Fibromyalgia Research

An illness like fibromyalgia, which was not officially recognised as a named condition before 1986 is still a subject of much debate in some medical quarters and a contested condition in others. Over the last few years there has been a lot more fibromyalgia research that has tried to pinpoint the causes of the illness and what constitutes best practice in its treatment.

Certainly research into the condition known as fibromyalgia has highlighted the fact that the condition may, in some respects, be regarded as genetic and associated with disorders of the central nervous system. Research has also found that more women than men are likely to suffer from the condition.

Some researchers have found that fibromyalgia has been found to affect around 20% of the general population. In some cases the condition is thought to be rooted in childhood but generally the onset is anywhere between the ages of twenty and fifty.

Although the causes of fibromyalgia are still unclear it has been an object of study for the last two hundred years or so and was originally referred to as fibrositis ? in some areas it is still referred to as this because it is seen as a particular form of rheumatism. However, the over the years it has been observed that the condition is far more complex than researchers may have thought.



There has been considerable fibromyalgia research and this is largely due to the search for an identifiable cause that would make the condition much easier to diagnose. The term fibromyalgia was developed in 1976 in an attempt to name is at a condition that was characterised by particular sets of diverse symptoms. In 1990 the American College of Rheumatology established a certain set of criteria for diagnosing fibromyalgia.

As among the physicians so it is among the researchers who cannot seem to agree whether it is possible to diagnose fibromyalgia when there is little pathological evidence and that the criteria for the symptoms is not well understood in either field. Some researchers suggest that existing classifications of fibromyalgia indicate that the condition could be the result of several different diseases that have one or two things in common. On the other hand some evidence has been understood in such a way as to suggest that there are a number of sub types of fibromyalgia, as there are in epilepsy and schizophrenia. All of which tends to indicate that fibromyalgia research is a rather subjective process.