I have been a health and medical journalist for over 40 years
which allows me to have access to all the latest research on any condition.
Since I had fibro 25 years ago and totally recovered and now have it worse than
ever I have been reading the latest research from all around the world.
One thing all the researchers agree on is that fibro is the stress
response stuck to the “on” setting. Since the hippocampus and hypothalamus are
the main control organs for the stress response they found that cortisol and
other stress hormones and neurochemicals actually damage these organs lessening
their ability to shut of the stress response ( who invented this system
anyway).
This process starts in childhood and the more stressful your
childhood when these systems are forming the more likely you are to have a
system that is unable to shut down the stress response. It need not be a major
stress that finally puts the system into overload – in neurophysiology it is
called the “Death By A Thousand Paper Cuts” or simply Allostatic load.
So most of the researchers are confident they know the mechanism
but the question is how do you calm the stress response system (SRS).
All the recent clinical trials have shown that medication are at
best ineffective and many lead to alterations in the CNS that prolong or make
the condition worse. Acupuncture was shown to be no more effective than placebo
as were herbs and other holistic treatments.
So what? Well they know that cognitive and personality traits are
major influences. They also know that anything that switches the CNS to the
parasympathetic state is very healing.
They have also discovered that the well known feed back loop from
the muscles to the brain and back again is critical to recovery. Tight or
painful muscles have receptors that tell the brain that there is danger and
they are ready. The brain hears this and sends more stress response which
tightens the muscles even more. So the muscles are saying I am tight that must
mean there is danger run tell the brain – then the brain goes Oh crap the
muscles are in the front lines and they are ready for danger and we need to
alert the full stress response.
So the researchers now believe that the recovery process must calm
the brain and teach the muscles to relax. It is well known that muscles have
memory and once tight they believe that is the homeostatic set point and will
keep recreating it unless they are retrained.
Stretching, yoga and Chi Gong are ways to retrain the muscles to
relax and stop sending painful signals to the CNS. Most of the current research
has shown great improvements to full recovery with addressing the personality
traits that keep the process going and two muscle retraining sessions each day
of 30 to 60 minutes each.
Problem is I am Type A and hate doing these muscle retraining things
– anyone else do them??