Study: Fibromyalgia Pain Is Real

Brain-Scan Study Monitors Patients' Reactions To Pain

A new brain-scan study confirms what fibromyalgia patients have been telling a skeptical medical community for years: They're really in pain.

Fibromyalgia, which affects more than 2 percent of Americans, is a chronic disorder characterized by fatigue, stiffness and tenderness throughout the body.

It mostly occurs in women of childbearing age, but children, the elderly, and men can also be affected. Its cause is unknown, according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

Georgetown University Medical Center researchers found that when people with fibromyalgia say they feel severe pain, they have measurable pain signals in their brains -- signals that show up in a different area of the brain than pain signals from healthy people.

Researchers measured pain from a gentle finger squeeze that barely feels unpleasant to people without the disease. The squeeze's force must be doubled to cause healthy people to feel the same level of pain.

The results, published in the current issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, may offer the proof of fibromyalgia's physical roots that many doubtful physicians have sought. It may also open doors for further research on the the disease's cause.

In the study, the researchers used a super-fast form of MRI brain imaging, called functional MRI or fMRI, on 16 fibromyalgia patients and 16 people without the disease. Thus, the study offers the first method for determining what's going on in the brains of fibromyalgia patients the precise moment they feel pain.

"The fMRI technology gave us a unique opportunity to look at the neurobiology underlying tenderness, which is a hallmark of fibromyalgia," said Dr. Daniel Clauw, one of the researchers. "For some reason, still unknown, there's a neurobiological amplification of their pain signals."

The researchers will continue their studies at the University of Michigan Health System, joining other fMRI fibromyalgia research now under way.

Many skeptics have debated the very existence of fibromyalgia as a physical disorder, saying it seemed to be rooted more in psychological and social factors than in physical, biological causes. Their argument has been bolstered by the failure of research to find a clear cause, an effective treatment, or a non-subjective way of assessing patients.

Additional Resources:

• National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
• MEDLINEplus: Fibromyalgia
• The American Fibromyalgia Syndrome Association
• National Fibromyalgia Research Association

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