Do infections trigger fibromyalgia?
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D L Goldenberg.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic illness characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, and resistance to treatment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program on fibromyalgia. Seventy-seven patients meeting the 1990 criteria of the American College of Rheumatology for fibromyalgia took part in a 10-week group outpatient program. Therapists followed a carefully defined treatment approach and met weekly to further promote uniformity. Patients were evaluated before and after the program. Initial evaluation included a psychiatric structured clinical interview (SCID). Outcome measures included visual analog scales to measure global well-being, pain, sleep, fatigue, and feeling refreshed in the morning. Patients also completed a medical symptom checklist, SCL-90-R, Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, and the Fibromyalgia Attitude Index. Although the mean scores of all the patients completing the program showed improvement, 51% showed moderate to marked improvement and only they were counted as "responders." These preliminary findings suggest that a meditation-based stress reduction program is effective for patients with fibromyalgia.
Operational diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia were applied to most clinical studies during the past year. Similar diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome are being revised, but criteria for myofascial pain have not been agreed on or tested. Intense research efforts focused on the role of neurohormones and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome over the past year.
PURPOSE: Patients with fibromyalgia have been reported to display high rates of several concomitant medical and psychiatric disorders, including migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, major depression, and panic disorder. To test further these and other possible associations, we assessed the personal and family histories of a broad range of medical and psychiatric disorders in patients with fibromyalgia. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Subjects were 33 women (mean age 42.1 years) who each met American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia and presented to a rheumatologist at a tertiary referral center. They received the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID); a supplemental interview, in SCID format, for other medical and psychiatric disorders, including migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome; and an interview for family history of medical and psychiatric disorders. RESULTS: Patients with fibromyalgia displayed high lifetime rates of migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, major depression, and panic disorder. They also exhibited high rates of familial major mood disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The finding that migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, major depression, and panic disorder are frequently comorbid with fibromyalgia is consistent with the hypothesis that these various disorders may share a common physiologic abnormality.
Four experts on myofascial pain syndrome (MFP) performed trigger point examinations and 4 experts on fibromyalgia performed tender point examinations on 3 groups of subjects (7 patients with fibromyalgia, 8 with MFP, and 8 healthy persons) while blinded as to diagnosis. Local tenderness was common in both disease groups (65-82%), but was elicited in a greater proportion of MFP experts' examinations (82%). Active trigger points were found in about 18% of examinations of patients with fibromyalgia and MFP, but latent trigger points were rare in all groups. A more liberal definition of trigger point, however, resulted in a 38 and 23% positive rate among patients with fibromyalgia and MFP, respectively. Taut muscle bands and muscle twitches were common (50 and 30%, respectively) and noted equally in all 3 diagnostic groups. Problems with reliability were identified for taut bands, muscle twitch, and active trigger points. Our data are exploratory and tentative, but suggest that attention to definition and reliability are required to advance our knowledge of these common syndromes.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
During the past year many studies have been published on fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndromes. Randomized clinical trials using current operational diagnostic criteria were reported, but no single therapy has been highly effective in either condition. The working case definition of chronic fatigue syndrome has been criticized and suggestions for a new case definition have been made. Further understanding of the overlap of these three common disorders will also require that uniform diagnostic criteria be tested in chronic fatigue syndrome and myofascial pain syndrome.
Fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome frequently coexist. In this study, we utilized a previously validated self-administered questionnaire to assess the prevalence of symptoms of bowel dysfunction and irritable bowel syndrome in 123 patients with fibromyalgia as compared to 54 patients with degenerative joint disease (DJD) and 46 normal controls. Ninety (73%) of the fibromyalgia patients reported altered bowel function as compared to 20 (37%) DJD patients and none of the normal controls (P less than 0.001). Ninety-nine patients (81%) reported normal alternating with irregular bowel pattern, and 77 (63%) had alternating diarrhea and constipation. In contrast, only 24 (44%) of DJD patients and six (13%) of controls had regular alternating with irregular bowel pattern and only 12 (22%) of the DJD patients and none of the healthy controls had alternating constipation and diarrhea (P less than 0.01). Other bowel dysfunction complaints noted in the fibromyalgia group were abdominal gas (59%), nausea (21%), diarrhea (9%), and constipation (12%). Seventy-nine (64%) fibromyalgia patients reported frequent abdominal pain that was stress-related 47% of the time. Laxative use was frequent in the fibromyalgia group (19%) and absent in the other two groups. Fifty percent of fibromyalgia patients, compared to 28% of DJD patients, felt that their bowel complaints were worse during exacerbations of their joint disease (P less than 0.05). In conclusion, patients with fibromyalgia have a high prevalence of gastrointestinal complaints that should be carefully assessed. If the diagnosis of IBS is confirmed, appropriate treatment may improve patients' symptoms, although this approach requires further study.
