the problem and havne’t had a back problem since (that was over two years ago).
That said, I am not sure that this would be applicable to fibromyalgia.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
kudante wrote:
All I can say about Sarnos work is to read it and consider it deeply,
I agree with you about Sarno’s work regarding back pain. It worked for me BIG TIME. I was regularly having to take time off from workouts at least 2X per year, due to what I thought were back problems triggered by my weight training. When I seriously and diligently followed his advice during one of my bouts, I resolved the problem and havne’t had a back problem since (that was over two years ago).
That said, I am not sure that this would be applicable to fibromyalgia.
[/quote]
Sarno and Schechter treat FM patients successfully.
[quote]AlteredState wrote:
Whatever, I strongly believe in the fact that there is a strong psychological component in nearly all chronic pain patients.
I also beleive that techniques like meditation and hyponotherapy might offer significant inroads into managing these psychological demons, through removal or reduction in stress and anxiety and well as helping to reduce actual muscle hypertonicity.
Basically, any chronic pain needs to be tackled in a two pronged fashion - mentally as well as physically.[/quote]
Well said. I do not have the scientific repertoire that you have, but I can back that up with personal support. A chronic pain, even a small one, can really ravage you mentally if you don’t address that part of the problem. This issue is emphasized if you’re the mental type (precisely what I am!) that Sarno describes as his typical patients.
Every time I have tried either the Sarno type approach, or a more meditative approach (actually fixating your attention onto the pain with such focus that you don’t allow it to “tangle” as much with more emotional paths you might wander during pain) it has helped me greatly. Unfortunately my only problem is discipline!
This isn’t supposed to be a hijack or an attempt to call your wife a hypochondriac. But AS and Entheog are right, there is definitely a mental side to chronic pain, so at the very least keep an eye out for it. Now you also know some resources for handling it if you start to suspect that side of things.
[quote]TheDudeAbides wrote:
Great stuff guys. My wife and I really appreciate the suggestions. She is really grateful. At times it seems you’re the only one with a problem.[/quote]
Dude,
This is a good read also. Read the stuff by la_kevin:
Wow, yes, print that out and read it / let the wife read it when she has some time. Regardless of how much of her issue is truly physical and or mental, there are some real gems in there for chronic pain sufferers. LA_Kevin really drops some science on that shit.