FMS Online survey reveals other symptoms

[Guest guest]

AFFTER’s on-line

study last year revealed common symptoms of fibromyalgia other than pain and

fatigue. (You can view this and

other related abstract on our website at: http://www.affter.org/research.htm.) Our studies got the attention of the

Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research Training Center (MARRTC). http://marrtc.missouri.edu/about/mission.html.

Their mission statement:

* Established in 1971 at the MU Arthritis Center,

the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (MARRTC) is

the only federally

funded arthritis

rehabilitation research and training center in the country. As

part of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department at the

University of Missouri,

MARRTC’s mission is to become a national leader in the area of disability

management, improve the quality of life and

promote

independent living among people with arthritis and arthritic conditions.

One of the members

of their research and reporting team contacted me for

more an interview for information about AFFTER’s research, which resulted

in the publication of the article below.

Another article from them that you might have already seen is also on their

website:

ADHD, Depression and Fibromyalgia

http://marrtc.missouri.edu/media/stories/060411fibroADHD.html

They are doing

good work for those of us with Fibromyalgia!

Shari Ferbert

www.AFFTER.org

If

you cant read the text below, you can read the article from their website at this link: http://marrtc.missouri.edu/media/stories/080528fibro2.html

Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation

Research and Training

Center

Woelfel

Senior Information Specialist

(573) 882-2914

woelfelr

@missouri.edu

Index of News Releases

Fibromyalgia:

Online Survey Reveals Other Symptoms

http://marrtc.missouri.edu/media/stories/080528fibro2.html

By

Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff

Results

from an Internet survey have found that people with fibromyalgia are often

affected by other symptoms besides pain and fatigue. Many

people with this chronic disease report sensitivity to light, anxiety, and

problems with balance and memory.

Almost

500 people with fibromyalgia and 100 people without the disease took part in

an online study. The data were collected by the

non-profit fibromyalgia advocacy group, Advocates for Fibromyalgia Funding,

Treatment, Education and Research or AFFTER, and analyzed by researchers at Chicago's Rush

University. The investigators found that people with fibromyalgia

were more likely to report 20 of the 49 symptoms that were asked about in the

study. People with the disease were more than four

times as likely to report sensitivity to light, dizzy spells, problems with

balance, night sweats, and vision problems than people without fibromyalgia. Other symptoms that were commonly reported included

difficulties with memory, chronic sore throat, sensitivity to medication,

hives and skin sensitivity, and trouble swallowing.

Muhammad

Yunus, a rheumatologist and professor of medicine at the University of

Illinois and co-chair of AFFTER's medical advisory committee, says that based

on his research, people with fibromyalgia have extremely sensitive central

nervous systems that make them hypersensitive. Sharon

Ferbert, founder of AFFTER, says people with fibromyalgia are often made to

feel like hypochondriacs and their complaints are dismissed when they

describe their symptoms to their healthcare professionals. " Even

if there is nothing they can do for all these other symptoms they need to be

taken seriously, " she says.

Katz, a rheumatologist at Rush

University and the

principal investigator of the study, says the problem is that fibromyalgia

symptoms often look like other diseases, which makes it hard to diagnose. " I think a lot of (fibromyalgia cases) aren't

diagnosed because (healthcare professionals) aren't comfortable with making

the diagnoses, " he says. Since there are no

medical tests that can help diagnose fibromyalgia, Katz says healthcare

professionals usually look for chronic bodily pain and tenderness as key

symptoms when diagnosing a person with the disease. Katz

works with fellow rheumatologists to improve the diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

Through

their web site www.AFFTER.ORG , Ferbert's

organization has collected information from people with fibromyalgia from

around the world and is working with researchers from Rush University

to find out more about the disease.

This article is the second in a two-part series about

online survey research from the Advocates for Fibromyalgia Funding, Treatment

Education and Research or AFFTER, and Rush

University in Chicago.