Dr. Gates: So, today we have the question as to whether fibromyalgia symptoms can come and go. And the answer is, absolutely, yes. We treat a lot of fibromyalgia patients here in our clinic, and because Dr. Rutherford has done the majority of the consultations here I’m going to kick this question over to him.
Dr. Rutherford: Yeah, and because I have fibromyalgia.
Dr. Gates: That’s also true.
Dr. Rutherford: On top of it. Yeah, actually, I do the consultations here. In other words, I do the intakes, and I kind of evaluate the patient to determine whether they’re a good candidate for the types of things that we do.
And one of the most common comments that I get from fibromyalgia is, “Can it come and go? I mean, is it in my mind? It seems like one day it’s not there, next day it’s good, next day I’m feeling really good. I go out, do a million things, next thing you know I’m crashing for the next two or three days. Is that my head. Am I crazy, do I need to go to a psychologist?”
Actually no, that’s more common than not. Symptoms coming and going and chronic pain, in the functional medicine world, would almost be a hallmark of being aware that you have an autoimmune problem sitting in front of you. So, when your immunity is involved, coming and going is a very common thing. Another thing you might notice is when you get stressed it can either get worse, or if you’re having a good day it can come on. So, why don’t you discuss a little bit about the physiology of that?
Dr. Gates: There are a few factors associated with fibromyalgia patients that are common to most of them. One is stress. We find that a large percentage of fibromyalgia patients have been through childhood abuse, or they’ve been through very stressful circumstances in life. And the stress hormones make their pain nerves send more pain signals to the brain.
The other is autoimmunity. So, their immune systems are often times attacking them. The new research is showing that the thyroid is the selective target of the immune system in fibromyalgia patients. And there’s new associations between that autoimmunity and the pain nerves in the body called small fiber nerves dying and degenerating.
So, we discuss all of this in more detailed broadcasts. So, this is just the answer to the question of whether or not fibro symptoms can come and go. If you want more information go to www.powerhealthtalk.com. Go to the search tab, search “fibromyalgia” and we have several different videos on this topic. So, I’m Dr. Randall Gates, board certified chiropractic neurologist, also a chiropractor. Dr. Martin Rutherford, certified functional medical practitioner, also a chiropractor. Thanks for watching.