Why Fibromyalgia Pain Makes You Hurt From Head to Toe

Another great Article from the Fibromyalgia Network.  To read the full article I posted the link at the bottom.

From the Skin Tissue to the Brain

It all signals pain!

How can you hurt from head to toe? Research shows the pain control system in the skin, spinal cord, and brain of fibromyalgia patients is overloaded, offering a reason for why you ache all over. In particular, immune cells that generally do not cause pain contribute to the flu-like fibro symptoms that make your whole body hurt.

Nerve Fibers in Skin

Alterations in the way the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) works are believed to be a major cause of your fibromyalgia pain, but researchers are finding that’s not the only source. The immune cells surrounding the nerve endings in your skin appear to be contributing to your pain as well Seong-Ho Kim, M.D. and colleagues in South Korea took tiny biopsies of the skin tissue from a group of fibromyalgia patients and compared them to healthy controls.1………read more here

Faulty Pain Filter

In order for you to actually feel pain, transmissions from your skin, muscles and other tissues has to reach a level of consciousness in your brain. Otherwise, all sensations, including light touch, would hurt. That’s where your spinal cord comes in handy. The cord’s role is to filter out the less serious nerve signals traveling from your tissues to your brain and from your brain out to your tissues. In essence, your spinal cord works like a pain filter, but studies show it’s doing a poor job in fibromyalgia patients……..read more here

Spinal Cord Opioids

When experiencing fibro pain, you would think the neurons in your spinal cord and brain would release lots of pain-killers to get your symptoms under control. Operating under this assumption, James Baraniuk, M.D., of Georgetown University, and Daniel Clauw, M.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, measured the spinal fluid level of naturally produced opioid-like endorphins called enkephalins. They compared a fibro group to chronic low back pain patients (regional pain) and healthy pain-free controls.3

The concentration of enkephalins in the fibromyalgia group was almost fourfold greater than the controls, but pain alone was not the reason for this difference. The enkephalin levels were almost as high in the chronic back pain patients (people with less areas that hurt). This means a fibro patient’s spinal cord is pouring out natural pain-killers (e.g., enkephalins) to contain the pain, but it’s probably inadequate to relieve the many areas that hurt.

Opioid Receptors in Brain

You may wonder if the high concentration of enkephalins in the spinal fluid (which bathes the brain) are not properly activating the pain-relieving centers in your brain. After all, given the high concentrations of spinal opioids, you should not be in so much pain.

Clauw’s team measured the number of receptor sites in the brain that opioid-like substances target to put out the pain. He compared a group of fibromyalgia patients to a group of healthy controls using brain imaging.4

The fibromyalgia patients had fewer opioid receptors available in their brains to regulate pain. Why? Either the elevated amount of enkephalins (opioid-like substances) in the spinal fluid are monopolizing most of your brain’s receptors or there just are not enough of them to get your pain under control.

So Why Do You Hurt?

Assuming you are producing plenty of opioid-like substances to target the pain-relieving receptors in your brain, why do you still hurt all over? Researchers don’t know all the details, but the foregoing findings offer some important clues.

Studies show the skin is a source of continuous pain transmissions traveling to your spinal cord. The cytokines produced by enlarged Schwann cells cause local irritation, which would be expected for injuries or infections, but there is no evidence of destroyed tissue in fibro. Yet cytokines continue to be produced for unclear reasons, causing your flu-like achiness………..read more here

1. Kim SH, et al. Clin Rheumatol 27:407-11, 2008.

2. Salemi S, et al. J Rheumatol 30:146-50, 2003.

3. Baraniuk JN, et al. BMC Musculoskel Dis 5:48-54, 2004.

4. Harris RE, et al. J Neurosci 27:1000-6, 2007.

5. Kadetoff D, et al. J Neuroimmunol 242(1-2):33-8, 2012.

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And for the complete article:

Why Fibromyalgia Pain Makes You Hurt From Head to Toe.

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Have a Great Day!

Donna

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