Fibromyalgia is a pain disorder, with symptoms ranging from muscle pain and numbness in the extremities to sleep disorders. Inflammation and the body’s response to stress through complex interactions between the brain and other organs play a role in fibromyalgia. It can be difficult to avoid the stresses that modern life throws on us, but there are certainly many things that we have control over that can help relieve the symptoms of this disease, including lifestyle and lifestyle. food choices.
Violence is the leading cause of fibromyalgia
There is no single or simple answer why psychological abuse or distress can trigger fibromyalgia. Emotional stress can weaken your ability to ward off various chronic diseases such as FMS pain. It is also believed that there is a link between emotional trauma, insomnia, headaches, pain and other symptoms.Victimization at an early age can have a significant impact in the long run.
It seems that psychological abuse was taken less seriously than physical abuse because it does not have external signs like bruises or broken bones. Yet, higher instances of psychological abuse, particularly in childhood, but also in adulthood, associated with people who have fibromyalgia indicate the need to know the potential for developing fibromyalgia.
Childhood Trauma
Traumatic and stress experiences in childhood have always been overlooked as predisposing factors in the development of various chronic pain disorders and psychiatric disorders, including fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, depression. , anxiety, post – traumatic stress disorder, and chronic fatigue syndrome. However, the tide is turning as research reveals a significant correlation between childhood trauma and adult health.
The central nervous system develops rapidly during childhood and is conditioned to respond to various stimuli and stress that are encountered in life. As an assortment of environmental stimuli are encountered, new pathways are created between brain cells in response to each stimulus.
For example, a pleasurable experience, such as a parent’s hug or a sweet food creates pathways that teach the brain to respond to these stimuli pleasurably. Likewise, a scary experience will create and exercise pathways that respond in fear.
This process of creating new pathways in response to stimuli is called neuroplasticity. With age, neuroplasticity decreases, which means that it is more difficult to develop new pathways and adjust the responses of our brain to stimuli. Children are an advantage in having a high degree of neuroplasticity.
However, it also highlights the importance of providing significant stimuli to the developing brain, to ensure the development of positive pathways.
The traumatic experiences that are related to fibromyalgia include:
- << accident
- << emotional trauma
- << Some viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV
- << A separation from your mother’s childhood and she lasted more than 6 months.
- << To live in a war.
Read more “Fibromyalgia is linked to stress in children and untreated negative emotions
Sexual abuse
According to studies, about 30-40 percent of adults have experienced physical, psychological or sexual abuse at some point in their childhood. Other studies suggest that actual statistics can be much higher and under-reported. Several studies have looked at the role of sexual abuse and fibromyalgia specifically, and the results are shocking. In several studies, about 65 percent of women with fibromyalgia reported sexual abuse.
Although researchers do not know how or why childhood violence is related to fibromyalgia, it is important to consider the role of violence in the measures taken to cure and control the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Much of the research on violence and fibromyalgia has emerged over the last 5-10 years. This means that there is little evidence that keels how violence can affect the symptoms of fibromyalgia in the future.
A 1995 study by McGill University in Canada found that in a group of 83 women with fibromyalgia and 161 women in the control group, 37 percent of women in the fibromyalgia group had experienced sexual abuse.
Only 22 percent of women in the control group reported sexual abuse. Women in the fibromyalgia group also reported higher levels of physical violence (18 percent vs. 4 percent), drug abuse (16 percent vs. 3 percent) and lifetime sexual abuse (17 percent). percent versus 6 percent).
Of particular interest is a study done in Birmingham, Alabama, which suggested that people with fibromyalgia were statistically more likely to have had a history of past sexual or physical abuse, although other studies seem to refute these. results.
The results of a study published by the American College of Rheumatology in its journal, Arthritis and Rheumatism showed that 65% of female fibromyalgia patients reported a history of sexual abuse compared to 52% of the control participants in good health. This study found that patients with fibromyalgia have a history of abuse reporting more symptoms than fibromyalgia patients without this childhood history.
The researchers felt that the study only proved a history of violence has greater severity in the symptoms of fibromyalgia that such abuse does not appear to be the cause of the syndrome itself.
Fibromyalgia patients have a history of such abuse in the past would do well to discuss it with their caregivers. Therapy is always recommended as a cure for violence, and patients with fibromyalgia are no exception to the rule. No one can say for sure, but it makes sense that coping with the consequences of these abuses could well help fibromyalgia patients get a better quality of life.
recommended treatment
Recommended treatments include counseling, cognitive-behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, post-traumatic stress disorder treatments and anti-depressant medications such as Cymbalta (duloxetine) and Effexor (venlafaxine).
Above all, when you take care of a person who has pain without clear tissue pathology or who has acknowledged intensified treatment of emotional pain, reassure the person that the pain experience is not in his head, but rather in his nervous system.
Related article:
Trauma- How is it related to fibromyalgia
references :
- Is Fibromyalgia Caused by childhood trauma? Pat Anson, Editor-in-Chief via Pain News Network
- The issue of sexual violence by the symptoms of fibromyalgia
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