When a person feels overly exhausted as well as constantly hurting all over, they may have fibromyalgia. This is a chronic situation characterized by widespread pain in the muscles, suspensory ligaments, and tendons of the person, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points. These factors are places in a person's body in which a slight hint of pressure causes pain. Also called fibrositis, chronic muscle pain syndrome, psychogenic rheumatism and pressure myalgias, fibromyalgia is more common to women than men.
People dealing with this problem often report that they do not respond to the kinds of medication that reduce other people's pain. A new research from The state of michigan explains that this might be because patients along with fibromyalgia were found to possess a reduction in the joining ability of a kind of receptor in the brain that is the target of opioid painkiller drugs such as morphine. The study consists of PET scans (Positron Exhaust Tomography) of the brains associated with patients with fibromyalgia syndrome, and an equal number of individuals without the said situation. Results indicate that the patients with fibromyalgia have reduced their mu-opioid receptor (MOR) availability inside the parts of the brain that normally process as well as dampen pain indicators, specifically the nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate and also the amygdala. According to one of the study investigators, the reduced accessibility to the receptor was carefully associated with greater discomfort for people with fibromyalgia. He explained that these findings might explain why opioids tend to be anecdotally thought to be ineffective for people with fibromyalgia. He also added that this particular finding is significant because it has been tough to determine the cause of pain in patients using the said condition, to the point that acceptance of the condition by doctors were slow.
Opioid drugs work by binding to opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord. Along with morphine, they include codeine, medications like Darvocet, Vicodin and Oxycontin. Scientists in this study theorized using their findings that with the lower availability of the MORs in three regions of the mind of people with fibromyalgia syndrome, such opioid based pain killers may not be able to bind as well to the receptors as they possibly can in the brains of these people without the condition. To really make it more simple, when the pain killers cannot bind to the receptors, they cannot relieve the patient's pain because effectively. The reduced accessibility could result from a lower number of opioid receptors, enhanced release of endogenous opioids, or both.
The study also found a possible link with depression. The PET scans showed that fibromyalgia patients with more depressive symptoms had reductions associated with MOR binding potential in the amygdala, a region from the brain thought to alter mood and the emotional dimension of discomfort.
In knowing this, people should be much more aware of their body and just how it reacts to pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition where the concentration of symptoms actually vary. It is best if individuals are informed of this situation, specifically, that this health problem is not progressive neither life threatening. Self-care can help decrease fibromyalgia's symptoms by getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Article Source: articlemotron . com
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