Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common, generalized disorder usually but not always affecting a major part of the body and several of its functions. Due to multiple and often unspecific symptoms we should more correctly speak of the Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS).
The main symptoms of FMS are chronic and often severe pain in muscles and connective tissue in several parts of the body, which become sensitive to pressure and touch. Usually this pain is connected to chronic and severe sleeping disorders, which frequently result in debilitating fatigue and impaired concentration, which can finally lead to the picture of a full clinically manifest depression.
Other symptoms associated with FMS are stiffness of joints, difficulties with swallowing and/or breathing, bowel and bladder dysfunctions and numbness or tingling in extremities.
As of today the Fibromyalgia Syndrome is still a disputed disorder because there have not yet any laboratory tests, medical imaging studies or other objective means of clinical diagnosis been established. Researchers are still questioning whether Fibromyalgia Syndrome is primarily a musculoskeletal disease, a neuropsychiatry condition or a combination of both.
It could be proven that patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome would show changes in the central nervous system but again these changes could have their origin in physical as well as psychical causes.
Due to the above-mentioned lack of diagnostical standards it is now common practice to suspect Fibromyalgia Syndrome when a patient reacts painful if mild pressure is exerted on at least 11 out of 18 pressure points along the nervous tree of the body.
Sensitivity to mild pressure (tactile allodynia) on the connective tissue – we usually assume about 4 kg – seems to be always present in the clinical picture of the Fibromyalgia Syndrome patient.