Context

Fybromialgia is a chronic illness, which means it is lifelong. It causes fatigue, muscle pain, sleep problems and cognitive difficulties.

There isn't an exact number of how many people have fibromyalgia in the world. However, about 2-4% of people have it. The majority (80-90%) are women. In Spain, 2.45% of people have fibromyalgia. It's usually detected between the ages of 30 and 50.

Fibromyalgia continues to be an unexplored disease because it doesn't have a clear cause, as it's related to the nervous system and not to something like a wound or an infection. In addition, there is no specific medical test to detect the disease. It's based on the patient's symptoms. Depending on the person, the symptoms vary and for this reason it's also difficult to find a specific problem and treatments for everyone. Another reason why it continues to be unexplored is that in the past it was not given the correct attention, as people said that patients were exaggerating, and the fact that most of them were girls meant that they received less attention. Finally, the pain in this disease is subjective, this means it cannot be measured with numbers.

Why Do Humans Explore It?

Humans are still exploring fibromyalgia because it's a complex chronic illness. It is horrible because people who have it feel pain every day. Moreover, it's difficult to detect because it's invisible and it still does not have a specific cause explaining why it happens. Although there has been progress, they have discovered that it's more like a pain-processing disorder, not something imaginary. Finally, scientists and doctors cannot study it so easily, and it requires a lot of money and time to find out why it occurs.

Journey

The way to move forward in the study of fibromyalgia is to research the nervous system, do genetic studies and study medicines adapted to each person.

Challenges

Fibromyalgia isn't in any specific place or area. There is also no specific test or diagnosis to detect it, because the pain is different for each person.

Risks

The main risks and challenges are diagnosing the disease late or incorrectly (because there is still no specific test). Also, there are solutions that help some people, but not others. Another big challenge is that quality of life is negatively affected because of the disease. Finally, since it isn't a deadly disease, there is no financial support to research it.

PREDICTIONS

What researchers will be doing the most is this:

On the one hand, they will be studying the brain and the nervous system using MRI scans. They will be controlling pain sensitivity, which will be making the body feel more pain than normal.
On the other hand, they will be looking for biological causes and not only psychological ones.
In addition, they will be testing new treatments because it's a disease with subjective symptoms. They will be listening more to patients to give more importance to individual experiences.
Finally, they will be investigating why patients will not be resting very well.

PREDICTIONS

In the future, what is expected to have been discovered is the following:

They will have discovered the exact cause of the disease or an explanation that answers patients’ questions.
They will have discovered why some people suffer from it and others do not.
They will have given more importance to the fact that patients can sleep well.
In addition, they will have discovered and created effective and personalized treatments for specific symptoms.
Finally, they will have made sure that the disease is not minimized and is understood at a social and professional level (by doctors).

Page updated

Report abuse