Fibromyalgia is a disease that is characterized by severe pain throughout the body.
This medical condition usually starts with muscular pains but it extends to general body pains from severe headache, neck pain, back pains and it extends to the rest of the body.
The prevalence of the disease is 2% of the total population with a higher percentage of the patients being women.
The ratio of women to men of the patients is 9:1.
Cause The specific cause of Fibromyalgia remains unknown.
However, various medical school of thought have come up with various theories to try and explain the cause of Fibromyalgia.
The 'central sensitization' theory explains the cause of the medical condition as a pain sensor anomaly in the brain.
They theorize that these victims pain sensors are either more in number or are enhanced in a way and thereby heightening the effect of regular discomfort to severe pain.
This, they explain, is why many victims will have constant headache, neck pain and general body pains.
Another school of thought proposes that the cause of the disease is an imbalance in the victims dopamine-related neurotransmitters.
The imbalance causes uncontrolled pain response.
Deficiency in growth hormones is yet another theory for the cause of Fibromyalgia.
The insufficiency of the growth hormones such as cortisol and leptin destabilize the body reactive mechanism and the body is unable to controlling the pain sensors.
Statistics show evidence of the disease being hereditary with many cases of victims coming from family lineages.
People who undergo long periods of stress are also susceptible to this condition.
Victims of the disease also get worse when exposed to stressful conditions.
Signs and Symptoms Though the main symptom of Fibromyalgia is severe body pains, there are other symptoms associated with this disease.
These symptoms include general body weakness, joint stiffness and sleep disturbances.
Some patients experience cognitive dysfunction, impaired concentration, multitasking complications and short memory.
Others experience difficulty while swallowing food and complications with their bladder and bowels.
The patient may also experience general numbness.
Fibromyalgia is also manifests in psychological conditions such as anxiety, depressions or hypertension.
Other symptoms include muscle spasm and nerve pain.
In some cases of this disease, some victims have experienced body pains in particular areas as opposed to general body pains.
These include shoulders, lower back, hips or neck pain.
Some cases of severe chronic headache may also be signs of Fibromyalgia even though the victim does not experience any pain in other parts of their body.
Treatment Since the medical condition is not well understood by medical researchers, there is no universally acknowledged treatment for the disease.
Therefore, the best known solution for the condition is managing the pain levels.
One of the best known treatment is physical therapy.
Physical therapy procedures help in improving the sleep pattens of the victims.
It also helps in reducing body fatigue and pain levels especially back, shoulder and neck pain.
These physical therapy processes include exercising, heat transfer and ultrasound procedure.