Rose
At Fri, 23 Nov 2001, KathFindlay wrote:
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>Brain Scans Show Increased Pain Sensitivity in Fibromyalgia Article 17 P
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>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Health) Nov 16 - Brain scans have revealed that women
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>with fibromyalgia differ from depressed women in their sensitivity to pain,
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>researchers reported here on Wednesday at the American College of
>Rheumatology's annual meeting.
>
>Because nearly half of fibromyalgia patients have had clinical depression at
>some point in their lives, some doctors consider the condition to be a
>physical manifestation of an underlying mood disorder, said Dr. Leanne R.
>Cianfrini, a psychology researcher at the University of Alabama at
>Birmingham.
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>"Because fibromyalgia doesn't have a clear-cut etiology, it leads many
>rheumatologists to interpret their pain as a simple physical manifestation
>of an underlying depression," she said. "This can be frustrating and
>counterproductive to patients."
>
>To see if there are physiological differences between patients with
>fibromyalgia and patients with depression, the investigators compared pain
>thresholds and brain activity among 21 women with fibromyalgia, 8 women with
>depression and 22 healthy women.
>
>Dr. Cianfrini and colleagues administered pressure calculated to be a level
>above each woman's pain threshold to three points on the women's bodies. The
>women were asked to evaluate their pain levels. The researchers also used
>brain imaging to measure blood flow during reports of pain.
>
>The investigators found that the women with fibromyalgia had lower pain
>thresholds and reported more pain after pressure stimulation than the
>healthy women. The fibromyalgia patients also showed greater activation of
>brain structures that process pain.
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>The pain threshold and experience of pain among the depressed women was
>similar to that of the healthy women, the study found.
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>"We can't deny depression is associated with fibromyalgia, and it may
>exacerbate it," Dr. Cianfrini said. "But depression does not seem to be a
>necessary factor."
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>In a similar study, Dr. Richard H. Gracely, a research psychologist at the
>National Institutes of Health, presented findings on how the brains of
>fibromyalgia patients react to pain.
>
>Dr. Gracely and colleagues used functional MRI to compare fibromyalgia
>patients with healthy patients experiencing pain. The research team found
>that patients with fibromyalgia who were given relatively low levels of
>pressure seemed to experience the same amount of pain and subsequent brain
>activity as healthy people experiencing high levels of induced pain.
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>"One of the big issues of pain patients is credibility — they don't have the
>luxury of physical signs; nobody believes they have what they say," Dr.
>Gracely said. However, these findings provide physical evidence to confirm
>what fibromyalgia patients report, he added.
>
> \\\\
> ( o o)
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> In Friendship Kath Findlay
> The UK Adhesion Society
>kath.findlay@adhesions.org.uk
> http://www.adhesions.org.uk
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-- kcmo ro(se) ICQ #131145100 If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.