Fibromyalgia is, at its basis, a neurological condition causing the patient to experience chronic pain affecting the entire body that may “jump” from area to area, along with severe, chronic fatigue, and a laundry list of other symptoms individual to each patient.
More than a collection of “mysterious symptoms”, fibromyalgia is a signal from the body that something much deeper is out of balance. Fibromyalgia, at its core, is a global failure (or dysregulation) of the central nervous system.
Additionally, when a fibromyalgia patient’s nervous system is not functioning correctly, it also negatively affects the immune system. Clear links have been established between the nervous system and the immune system. There is ongoing communication between the “soldiers” or cells involved in the immune response and the nervous system. The chemicals that convey messages among nerve cells also communicate with the cells of the immune system. If the nervous system is disorganized, the immune system becomes confused and cannot tell the non-self from the self.
Our immune system is like a complex army of special cells that act like soldiers. Together with our organs, it defends the body from germs, viruses, and other foreign invaders. As with any army, it is vitally important that your immune system be able to tell the enemy from its own soldiers—the self from the non-self. In autoimmune conditions, the body has lost this ability. When this happens, the body makes antibodies that turn on it with deadly precision and mistakenly attack normal cells. At the same time, special cells called regulatory T-cells (the army majors) fail to do their job of keeping the immune system in line. The result is a misguided and very devastating attack on your own body. This causes the damage we know as autoimmune disease. The body parts that are affected depend on the type of autoimmune disease. There are more than eighty known types of autoimmune conditions and diseases.
While fibromyalgia is not classified as an autoimmune condition, patients who suffer from fibromyalgia will often develop autoimmune conditions such as
Dr. Katinka believes that all patients suffering from fibromyalgia should be routinely screened for autoimmune conditions.
The fact that their nervous systems are essentially not communicating with their immune systems makes them much more vulnerable to these conditions.
Start your patient journey with the Spero Clinic's neurologic rehabilitation program.
