Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome

This article will explore our current understanding of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) from both traditional and alternative perspectives, and will offer management options that can substantially improve treatment outcomes of patients suffering from this insidious condition. Understanding FMS is a tall order because there are so many possible causes for it, and because it can involve so many systems of the body. There is usually a dysfunction in the regulation of the central nervous, immunologic, and endocrine systems that is superimposed upon the malfunction of many organs. To make a long story short, however, conventional medicine does not understand either the etiology or the pathophysiology of this disease well enough to cure, or even manage it satisfactorily. Consequently, physicians and patients alike have experienced continuing frustration resulting from the typically poor treatment outcomes, as well as from the enormous economic burden incurred by ongoing medical costs and lost income. Even the insurance industry has been severely challenged by the mighty costs generated by this disease. This predicament has created the need to conceptualize a new approach that can provide a better management of the malhomeostasis (the body's physiologic adjustment to metabolic abnormalities) that results from FMS, and causes its associated symptoms. This has been done! A new paradigm of natural healing has emerged that is based on supporting the innate healing capacity of the body, and relies on nutrition and natural therapies as its major tools. Unfortunately, conventional medicine has not yet acknowledged this paradigm. This new “natural healing” paradigm is based on what is called a “process oriented approach” (POA) to managing disease. The objective of the POA is to create a healthier homeostasis by identifying and correcting metabolic imbalances, and in responding to the specific increased metabolic needs created by the disease process. While symptoms are often addressed by interventions that address the “disease process” itself to effect a cure, the main goal is to initiate the innate wisdom of the body to heal itself thus allowing it to restore a more functional homeostasis, which can then manifest the healing process. Much of the basis for this concept is developed from the premise that if all your cells are healthy and functioning perfectly, how can you be sick. Each individual human cell is analogous to a microscopic industrial plant. Without an adequate supply of appropriate raw materials, it cannot be expected to manufacture all of its products properly. Similarly, if it is supplied with the wrong raw materials, it will be unable to produce a product that is perfect. Put simply, we must consume all the nutrients (food) that our cells require, and avoid those that are not needed (and potentially toxic), if our cells are to manufacture everything required for perfect function. (Saputo 1998). The Science