Rehabilitative Therapies for Your Fibromyalgia

Does Fibromyalgia interfere with your daily life? Fibromyalgia is a disease that affects the muscles and soft tissues of the body, causing symptoms such as fatigue, muscle pain and tender points. There are many unknowns about this disease, but physical, emotional and chemical stress all seem to be factors that cause it. Symptoms can be far reaching such as insomnia, abdominal pain, chronic headaches, numbness or tingling, hypersensitivity to cold and heat and more. Fibromyalgia is one of the most common chronic pain conditions and affects about 3-6% of the world’s population. Many don’t know the benefits that rehabilitative therapies can give them in treatingthis disease. Fortunately for you, we provide therapeutic massage, myofascial release therapy, trigger point therapy and cold laser therapy all designed to treat and even reverse your symptoms non-invasively and naturally. Call our Texas Spine & Sports Therapy Center today to learn more about our rehabilitative therapies and get on the road to recovery!

By the Numbers

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition and is usually in the same pain range as arthritis. As we said, it affects about 3-6% of the world’s population, which equates to about 10 million people that have been diagnosed thus far. The interesting fact about Fibromyalgia is that it tends to target women more than men. In fact, anywhere between 75-90% of Fibromyalgia sufferers are women. Women are 10x as likely to get it than men are. Men and even children—yes children—can be diagnosed with this chronic pain condition. According to the National Fibromyalgia Association, by age 80, about 8% of adults have this disease or pain that is on the same level. The long name of Fibromyalgia comes from several words: Latin “fibro” meaning tissue, Greek “myo” which means muscle, and Greek “algia”, which means pain. So the literal translation is “pain of the muscle tissue”. This condition differs significantly from arthritis, as arthritis deals with the joints of the body. Fibromyalgia deals with the muscles.

What Does Fibromyalgia Do?

This neurological condition can be caused by damage or trauma to the brain stem, which interferes with the signals your brain sends to different parts of the body. In a healthy body, the brain will send signals through 3 different parts of the brain stem telling the body what to do. For Fibromyalgia sufferers, the brainstem is not firing the impulses it should to different areas of the body, causing you to ache everywhere.  This disease affects the muscles and soft tissues of the body, causing symptoms such as fatigue, tender points and especially muscle pain. It can cause swelling, sleep disturbances, mood changes and depression as well. How does this trauma occur? There are many unknowns about Fibromyalgia, but physical, emotional and chemical stress all seem to be factors that cause it.

Stress is the determining factor of this disease, whether that be physical stress from injuries, falls and bruises, or emotional stress from finances, work, abuse and relationships, and even chemical stresses from alcohol, tobacco and a sugar/junk food diet. The stress of all of these factors or even one of these will cause the brain to not fire synapses properly or to not fire at all, which causes the symptoms. Luckily, Fibromyalgia symptoms are treatable AND reversible.

Rehabilitative Therapies 

To treat and reverse your symptoms, you must receive proper professional help. We have a special treatment called Cold Laser Therapy that we provide our patients. The Journal of Clinical Laser Medicine and Surgery reported that of the hundreds of Fibromyalgia patients that participated in cold laser therapy treatment, more than 2/3 experienced improvement in their pain and symptoms. We know that this treatment works on our patients. We also provide the following:

• Massage Therapy – As Fibromyalgia attacks the muscles, we of course work with the muscles and soft tissues of the body to relax muscles, release knots and alleviate deep muscle pain. Simply relieving tension in the body relieves stress, which is one of the main causes of Fibromyalgia.
• Myofascial Release Therapy –  This is much like massage therapy, but works on a broader range of muscles (even small ones) to soften and stretch and realign connective tissues.
• Trigger Point Therapy – Works to alleviate knots in the body and break up tension in the muscle fibers that generally cause neuropathic symptoms.
• Oxygen therapy – Used to provide extra fuel to your brain and nervous system. Oxygen coupled with glucose makes your brain function better, helping the body to heal faster through proper and more frequent firing of the brain.
• Brain-Based Therapy – A series of treatments such as vibration therapy, light therapy, spinal decompression and interactive metronome all designed to increase brain synapse firing through light, vibrations, proper body alignment and visual, auditory and motor stimulation to the brain. Treating and healing the brain is essentially treating and healing the body.

At Texas Spine & Sports Therapy Center, we provide specific custom-made plans to help relieve your symptoms and reverse the effects of Fibromyalgia. Each patient is unique with their healing, so you will experience a one-on-one approach to combating your pain for good. To learn more about our many Fibromyalgia treatments, call our office today at (512) 806-0015 for your free consultation!