Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder that is characterized by widespread pain and tenderness around the body. Since we first identified fibromyalgia as a real condition in the 1970s, our knowledge of this disease is quite young compared to some other diseases.
Fibromyalgia is thought by us to be closely related to arthritis, even though it doesn’t cause inflammation in the joints and muscles, meaning that arthritis and fibromyalgia are officially two separate diseases. But something that is noticeably similar between fibromyalgia and arthritis is that they both result in a considerable amount of pain, meaning that it’s difficult for an ordinary person to go about performing their daily routine.
Another link between the two that medical scientists and researchers are trying to digest is the aging process of fibromyalgia and arthritis. Even though arthritis can occur in young people, it’s more prevalent in older Americans. On the other hand, for fibromyalgia, we have yet to have a clear understanding of the relationship between aging and the disease.
It’s an obvious fact that everyone grows older the longer they live. But whereas some older people seem to stay as mentally sharp and physically fit as when they were younger, other older individuals can suffer from cognitive dysfunction, a loss of memory, and physical ailments.
There’s a health or medical answer for everything, and scientists have discovered that patients with chronic diseases have a greater likelihood of experiencing aging faster both mentally and physically than other people. But does that include fibromyalgia? And if so, how does fibromyalgia age people who have it faster than those who don’t, and what can be done to prevent it?
The Invisible Disease
As soon as six years ago, it was revealed that patients with fibromyalgia suffered a loss in gray matter, particularly in the areas of the brain that deal with physical pain and memory. Granted, the study that revealed this was small and not as fleshed out as it should have been. Nonetheless, it made headlines in the medical and research world.
If you suffer from fibromyalgia, or otherwise know someone close who is, you’ll probably be very concerned at reading this. Will you or your loved one suffer from immense pain and a loss of memory for the rest of your or their lives? Well, more medical research was conducted and showed that the longer the patient experiences the symptoms of fibromyalgia, the longer they will simultaneously experience the loss of gray matter.
Memory Impairment
The unfortunate truth is that a significant number of patients with fibromyalgia suffer from memory and other mental impairment. Patients who suffer from both at the same time are referred to as having fibro-fog. This means that they have difficult remembering thoughts and take a longer time to mentally process things. It’s sad to think about it, but a younger individuals who is afflicted with fibromyalgia could potentially be having the cognition of someone who is twice their age.
For now, this is about as far as research has gotten us. Nonetheless, researchers continue to examine the relation between the brain’s anatomy, cognitive functioning, and fibromyalgia. One day, we’ll hopefully know how the loss of gray matter is related to cognitive functioning, and what can be definitively done to prevent it.
All that we can safely say for now is that gray matter does seem to lead to more pain, fatigue, and lower levels of cognitive function…but the why or how of it remains elusive. Questions that medical researchers are striving to answer include, does the pain of fibromyalgia have anything to do with a patient’s cognitive function? How severe is a loss of gray matter in terms of the duration of fibromyalgia’s symptoms? How specifically does losing gray matter relate to the patient’s disability?
What Can You Do in the Meantime?
If you feel disheartened, don’t be for two reasons. One, like we said, medical researchers are doing as much as they can to find the solutions to the problems, and two, they do recommend some treatments that you can perform on yourself in the meantime.
Get plenty of sleep. This may sound cliché, but it’s true that your body needs plenty of sleep in order to function properly, both physically and mentally. Your body also needs plenty of nutrients. If you’re not getting the proper amount of nutrients you need, you can always take supplement nutrients.
This will help your brain in particular, which as you can imagine, in turn helps your cognitive thinking and function. If you’re still not sure that you’re getting enough nutrients, doctors can help run tests on you to bring a rebalance of nutrients to your brain and system.
A very important factor in preventing aging is to get healthy myelin in your body, which is a sheath that defends the body’s neural signal transmissions. In the event that the myelin sheath becomes damaged, it leaves the neural signal transmissions exposed, leading to a number of different degenerative conditions. Both physical and mental ailments have been found to occur in patients who lose myelin.
To protect the myelin in your body, embark on a diet of healthy fat. Since myelin is composed out of fat tissues, a healthy fat diet can restore this balance. Examples of good foods to eat for this include eggs and some plants that are made out of fatty acids.
If you can, try to get plenty of exercise. It will be painful when suffering from the symptoms of fibromyalgia, but it will greatly aid in keeping the body help you. You need to ensure that some of your more critical organs, such as your kidneys, lungs, skin and liver, remain in good condition. Some people make the mistake of removing an organ that they can live without…don’t do this! It will not help your condition, and many patients with high levels of stress are so because of removing some of their organs.
Further reading:
Scientists Pinpoint Physical Cause of Fibromyalgia Pain:
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/aging-scientists-find-physical-cause-of-fibromyalgia-062113
Is Fibromyalgia Aging You?
http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/is-fibromyalgia-aging-you.html
Fibromyalgia Treatment:
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