The conventional approach to treatment
The conventional approach to treatment
Results of conventional drug treatments for FMS are so poor that a majority of patients seek care from alternative practitioners.
The sleep disorders that frequently occur in fibromyalgia patients are thought to be a major contributing factor to the symptoms of this condition. Medicines that boost your body’s level of serotonin and norepinephrine - neurotransmitters that modulate sleep, pain and immune system function - are commonly prescribed.
Clinical trials, however, show that conventional FMS treatments, such as tricyclic antidepressants, are no more effective than placebos. The widespread use of antidepressants is based on the hypothesis that FMS is a manifestation of serotonin deficiency. Researchers conjectured that antidepressants, by increasing the amount of serotonin, would improve or alleviate FMS symptoms.
The failure of antidepressant treatments to do so make it unlikely that FMS results from a primary serotonin deficiency.
Dr. John C. Lowe, a fibromyalgia, thyroid, and metabolism researcher is a board certified pain management specialist and Director of Research for the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation. He has spearheaded the scientific study of two related subjects: the metabolic bases of fibromyalgia, and the metabolic rehabilitation of fibromyalgia patients.
According to Dr Lowe and his team, the symptoms and signs of FMS must instead stem from another mechanism - one that causes the serotonin deficiency as well as all the other features of the condition.
The available evidence indicates that the most likely mechanism is inadequate thyroid hormone regulation of cell function. This is causes by a deficiency of thyroid hormone, partial cellular resistance to thyroid hormone, or both.
Dr Lowe’s impression is that most doctors and researchers don?t know that too little thyroid hormone regulation of cells in the brain stem and spinal cord can induce and sustain pain. When a hypothyroid patient is under-treated or denied treatment with thyroid hormone (the standard provisions of conventional medicine), and her main hypothyroid symptom is chronic, widespread pain, her doctor is likely to diagnose her pain as “fibromyalgia.”
After the fibromyalgia diagnosis, conventional treatment will follow. This will entail various medications that don?t correct the underlying cause of her pain (hypothyroidism) and that are largely ineffective. Through conventional care, a woman’s health is likely to deteriorate further over time ? partly from her continuing hypothyroidism and partly from the adverse effects of conventional medications.
Despite the failure of rheumatology researchers to comprehend the nature of fibromyalgia, and despite their failure to effectively treat fibromyalgia patients, most patients with a diagnosis of “fibromyalgia” no longer have to suffer. Metabolic rehabilitation lastingly frees most patients from their symptoms. (When patients treated with metabolic rehab were studied one-to-five years after their treatment, they had maintained their improvement or recovery.)
Dr Lowe recommends women get under the care of an alternative doctor who?ll competently treat you for your hypothyroidism.
