I have been sitting for days pondering on whether or not I could have fibromyalgia as I am fed up of not getting a diagnosis of MS even with positive tests and confirmed optical neuritis.
Well I am more confused then ever about what it is.
I have read so much stuff and there are so many different ideas about it, and specialists talking about all kinds of things.
Some of which would make sense to some of my symptoms.
1. People with FMS have increased levels of substance p in their spinal fluid. Substance P is a chemical signal that causes us to experience pain. Under normal conditions, we produce substance P only when we are injured. When an injury occurs, the nerve cells serving that area begin to secrete substance P, and our brains experience pain.
Increased levels of substance P actually increase the sensitivity of nerves to pain signals and thus heighten our awareness of pain. In the spinal cord, elevated levels of substance P may cause fairly normal stimuli to feel like intense pain.
WELL THAT SORT OF MAKES SENSE. I have told my neuro and my GP that my pain feels like someone has tuck my nervous system on to high and it is stuck there.
2. FMS has a problem with the autonomic nervous system.
Our research on fibromyalgia. (Article here: http://www.martinez-lavin.com/Fibromyalgia.htm
We studied a group of patients with fibromyalgia and compared them with healthy controls. By means of portable recorders, we registered the subjects' heartbeat for 24 hours while they followed their routine daily activities. We found that patients with fibromyalgia have relentless hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system. This abnormality was also evident during sleeping hours. In a different study, we subjected patients with fibromyalgia to a simple stress test (to stand up). We observed a paradoxical derangement of the sympathetic nervous system response to the upright posture. Such findings have been confirmed by other groups of investigators.
The results of these studies suggest that a fundamental alteration of fibromyalgia is a disordered function of the autonomic nervous system. Patients with fibromyalgia lose the normal day/night cycles (circadian rhythms) and have a relentless sympathetic hyperactivity throughout 24 hours. This may explain the sleeping problems that the patients have. At the same time, such individuals have sympathetic hypo-reactivity to stress, which could explain the profound fatigue, morning stiffness and other complaints associated to low blood pressure. This autonomic nervous system dysfunction could induce other symptoms of fibromyalgia such as irritable bowel, urinary discomfort, limb numbness, anxiety and dryness of the eyes and mouth.
...........AGAIN THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE TO SOME OF MY SYMPTOMS.
How on earth are people supposed to really get a diagnosis of an illness that no one seems to really understand.
Most GPs just treat it as a problem with the muscles and that they ache and patients need to exercise and get more healthy.
This is a brilliant web site on Fibromyalgia.... http://www.medicinenet.com/fibromyalgia/article.htm
I was well chuffed as I did the quiz and got 100 per cent lol.
I am wondering now if i should perhaps see my GP about fibromyalgia i dont suppose it can do any harm, but i am not sure if she knows what it is either lol.