Warning: Controversy

Good morning! Fridays are day-long affairs for me at Disability physicals. I’m trying to squeeze a blog in between patients, so forgive me if my thoughts are a little discombobulated. My wife told me yesterday that my next blog should be a little more philosophical, since the last few entries have been more comic than serious in nature. So…I decided to listen to her, and write about something that we see quite a bit of here in disability land – Fibromyalgia. Oooooh boy, controversy here we come.

Fibromyalgia (FM), the redheaded step child of the chronic pain population. Nobody really knows what causes it…maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s obesity, maybe it’s eating too much Thai food. What we do know, however, is that the number of people diagnosed with FM seem to be on the rise, even though the criteria for diagnosis is foggy at best – subjective pain elicited by specific point compression. To make things more…concrete, there is a FM tender point sheet, with 18 tender points scattered over the body. To be diagnosed with FM, one must have 11 of those points “elicit pain with approximately 4 lbs of force applied.” Now, I know I have sensitive hands and everything, but can you really differentiate between 3 lbs and 5 lbs? Do I need to get a pressure-gauge thing like they use to measure the force of kinetic motion and strap it onto my hands before I test said points? I don’t know, maybe I’m over analyzing things, but it seems to me that if you push hard enough, people will say “ouch,” regardless of whether or not you have the disease.

Things get even foggier when we delve into the treatments for fibromyalgia. OTC pain relievers, topical pain reducers, and even narcotics are common therapies for the condition, all of which have questionable efficacy. Interestingly, new studies are coming out left and right revealing a decrease in symptoms with the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). In case you didn’t know, serotonin is a neuro-hormone that, among other things, produces a sense of “well-being” in the body. SSRIs work by increasing the amount of circulating serotonin, thereby making the patient feel happier…sounds like a great way to treat depression, right? That’s because Paxil, Prozac, Celexa and a slew of other anti-depressant medications are SSRIs. Why then, are we using SSRIs to treat fibromyalgia? Could there be a correlation between fibromyalgia and depression? This Disillusioned Doctor thinks so. My guess is that in a few years some study will come out that will show fibromyalgia to be a form of the “psychomotor aspect of depression” – an elusive symptom that is defined by, among other things, lowered pain threshold, muscle weakness and problems with coordination. Now, I’m not saying that all patients with fibromyalgia exhibit the above symptoms. What I am saying is that every one of the disability patients I’ve seen that lists Fibromyalgia as their main complaint also has depression somewhere in their medical history. Coincidence? I doubt it.

So, now that we’ve “defined” the disease, what do we do about it? Sure, we can keep prescribing pain pills and muscle relaxers, maybe even throw in a few SSRIs for good measure. My opinion is, however, that we’re not approaching this condition correctly. By calling it a disease, putting ads on the TV, and making medication that is “specifically for fibromyalgia” (which, amazingly, is just an SSRI), we as a medical community are giving teeth to something that should be listed as a symptom, and not the main cause of a problem. Fact: Depression lowers your pain threshold. Fact: The majority of medications used to treat FM can also be used to treat depression. Fact: The population that is at highest risk for FM is also at highest risk for depression. There are just too many coincidences here to ignore. We as physicians need to get to the heart of this matter, and really reevaluate the way we look at fibromyalgia as a whole. Is it something that exists totally by itself, or is it something that only occurs when other factors are present? In summation, are we just treating the symptoms (the muscle aches and pains) and forgetting about the actual disease? Only time will tell.

And now, for the disability quote(s) of the day:

Me: “So tell me about your seizures.”
Girl: “Well, I ain’t never seen them, but my boyfriend tells me I’m like ‘I’m shaking!’ Then I go ‘ooogh’ or something. Then the seizure is done.”
Me: “…so…how long do your seizures last?”
Girl: “Just as long as I can say ‘ooooogh.’”
Me: “Alrighty.”

Patient’s written response to the question, “Who can we call for further information about your condition?”

“You can call Gerry On the Hill. I don’t know her number, though.”

Have a good weekend,
-DD