Fibromyalgia Support Group
You're not alone in your pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose and manage. If you're trying to cope with pain throughout your body, sleep problems, general fatigue, or other common fibromyalgia symptoms, you're in the right place. The community is here for you to talk about therapies and share your challenges.
Reprinted with the kind permission of Cort Johnson.
A Workout Without Working (Much): Fibromyalgia Study Suggests Muscles Are Wired and Tired As Well: Implications for ME/CFS
A Workout Without Working (Much)
Feel like you just ran a mile after walking a block? Do your muscles feel tight and contracted? Hows your flexibility and coordination? If Im reading this right this fibromyalgia study might be able to help explain why these problems are occurring.
We recently saw a study which suggested that something as simple as mental stress tests (math test) or eating or other sympathetic nervous system activators can activate the back muscles of people with fibromyalgia. That study suggested FM patients' muscles could be in state of almost continual activation.
Now we look at the muscles of people with fibromyalgia under load; that is. when theyre being exercised.and find that much the same thing is occurring only magnified.
The Study
In this study people with fibromyalgia and healthy controls carried weights in their hand and then flexed their arms back and forth for 3-5 minutes while researchers measured the electrical activity used in their biceps.
Results
Endurance Normal; Everything else - Abbey- normal.
The study found that endurance in this short muscle test was normal but virtually every other test result was abnormal in the FM patients.
Wired and Tired Muscles as Well
One might have thought that strength and frequency of the electrical signals would have been reduced in these exertion-challenged FM patients but as so often happens, the opposite was true; the electrical signals in their muscles were, oddly enough, going bananas, putting them were into a hyper-active state.
Electrical signals trigger the muscle contractions we use to produce force but those signals should diminish in between the muscle contractions. They did in the healthy controls but not in the FM patients whose muscles were being constantly prodded to contract.
This didnt mean they were supermen or women in disguise; far from it the inability to turn their muscle activity off and allow them to rest suggested their muscles were chronically tensed, not strong. (Shades of the wired but tired problem in ME/CFS).
Several things can cause this kind of unremitting electrical activity but in this case it appeared that alterations in the muscle fiber membrane or sarcolemma were responsible. Unusual in cellular membranes which generally prefer to stay on the surface of the cell, the sarcolemma dives deep into the big muscle fiber cells where it transfers electric signals that tells them to contract. The muscle fiber membrane, then, plays a key role in energy production.
Muscle Arrythmias Anyone?
The authors believe this continued state of activation left the muscles in a state of something called afterdepolarization. Depolarization simply refers to a change in the electrical status of a membrane. If I have this right, the membrane should switch from positive to negative regularly allowing electrical currents (ions) to contract, relax, contract, relax, etc. the muscles. In a state of afterdepolarization a state of confusion reigns, interrupting that regular pattern of depolarization, leaving the membranes in a twitchy, unsettled state. In the heart muscle, afterdepolarization can cause tachycardia or arrythmias.
It just so happens that afterdepolarization causes the muscle membrane to send the contract message more easily. Whats causing this state of affairs? The authors didnt say but depolarization is a function of ion channel (Ca, K, Na, CL) activity and the autonomic nervous system may be involved as well.
Because the tests were done in muscle areas that did not have tender points they believed this pattern applies body-wide.
Conclusion
With your muscles in a continually contracted state every time you put them under load, it may be that you are running a marathon for every mile you walk. This study suggests that exercise may throw the muscles of people with FM into a state of confusion in which muscle rest breaks disappear leaving the muscles chronically activated (and in an arrythmic state?). Given the worsened exertional problems in ME/CFS, its possible the same or worse applies in that disorder.
The ongoing sympathetic nervous system activation, the possibly increased glutamate activity, the NK cell burnout, the inability to turn off attention to innocuous stimuli and now the ongoing electrical activity/muscle contraction in FM all suggest chronically activated systems play a role in this disorder.
Source: Health Rising, April 14, 2013. By Cort Johnson.
