Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain LIFE Winter 2014, Issue 10 | Page 11

Research Update Women with Fibromyalgia Have a Real Pathology Among Nerve Endings to Blood Vessels in the Skin. A rational biological source of pain in the skin of patients with fibromyalgia by Frank L. Rice, PhD As anyone who has fibromyalgia knows, the widespread deep pain and fatigue can be very debilitating. But even worse can be the uncertainty about the disease itself. The diagnosis can be difficult and subject to doubt because not much shows up in clinical tests. Often the diagnosis comes down to ruling out everything else. There are indications that the source of pain and fatigue is due to hypersensitivity of nerve cells within the central nervous system (called central sensitization), but why this may be occurring is unknown. Otherwise, no specific pathology has been identified that could be the source of the problem, which in itself can fuel self doubts. Distressingly, even when fibromyalgia has clearly been diagnosed, none of the FDA approved therapeutics provides predictable or sustained relief, if they provide any relief at all, and even then the side effects of drowsiness, depression and the like can be worse than the disease. A Real Pathology Discovered in the Skin S cientists at Integrated Tissue Dynamics LLC (Intidyn) and Albany Medical College (AMC) have made a major discover y that should provide a more certain diagnosis of fibromyalgia, significant insight into the source and symptoms of the disease, and new strategies for its prevention and treatment. The discover y has been published in the June issue of the journal Pain Medicine (the journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine) where it was featured on the cover and accompanied by a laudator y editorial by Robert Ger win, MD of Pain & Rehabilitation Medicine in Bethesda and part time with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. T he research team was headed by neurologists Charles Argoff, MD, and James Wymer, MD PhD of AMC and James Storey, MD, of Upstate Clinical Research Associates, who did the clinical assessments, and by neuroscientists Phillip Albrecht, PhD, Quanzhi Hou, MD PhD, and Frank Rice, PhD, of AMC and Intidyn who analyzed the nerve endings in the skin. To analyze the nerve endings, the analytical team used their unique expertise and microscopic technology to examine small skin biopsies collected from the palms of fibromyalgia patients, who were being diagnosed and treated by Drs. Argoff, Wymer