Treating Fibromyalgia with Nutrition

I think by now the era of not “believing” in fibromyalgia is over. It’s pretty well established that it’s a real disease and that these poor people that suffer with it are having a hard time learning to manage it. There are new ways to diagnosis fibromyalgia with certain markers that are more accurate than the standard tender points.

Fibromyalgia is awful. Patients have pain, stiffness and chronic aching everywhere and it hurts to touch almost every muscle. It’s nine times more common in women than men and hit’s them in their prime (30-50 years old). They may also suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, dysmenorrheal, mitral valve prolapse and chronic fatigue. They never feel rested and never get a good night sleep.

The final determination is that it is a complex disease within the nervous system whereby the sensations that are felt are dysfunctional. Sensations that are felt in the nerves and transmitted up the spinal cord via tracts to the brain are rewired functionally and these people feel pain…sometimes massive pain. The brain is interpreting and registering “pain” when it shouldn’t be. X-raying or performing MRI’s of the arms or legs is fruitless.

Through a complex series of chemical reactions, the best proposed cause is chronic hypoxia within the muscles.

People will often ask me if there’s a cure. That’s when it’s time to explain what the word management means.

Just like the management of diabetes, one can manage the condition and live a healthy life. But once the blood sugar is within normal ranges, you can’t just go back to your old diet. You manage the condition, but it’s not gone.

This is exactly how nutrition plays a role in fibromyalgia. Nutrition won’t cure it, but it helps manage it.

So what are the big nutrients? What does someone eat?

First of all, it’s important to eat a diet that reduces inflammatory chemicals in our body. For some people this is very easy to do and for others it’s a radical life change. Either way it must be done because it is the basis of helping people with fibromyalgia. If you have not read the information in our waiting room, read it. It’s great information. It’s in the 3-ring binders. If you are nice and ask politely we would be happy to print out this information for you.

Magnesium and Malate supplements are helpful. Supplements that supplied 300-600 mg of magnesium plus 1200-2400 mg of malate can often help reduce pain within 48 hours. Tender point sensitivity can be reduced by 60% after 30 days and 66% after 60 days.

Patients should also supplement with a B-complex as this plays a role in the magnesium to become biologically active.

I have personally noticed that doing adjustments to the skull can help the patients’ perception of pain. Adjustments to the middle spine do not help because I have found that they increase sympathetic nervous system tone (tighter muscles, greater contractive force, etc). Therapy such as deep heat, ultrasound, cold laser therapy and endurance based exercise that is low impact helps too.