A Workout Without Working (Much): Fibromyalgia Study Suggests Muscles Are Wired and Tired As Well: Implications for ME/CFS
A Workout Without Working (Much)
Feel like you just ran a mile after walking a block? Do your muscles feel tight and contracted? Hows your flexibility and coordination? If Im reading this right this fibromyalgia study might be able to help explain why these problems are occurring.
We recently saw a study which suggested that something as simple as mental stress tests (math test) or eating or other sympathetic nervous system activators can activate the back muscles of people with fibromyalgia. That study suggested FM patients' muscles could be in state of almost continual activation.
Now we look at the muscles of people with fibromyalgia under load; that is. when theyre being exercised.and find that much the same thing is occurring only magnified.
The Study
In this study people with fibromyalgia and healthy controls carried weights in their hand and then flexed their arms back and forth for 3-5 minutes while researchers measured the electrical activity used in their biceps.
Results
Endurance Normal; Everything else - Abbey- normal.
The study found that endurance in this short muscle test was normal but virtually every other test result was abnormal in the FM patients.
Wired and Tired Muscles as Well
One might have thought that strength and frequency of the electrical signals would have been reduced in these exertion-challenged FM patients but as so often happens, the opposite was true; the electrical signals in their muscles were, oddly enough, going bananas, putting them were into a hyper-active state.
Electrical signals trigger the muscle contractions we use to produce force but those signals should diminish in between the muscle contractions. They did in the healthy controls but not in the FM patients whose muscles were being constantly prodded to contract.
This didnt mean they were supermen or women in disguise; far from it the inability to turn their muscle activity off and allow them to rest suggested their muscles were chronically tensed, not strong. (Shades of the wired but tired problem in ME/CFS).
Several things can cause this kind of unremitting electrical activity but in this case it appeared that alterations in the muscle fiber membrane or sarcolemma were responsible. Unusual in cellular membranes which generally prefer to stay on the surface of the cell, the sarcolemma dives deep into the big muscle fiber cells where it transfers electric signals that tells them to contract. The muscle fiber membrane, then, plays a key role in energy production.
Muscle Arrythmias Anyone?
The authors believe this continued state of activation left the muscles in a state of something called afterdepolarization. Depolarization simply refers to a change in the electrical status of a membrane. If I have this right, the membrane should switch from positive to negative regularly allowing electrical currents (ions) to contract, relax, contract, relax, etc. the muscles. In a state of afterdepolarization a state of confusion reigns, interrupting that regular pattern of depolarization, leaving the membranes in a twitchy, unsettled state. In the heart muscle, afterdepolarization can cause tachycardia or arrythmias.
It just so happens that afterdepolarization causes the muscle membrane to send the contract message more easily. Whats causing this state of affairs? The authors didnt say but depolarization is a function of ion channel (Ca, K, Na, CL) activity and the autonomic nervous system may be involved as well.
Because the tests were done in muscle areas that did not have tender points they believed this pattern applies body-wide.
Conclusion
With your muscles in a continually contracted state every time you put them under load, it may be that you are running a marathon for every mile you walk. This study suggests that exercise may throw the muscles of people with FM into a state of confusion in which muscle rest breaks disappear leaving the muscles chronically activated (and in an arrythmic state?). Given the worsened exertional problems in ME/CFS, its possible the same or worse applies in that disorder.
The ongoing sympathetic nervous system activation, the possibly increased glutamate activity, the NK cell burnout, the inability to turn off attention to innocuous stimuli and now the ongoing electrical activity/muscle contraction in FM all suggest chronically activated systems play a role in this disorder.
Source: Health Rising, April 14, 2013. By Cort Johnson.
There are days when walking to my mailbox or brushing my teeth or folding five towels will do me in for a part or all of that day.
This article helps to support my thinking about why fibro can put us in such pain so quickly.
That's for this post, Emily.
It's easy to say "Oh, if you are chroincally XYZ then ABC" but I guess I'm still a lab rat at heart...
That said, one doc I know suggests this is ALL (FM & CFS at least) from a problem in the function of our amygdala, whichi s key in the limbic system.... so everyone's got an idea....
Eh, y'all know me. I'm a skeptic. Been on this train too long to be anything else.