Self-Treatment for Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a syndrome— a set of symptoms that occur together, for which no cause is known with confidence. The problem is that standard diagnostic tests such as MRI, X-ray, and blood tests usually fail to identify a causative agent.
Fibromyalgia affects women more than men, so some doctors hypothesize that it is female hormone related. It is also associated with chronic fatigue syndrome, a separate but related set of symptoms that researchers suggest is viral in nature.
The main symptom of fibromyalgia is abnormally high sensitivity to pressure points along parts of the body, especially where the ribs connect to the sternum. Other symptoms include gastrointestinal discomfort; mental fogginess; irritability/moodiness; high sensitivity to cold, anxiety, tingling in the feet, and headaches.
One other possible cause of fibromyalgia is dysfunction in the pain processing centers of the brain — a model proposed for the cause of chronic pain. This would make possible the perception of pain in the presence of normally functioning tissues where the pain is sensed.
The following video course demonstrates self-help techniques to alleviate fibromyalgia symptoms.