Fibromyalgia: When the Immune System Attacks Itself

Fibromyalgia: When the Immune System Attacks Itself
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Introduction
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease that causes pain in the body and is also known as the fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Suffers of this disorder also experience fatigue and have elevated sensitivity to pain, headaches, memory loss, irritable bowels and in most cases muscles stiffness. Even though there are no known causes of fibromyalgia, the disorder is thought to be related to changes in the central nervous system and abnormality of chemicals in the brain. Genetic predisposition and environmental factors influence the pathogenesis of fibromyalgia. The conditions typically appear when one experiences stress in life. The disorder typically affects the way suffers feel pain sensations, and this depends on how the brain processes pain. Autoimmunity appears when the immune system attacks cells and tissues because the immune system cannot differentiate these and foreign microbes. This paper highlights on the causes, diagnosis, management and role of genetic biomarkers in influencing autoimmunity in fibromyalgia.
Causes
The factors that trigger fibromyalgia vary from person to person and some people are more susceptible to the condition. Viral infections, physical injuries, emotional distress and hormonal imbalances may trigger FMS. The condition typically exists through stimuli that are not painful but which may result to chronic widespread allodynia. Similarly, biologic abnormalities also increase susceptibility and any other factors including elevated spinal fluid levels. In most cases, allodynia of fibromyalgia emanates from sensitization of the central nervous system. FMS is not a disease, but rather a chronic pain condition that occurs as a response to stress. The opiod receptors are less responsive in comparison to those of healthy people and this could explain fibromyalgia respond to pain.
Assessment and diagnosis
One of the challenges in assessing FMS is that health practitioners’ lack awareness on the condition. Additionally, there is no agreement on the validity of the condition’s existence because there are few objective diagnostic tests (Jacobi, 2012). Nonetheless, patients with reported case of FMS typically have pain for a period not less than 3 months, and the pain is widespread from the waist down, legs, hands and both sides of the body, but in all cases there is axial skeletal pain. Physical tests through palpation should ease the evaluation process, and patients need to report the palpation as being painful (Gerwin, 2013). Physical exams and tests should ideally be the first step to diagnose whether a patient has an autoimmune disorder. At the same time, laboratory test should help to rule out other illnesses and conditions that have similar symptoms to avoid misdiagnosis.
Management and intervention
In order to best deal with FMS, there needs to be individualized therapy sessions for suffers. There is no single management or treatment solution that fits to all patients. Using therapy helps to manage symptoms while there is little focus on treatment as the condition is not curable. Managing FMS typically begins with diagnosis, and this seeks to reduce the prevalence of depressive symptoms present in FMS sufferers. Since the condition is multifactorial, integrating various strategies to achieve the best results. A combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, activities and sleep should be used simultaneously as there is no single intervention that works for all symptoms. In other words, the approach should encompass focusing on reducing pain, improving sleeping patterns and functional activity levels.
There are other techniques that may be helpful in managing FMS, whereby meditation has gained acceptance as one of the techniques that facilitates relaxation and hence eases the pain. Patients who result to using the technique typically have lower blood pressure, slower heart betas, better sleeping and experience less pain . Whether meditation is therapeutic or for religious purpose the idea behind using this technique is to relax thought. There is renewed energy because of relaxation and this eases feelings of distresses. Even though, the results may not be immediate, it is important have an open mind, but should ideally be done in the morning. Another technique that seeks to improve on relaxation is massage therapy, whereby this technique relaxes the body and slows down the heart beat.

FMS and genetic markers
Even though, there have been numerous studies on fibromyalgia, there are diverse interpretations and results from data on FMS patients. One of the likely explanations for divergences in clinical, endocrine and immunological data is the presence of genetic markers. Few studies have highlighted on the discrepancies on data collected ignoring the possible impact of genetic markers in the etiopathology (Carvalho et al., 2008). Genetic predisposition of susceptibility to FMS validates this claim because there is high aggregation of the condition in some families. Furthermore, polymorphisms of genes in catecholaminergic, serotoninergic and dopaminergic systems have a relation to fibromyalgia (Carvalho et al., 2008). The serotonin transporter is associated with regulation of serotoninergic activities in humans, which in turn influences serotonin uptake. Carvalho et al., 2008 point out that there studies which suggest that serotonin is associated with FMS. Thus, it is important to identity patients suffering from FMS because there are different responses to immunity because of genetic markers.
Autoimmunity
For some FMS suffers, the condition triggers autoimmunity where the immune system attacks the body’s tissue, where the body is unable to distinguish antigens from tissue. There are numerous hypotheses on the link between fibromyalgia and autoimmunity, with autoimmunity. One of the mechanisms through which there could be a link is through thyroid autoimmunity which can precipitate fibromyalgia. In essence, patients suffering from fibromyalgia typically have elevated levels of TPO antibodies (antithyroid peroxidase), but have significant changes in thyroglobulin antibodies (antithyro globulin). Besides this, the patients may also have higher levels of antipolymer antibody (O’Pry, 2012). Another way through which to determine immunity dysfunctions in patients with fibromyalgia is by comparing cytokine levels with healthy people. Cytokine regulate immune response, and fibromyalgia sufferers may have lower levels of cytokine levels in comparison to healthy people. However, there needs to be more studies to validate the link between cytokine and immunity dysfunctional fibromyalgia patients.
Conditions for fibromyalgia to manifest
For symptoms of fibromyalgia to manifest there could be bone misalignment in the skull/ Multiple subluxations in the spine or would be a result of a weak immune system resulting from other underlying disorders or conditions (Turner, 2000). When ...