“The good news is that many therapies can ease this type of muscle pain, and for the most part, their side effects are minimal. Various movement therapies and nourishing supplements may reduce chances that trigger points will develop in the first place. Consider trying out a variety of the alternative treatment options described below, based on your needs.” Fabulous reference for non-drug options!
Nondrug, Trigger Point and Alternative Fibromyalgia Treatment.
Meditation (Photo credit: holisticgeek)
I am about to go to the second class of my Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. In the summer I wrote several posts on reading the Mindfulness Solution to Pain and practicing meditations described in the book. Mindfulness involves “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment”, as defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the MBSR program. I also posted on research showing how effective mindfulness practice is for chronic pain.
I have really enjoyed doing the assigned “homework” from the first class. The first part was to do a 30 minute body scan from the course CD. (A body scan meditation involves paying attention to different parts of your body for a few moments and observing the sensations you feel). This is the longest meditation I’ve ever done. The practices I have done before were breath meditations, usually only for a max time of 20 minutes. I really like the body scan because I am able to really focus and feel more in touch with what’s going on in my body. I feel like my mind wanders less then when I am doing breath meditation (focusing on your breath). It is very relaxing to have a break from your mind!
Of course, I’m not always in such a good mood when I go to meditate. Before I was meditating when I felt like it, which was usually when I already felt relaxed or calm. The idea of the MBSR program is that you commit to practice seven days a week for eight weeks – as Jon Kabat-Zinn says “you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it”. It sounds a little bit rigid but it’s really important while you are trying to establish meditation has a habit. When you go to practice and you realize you are stressed, agitated, and your mind is wandering everywhere, focusing can seem like the last thing you want to. But that’s when you realize how helpful mindfulness can be! It doesn’t necessarily produce calm every time. It does give you a chance to observe what is going on inside your head. Usually that helps me to figure out a more helpful way of dealing with things then spazzing out, or to recognize stressful patterns of thinking.
One thing I do have to keep working on is not to judge myself when I realized my mind has wandered off or I’m not feeling calmer/better after meditating. As the facilitator of my class says “if you have a mind, it’s going to wander”. You really can’t get into mindfulness with expectations about what it “should” do for you.
The other part of our homework was to try to eat mindfully at least once everyday. It’s really nice to realize how many sensations and moments are available to you if you stop to enjoy them. I love food, cooking and eating. When you realize how many times you just wolf down delicious meals… I always feel like my life is so limited now that I have fibromyalgia, so I think it’s really good for me to realize how much I do have around me to enjoy!
The first part of my natural treatment protocol for FM was focused on healing my digestive tract (which I described in a previous post). The second phase is to begin incorporating d-ribose.
D-ribose is a sugar produced in the body and taken to alleviate fatigue and pain in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s what the research says about this supplement.
The biggest advocate for d-ribose is Dr. Teitelbaum, a prominent doctor in the field of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia medicine. He has developed a program for treating both conditions which includes d-ribose as a core component. Dr. Teitelbaum contends that CFS/FMS is caused by an “energy crisis” in the body, leading to a cascade of different symptoms like fatigue, pain, sleep disturbance, among others. One root cause of the energy problem, he argues, is that the ability of the mitochondria in your cells to generate energy is suppressed. Mitochondria produce the energy, called ATP, used by your cells to carry out all their functions. D-ribose is essential to the production of ATP. Therefore, taking additional D-ribose should help to support mitochondrial function and improve energy output in fatigued patients. (If you are interested in learning more, check out a much longer discussion found on Dr. Teitelbaum’s website here).
The evidence? Dr. Teitelbaum has authored a few pilot studies that have demonstrated some promising results. The most recent study was an open-label study published in 2012. In this multicenter study, 257 patients diagnosed with CFS/FMS were given d-ribose (5 g three times daily for three weeks). Patient symptoms were assessed in terms of subjective change in energy, sleep quality, mental clarity, pain level, and global sense of well-being, and compared to their pre-study baseline. Significant improvements were found; specifically a 61.3% increase in energy, 37% increase in general well-being, 29% improvement in sleep, 30% improvement in mental clarity, 15.6% decrease in pain.
Sounds great, right? There are some limitations to the study. First of all, there was no placebo group so we don’t have a sense of how much a placebo effect might have impacted the results. Secondly, it was quite a short study so long term effects were not captured in the results. Third, I always feel a bit suspicious of studies that lump chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia together because a lot of recent research has demonstrated different causes for the two conditions and mixing them together might conflate the results.
Personally, I have found D-ribose a helpful aid to improving my energy. I would say that it improves my energy by 15-20%. I take 5mg in the morning, and sometimes an additional 5mg in the afternoon. When I stopped taking it, I noticed a worsening of my afternoon brain fog and fatigue. I didn’t notice a worsening of pain or sleep however. I also appreciate that it is easy to take – just mix a spoonful with a glass of swater- instead of yet another pill. It is also relatively inexpensive.
As with everything fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue related, it is an individual experience, so you have to try it for yourself. In the case of d-ribose, I think it is definitely worth a try!
Check out other great posts on the Fibro Friday Linkup!
References
Teitelbaum JE, et al. “Treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia with D-ribose – An open-label, multicenter study.” The Open Pain Journal. 2012, 5,32-37
I’ve just started a new naturopathic protocol, focusing on healing my digestive tract.My naturopath wants to start with the digestive tract for a couple of reasons. First of all, my IBS and pelvic pain symptoms suggest that my G.I. tract is inflamed. One cause of digestive problems is “leaky gut syndrome” – a colourful name for a condition in which the the digestive lining becomes too permeable, or “leaky”, allowing partially digested proteins and harmful substances/microbes into the bloodstream. These foreign particles are attacked by white blood cells, causing inflammation and overtaxing the immune system. Inflammation like this can prevent absorption of necessary nutrients and energy, which can in turn aggravate chronic illness symptoms. This might also affect my ability to absorb other supplements that I need, so it seems like a good place to start.
Secondly, the digestive tract is a critical part of the immune system. Inflammation, microflora (bacteria and other microbes) imbalance, and yeast overgrowth are probably all issues that I need to address. Having my immune system all tied up addressing these problems could be significantly impairing my body’s ability to function in other ways. Fatigue, pain, poor tissue repair, susceptibility to infection and other fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue symptoms can be aggravated by immune dysfunction. Freeing up my immune system from dealing with digestive inflammation and microbe imbalance could enable healing and re-energizing down the line. Here I want to share research on supplements that can help heal the digestive tract lining – an important step to help manage fibromyalgia symptoms. If you are interested in additional steps, I’ve written about the benefits of Probiotics and Fibro in a separate post and avoiding foods that you are sensitive to, based on food sensitivity testing and/or an elimination diet.
These ingredients are all included in a supplement called Metagenics Glutagenics. My dose is 1/4 teaspoon two times daily (of powder mixed into water).
*http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/glutamine
**http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-chen-md/dgl-supplements_b_2976260.html
***http://www.crohns.net/Miva/education/aboutaloe.shtml
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/features/leaky-gut-syndrome
Skillfully Well & Painfully Aware 