Fibromyalgia: Breaking the Pain Cycle
Each Patient Requires Individualized Treatment
There is no magic formula for treating fibromyalgia. It is an individualized disease and needs individualized treatment. “Treatments need to be tailored to the individual patients and physicians should assess comorbid symptoms at the time of diagnosis and recommend specific treatment,” Choy said. “Within the EULAR recommendations, there is a figure showing how clinicians should assess and manage patients with fibromyalgia.”
Most primary care doctors historically treat only the pain since pain is evident and something they can diagnosis. Prescribing pain medications seems to be the best way to manage fibromyalgia, but doctors are just creating another cycle. Medical practitioners often ignore the sleep, moods, depression, and fatigue that contributes to the pain of fibromyalgia. Studies show that it is important to understand a patient’s symptoms and treat those symptoms as well as the pain.
