Do-It-Yourself Pain Relief
By Donna Rae Siegfried
Real (good) ways to relieve the real pain of fibromyalgia
A new day is dawning for people with the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia. It wasn’t so long ago when nothing and no one seemed to help the millions of people with fibromyalgia. Doctors didn’t understand the puzzling condition, and, as a result, patients often were left feeling – if not told outright – that the pain was all in their heads.
But that was then, says Leslie J. Crofford, MD, chief of rheumatology and women’s health at the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington: “Today, patients will get a diagnosis, information and appropriate treatment.”
New research has shown that people with fibromyalgia can take feeling better into their own hands, too. Doctors’ prescriptions for medications target the hypersensitivity triggered by the errant transport of pain messages throughout the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) or help improve sleep quality. In addition, fibromyalgia patients also benefit from learning about their condition from other patients, exercising and trying acupuncture or massage.
The Exercise Rx
Participating in a strength-training program not only increased upper- and lower-body strength by 63 percent and 49 percent, respectively, it also decreased pain by 39 percent, according to researchers at Florida State University in Tallahassee. The women in the study experienced these benefits after strength training just two days a week, for 16 weeks.
“The goal is to start low and go slow, in terms of increasing physical activity,” says Dr. Crofford. “We tell people to start at their capacity – no matter how brief that is – and increase to a five-minute warm-up; 30 minutes of aerobic activity, such as walking; a five-minute cooldown; and then a stretch,” she says. “At that point, you’re ready to begin strength training.”
Exercise has many benefits for people with fibromyalgia. It may improve fatigue, says Dr. Crofford, and it may boost confidence. “People believe they can do other things if they can stick with an exercise program,” she says.
And they can. In a study funded, in part, by the Arthritis Foundation, an exercise program that includes walking, strength training and stretching improved physical function and curtailed symptoms in women with fibromyalgia.
Learning, Understanding, Coping
The benefits of exercise were enhanced when the exercises were combined with education about how to live better with and manage the disease. Women with fibromyalgia who participated in the Arthritis Foundation’s Fibromyalgia Self-Help Course and also exercised showed more improvement in physical function than those who did either alone. The women also were better able to function socially and emotionally.
“The key components of these programs are to really validate the patient’s symptoms,” says Daniel Clauw, MD, a rheumatologist and professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and a leading researcher on fibromyalgia pain. Just giving their pain a name and letting them know that doctors now have a reasonable understanding of what causes it goes a long way toward healing, he says.
“Education programs also help people understand that fibromyalgia is a widespread pain disorder, so they don’t need a new subspecialist each time a pain pops up in a different area, such as their face or back,” Dr. Clauw says.
According to Alex J. Zautra, PhD, professor of psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe, the ability to deal better with their condition is a testament to the ability of these programs to improve patients’ resilience.
“Fibromyalgia patients who have found a way to be resilient share their wisdom with those still searching for answers. People showing one another the way to succeed is the core principle of self-help,” says Zautra. The social exchanges also increase the capacity for people in chronic pain to sustain a good life, in spite of their pain. “It begins with the fundamental understanding that people can and will be resilient in the face of even the most extraordinary hardships – especially with a little help from their friends,” he says.
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