what causes fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia: What are the Causes?

For those who suffer from fibromyalgia, they often ask, why me? What is it that made them develop this illness that they will battle for potentially the rest of their lives?

These are the questions that these sufferers are asking, as they deal with the day to day pain that is known as fibromyalgia.

On top of the pain, there are often other issues that come with this illness. These issues can be stomach issues, even lapses in memory, inability to sleep peacefully, and overall just feeling awful for much of the day. It can make enjoying life more difficult…in fact, nearly impossible.

However, thankfully medicine has advanced significantly since this condition has been found.

Thus, with the proper treatment, changes in diet and lifestyle, along with an exercise routine, a person can get back to normal!

So, what causes fibromyalgia? Unfortunately, there are no known causes that have been identified by science.

There are some causes that professionals have been leaning towards as they see this in more patients. These causes include:

  1. Physical trauma
  2. Emotional trauma
  3. Abnormal pain response
  4. Sleep disturbances
  5. Infections or Immunity Issues
  6. Muscle Abnormalities

How Could Physical Trauma Cause Fibromyalgia?

Physical trauma is more than just leading a physically active life. These are trauma, such as car accidents or a serious injury that causes trauma to the central nervous system.

Research has shown that those who suffer from whiplash injury are often more likely to develop fibromyalgia than those who have received a broken leg.

Studies also show that around 20 to 25% of people who have fibromyalgia have been involved in some type of accident right before they started to see the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Emotional Trauma and Fibromyalgia

For those who deal with a lot of emotional issues, they are more likely to have fibromyalgia when compared to someone who has no emotional issues they deal with on a day to day basis.

Emotional trauma can be the sudden loss of a loved one, or even dealing with a lot of stress on a day to day basis.

Emotional trauma such as suffering from emotional abuse from a partner can also trigger the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

In these cases, a person may find that they are simply tired from dealing with these emotions and the situations that have caused them. In return, their bodies start to perceive the pain differently, resulting in fibromyalgia.

Abnormal Pain Response: The Main Culprit

The main culprit for causing fibromyalgia is having an abnormal pain response. This is the response that your body has when it is in pain. For fibromyalgia sufferers, their brain is not working in the same manner.

With these people, they often feel pain worse than your average person. There is some misfire in their brain that is causing this pain to be experiencing even more.

This does not mean that the pain is not there…it is. It only means that how they perceive this pain is higher than normal.

Fibromyalgia and Sleep Disturbances

Sleep disturbances are classified as any type of sleep disorder that a person may have. So how is this causing fibromyalgia?

There are several stages of sleep in which a person goes through on a nightly basis.

At stage four, otherwise known as deep sleep, the somatomedin-C, a hormone, is released into the body.

Those who have sleep disorders most often do not get this hormone release that is responsible for nerve and muscle health. Thus, over time, the person develops fibromyalgia.

Another hormone that is released in deep sleep is the insulin growth factors. Those who have sleep disorders have less of this in their system.

And, those who have fibromyalgia are often found to have reduced levels of this growth hormone, showing a possible connection between sleep and fibromyalgia.

In addition, those who do not get enough sleep are going to see a lowered immune system, which is another possible cause of fibromyalgia.

Sleep is the body’s way of regenerating and taking on the new day. When you have sleep disturbances, the body is not getting what it needs to function properly.

what causes fibromyalgia

Immunity Issues Causing Fibromyalgia

For those who have ever had the flu, they know the feeling of having aches throughout the entire body. This is comparable to what fibromyalgia patients feel daily.

However, these patients do not have the flu. But, many researchers are looking at the link between fibromyalgia and a low immune system or having some sort of chronic infection.

For example, rheumatic illnesses such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis are seen in more patients who also have fibromyalgia. The idea is that these immune illnesses are causing the fibromyalgia in the person.

Muscle Abnormalities

When studying fibromyalgia, there are several researchers who have found muscle abnormalities in those patients that suffer from this illness.

In many of these cases, there have been patients who have been unable to have normal muscle function, which could affect how this disease is affecting them.

In addition, other studies have found that patients have a lower level of the muscle-cell chemicals in their bodies.

With these lower levels of chemicals, it can affect how much calcium the body is using, which results in muscle contractions that can be super painful.

Other times, researchers have found that blood flow is restricted in these muscles. Many patients have been found to have tiny blood vessels in the muscle.

This produces lower levels of muscle function and reduces the oxygen to these muscles. It is just one other cause that researchers are considering.

While fibromyalgia is one of those illnesses that is still being studied, these are just a few of the causes that have been tossed around throughout the research community.

It will take several years of continued research to determine if fibromyalgia is being specifically caused by these issues or if there are even more issues that could be linked to this disease.

Until this time, it is imperative that people take care of themselves, and if they do suffer from fibromyalgia, they need to talk with a doctor about a plan of care.

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One Comment

  1. to whom it may concern; it all started in 1968 june to be precise , i had a wisdom tooth removed and on that occasion the good old dentist said that i colud have all the molars done on the NHS it meant to have them drilled and filled with amalgam so that iwould not have any problems in later years, he did within one hour he drilled all my teeth and inserted the pellets in , for weeks afterward i could not heat hot meals and cold things were even worse, 1978 i started to complain about unusual pains in my body and i was referred to Poole hospital in Dorset England as an out patient for test ,they tested me for everything and foung nothing wrong I was even told it was all in my head, another 5 years passed and the painwas getting much worse, then during my working week and for some unknown reason always on the saturday a molar tooth on the left side started to ache until all teeth were removed over many weeks ,the pain on my left side of the body disappeared too ,to a level that i could live with , by 1990 i had to sell my business due to the terrible and very painful pains on my right side of the body so bad that i was loosing the movement of my arm and hand i had no strenght left almost paralised, i remember talking about it to my parents and my doctor could not do any thing about it, then i started to think why my left side was almost okay and my right right side was in such pain, i put 2 and 2 together and i thought i must be poisoned by the amalgam in my teeth on the right side of my face , told the doctor he thought i was mad, i had to prove it to myself ,went to the dentist and asked how much it would cost to have all my molars removed ,he thought i was crazy too but he gave me a preventive 400 pounds sterling and in 1992 that was a lot of money, i managed so every week two teeths came out of my mouth in very good conditions too on the outside but in front of the dentist i asked to borrow a pair of players and i started to crack open every tooth was rotten on the inside,the dentist reaction was ,quote ” I never seen anything like this” the teeth smelled of rotten meat ,what happened the amalgam infected the soft part inside the tooth and the poison metals used to make amalgam contaminated the small blood vessels that go from the jaws to the spine and to the rest of the body, the pain in my body went down to a level i could live with, some strenght returned to my right arm but i still have pain in all my joints which i keep to a tolerable level with the help of paracitamol 8 tablets every day since 1997 before that i was given all sorts of pain killers that were making me more sick then ever but we had to try something as the good doctors would say. i even tried Morphine and nearly got hooked on the stuff, very nice very sweet very lethal, Having told my story a message to the doctors that study Fybromyalgia ,CHECK YOUR PATIENTS MOUTH AND IF YOU SEE ANY DIRTY AMALGAM HAVE IT REMOVED EVEN IF MEANS FOR THE PATIENT TO BE WITHOUT TEETHS LIKE MYSELF, AND KEEP A RECORD ON THEYR PAIN LEVEL,….. .
    THANK YOU VERY MUCH

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