Fibromyalgia Pain: Do We Know the Source?: Trauma as Precipitating Event for Fibromyalgia Syndrome

 

This is a piece of news that doesn’t surprise me a little. Very well known and very common. The other big source for fibro are surgeries.

 

Fibromyalgia Pain: Do We Know the Source?: Trauma as Precipitating Event for Fibromyalgia Syndrome

Many patients with FMS report pain precipitating events, particularly physical or emotional traumas, infections, or surgeries.^[47] These stressors seem to result in high degrees of pain, disability, life interference, and affective distress, as well as low levels of physical activity.^[48] Some of the strongest evidence supporting the association of trauma and FMS symptoms was obtained during prospective studies of adults with neck injuries.^[27] Compared with adults with lower-extremity fractures or ankle injury, neck trauma carried a more than ten-fold increased risk of developing FMS within 1 year of their injury.^[49,50] Additional evidence supporting such an association include post-injury reported sleep abnormalities,^[51] local injury sites as a source of chronic distant regional pain,^[52] and recent evidence of extensive CNS neuroplasticity in FMS.^[53] Chronic pain after neck injury raises several important questions including the role that the location of injury plays for long-term outcome. Obviously, there is something different between neck and leg trauma. One important fact may be related to the difference in local pain sensitivity with neck and upper chest area showing decreased mechanical pain thresholds compared with the lower extremities. Further prospective studies, however, are needed to confirm this association and to identify whether trauma plays a causal role for FMS pain.^[54]

^{Published in MEDSCAPE}