Fibromyalgia is a disease of unknown cause, whose main symptom is widespread chronic pain that is located in muscle, tendon and joint areas.
“It is the most frequent cause of generalized pain. People who suffer from the pathology suffer pain in different parts of the body that can be very intense. The term myalgia indicates muscular pain; on the contrary, myositis is caused by inflammation of muscle tissue”points out the physiatrist, Carlos De Los Reyes, from the Physical Rehabilitation Unit, of the Medical Center.
That is why fibromyalgia is considered a misnomer, since inflammation is absent. The disease is a complex musculoskeletal disease of a chronic nature that causes widespread pain and easy exhaustion which, in this case, is supposed to be significantly related to sleep disorders.
In the disease the pain is present in the fibrous tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments and other areas. It affects any fibromuscular tissue, but the most frequent are pain in the occiput (lower-posterior part of the head), neck (cervical pain or spasm), shoulders, thorax, lower back, and gluteal and lineal muscles. of knee joint.
Although it is difficult to diagnose and is done by a rheumatologist, it is often confused with about a dozen diseases. Once diagnosed, the follow-up of non-complex cases can be left to the family doctor, the physiatrist or a multidisciplinary team.
The pain has to be generalized, it can be associated with other disorders, since there are other similar forms of regional or localized pain, such as myofascial pain syndrome, related to overexertion or micro trauma.
According to Dr. De Los Reyes, people with the disease experience some symptoms such as sleep disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, stiffness and rigidity of the body, headaches or facial pain, abdominal discomfort, irritable bladder, paresthesia, numbness or tingling. .
“They feel chest pain and costochondralgia, that is, muscle pain where the ribs meet the sternum, imbalances and dizziness, greater sensitivity to the environment, etc. These symptoms can occur interchangeably in some periods and do not necessarily occur simultaneously.says the physiatrist Medical Center.
Fibromyalgia is a disease recognized by all international medical organizations and by the World Health Organization, WHO, since 1992. It is identified with the code M79.7 of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10 CM in its latest revision) as a rheumatic disease.
High prevalence of the disease is considered, since it is estimated that up to 5% of the general adult population makes this syndrome an important public health problem with a very complex approach.
It massively affects women in a ratio of 20 to 1 in relation to men, without knowing what this evil preference for the female sex is due to. Despite this, it is convenient to remember that there are men with fibromyalgia, because sometimes its diagnosis is made more difficult by the same circumstance.