Finally Clear Physical Diagnosis of Fibromyalgia Found

Finally Clear Physical Diagnosis of
Fibromyalgia Found
Fibromyalgia is a particularly difficult
condition to diagnose and treat. You
have to, because its symptoms overlap
with the symptoms of conditions like
osteoporosis, arthritis, chronic fatigue
syndrome and even major depression.
It is characterized by chronic muscular
and/or musculoskeletal pain accompanied by stiffness and tenderness
at a variety of places on the body. Chronic fatigue, poor sleep, and
exaggerated pain responses are other symptoms.
However, diagnosis is complicated by the fact that different sufferers
display different symptoms. In addition, until now, there has not been
any measurable method to diagnose fibromyalgia clearly.
However, scientists from the University of Colorado in Boulder have
finally come with a simple, cheap method to diagnose Fibromyalgia
with 94% accuracy.
They used what has called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan
(FMRI) to study 72 subjects and published their results in the journal
Pain.
Of the participants, 37 suffered from fibromyalgia and 35 did not.
From previous studies, they borrowed the possibility that people with
fibromyalgia had different brain responses to stimuli than healthy
people did.
They guided their participants through a range of non-painful and
painful tactile pressures, visual stimuli, and auditory cues.
They simultaneously measured their brain responses via FMRI scans,
identifying neurological markers that coincided with the
hypersensitivity to pain that people with fibromyalgia experience.
By examining people’s neurological responses to stimuli directly, they
could diagnose fibromyalgia with 92 percent sensitivity and 94 percent
specificity.
Sensitivity refers to a diagnostic tool’s ability to exclude similar but
different conditions from the diagnosis. In this case, it rules out
osteoporosis, arthritis, and the like with 92 percent accuracy.
Specificity is the ability of a diagnostic tool to include the right
condition in the diagnosis. In this case, it identifies 94 percent of
fibromyalgia sufferers as having fibromyalgia.
These percentages are among the highest that diagnostic tools can
achieve.
However, diagnosing fibromyalgia is only the first piece of the puzzle.
You also have to cure it.
In addition, that is where another major discovery comes in that
completely heals almost everyone suffering fibromyalgia. Read on
here…