There continues to be an emerging body of literature related to fibromyalgia and the related conditions chronic fatigue syndrome and myofascial pain. During the past year, the most notable contributions included a large multicenter study providing new diagnostic criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia and clinical studies describing the overlap of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and myofascial pain. Pathophysiologic studies were often preliminary and uncontrolled but the focus of these studies on abnormal nociception, neurohormones, and muscle metabolism provides an exciting hypothesis to unify pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbances, the primary symptoms of fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, new therapeutic trials were neither innovative nor especially encouraging.
We developed a set of preliminary response criteria for use in future clinical trials in fibromyalgia syndrome. We determined outcome measures from a previously reported clinical trial which best distinguished patients treated with effective medication from those treated with placebo or ineffective medication, using stepwise logistic regression analysis. Several combinations of outcome measures were identified and plotted in the form of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The combination of variables possessing the greatest area under the ROC curve included (1) physician global assessment score less than or equal to 4 (0 = extremely well, 10 = extremely poorly), (2) patient sleep score less than or equal to 6 (0 = sleeping extremely well, 10 = sleeping extremely poorly), and (3) tender point score less than or equal to 14 (maximum possible tender point score equalled 20). These criteria accurately distinguished those treated with effective drug from those treated with placebo when tested in an unreported therapeutic trial of cyclobenzaprine. The criteria identified 11 of 14 patients in the amitriptyline trial and 4 of 6 patients in the cyclobenzaprine trial who attained improvement measured independently. The methodology used to define these preliminary criteria may be applied to refine the criteria as additional sensitive and clinically relevant outcomes are developed.
Bacterial arthritis has been reported rarely in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection and generally is associated with other risk factors such as intravenous drug use. Septic arthritis may be caused by opportunistic organisms and may be more common in hemophiliacs when associated with human immunodeficiency virus infection. Pyomyositis and osteomyelitis have also been reported more commonly.
To develop criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia, we studied 558 consecutive patients: 293 patients with fibromyalgia and 265 control patients. Interviews and examinations were performed by trained, blinded assessors. Control patients for the group with primary fibromyalgia were matched for age and sex, and limited to patients with disorders that could be confused with primary fibromyalgia. Control patients for the group with secondary-concomitant fibromyalgia were matched for age, sex, and concomitant rheumatic disorders. Widespread pain (axial plus upper and lower segment plus left- and right-sided pain) was found in 97.6% of all patients with fibromyalgia and in 69.1% of all control patients. The combination of widespread pain and mild or greater tenderness in greater than or equal to 11 of 18 tender point sites yielded a sensitivity of 88.4% and a specificity of 81.1%. Primary fibromyalgia patients and secondary-concomitant fibromyalgia patients did not differ statistically in any major study variable, and the criteria performed equally well in patients with and those without concomitant rheumatic conditions. The newly proposed criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia are 1) widespread pain in combination with 2) tenderness at 11 or more of the 18 specific tender point sites. No exclusions are made for the presence of concomitant radiographic or laboratory abnormalities. At the diagnostic or classification level, the distinction between primary fibromyalgia and secondary-concomitant fibromyalgia (as defined in the text) is abandoned.
We administered a standardized history questionnaire and performed a tender point examination on 27 patients with debilitating fatigue of at least 6 months duration, seen in a primary care practice, as well as on 20 patients with fibromyalgia. Sixteen of the 27 patients with chronic fatigue met the full criteria for the working case definition of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Eight patients with chronic fatigue denied having any current persistent, diffuse musculoskeletal pain, and their tender point scores were similar to those in 10 normal control subjects. In contrast, 19 patients with chronic fatigue (70%) had persistent, diffuse musculoskeletal pain. The results of their tender point examinations were similar to those of the patients with fibromyalgia. Thus, the majority of these patients with debilitating chronic fatigue, including those who met criteria for CFS, met the historical and tender point diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. The presence of current musculoskeletal pain will identify those CFS patients who have fibromyalgia.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Prior psychologic and psychiatric studies in fibromyalgia are reviewed. Most of these reports had methodologic problems, but there is an association of depression with fibromyalgia described in the better studies. Hudson and Pope's hypothesis that there are 3 possible mechanisms to explain this association is examined and discussed in relation to current and future research in fibromyalgia.
Previous studies of psychological symptoms and psychiatric diagnoses in fibromyalgia have methodologic shortcomings. Although depressive and somatic symptoms are common, they are not more prominent than in other chronic medical conditions. There may be an association of depression with fibromyalgia, but this is not a causal one. The vast majority of patients with fibromyalgia do not meet criteria for a current psychiatric diagnosis.