Brain damage and Fibromyalgia: is there any connection between the two?
Fibromyalgia and the brain damage have a longstanding connection, as it has come back to the forefront of research to be the area of both disorders. There are a lot of articles written on the undetected brain injuries that are being misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia and patients suffering from fibromyalgia are often being misdiagnosed with brain damage. This gives a new path with a lot of questions about the diagnosis and treatment.
Previously, patients having fibromyalgia were told that fibromyalgia is nothing but it is “all in your head”. Now, strong evidences are there that this is true but not in the terms of psychology. Recent studies have shown some alterations to amygdala that qualify as organic brain damage in fibromyalgia sufferers. It is important to know about brain damage and all the kinds of brain injury that can cause it. Above all, it is also important to understand how misdiagnosis can be caused and how one condition creates the other.
What is brain damage?
Anything that disrupts the neurotransmitter function and neurochemical balance processes is brain damage. Brain damage may or may not provide proofs itself in cognition or motor control problems. Brain damage is considered to be as evident as control over a part of body or loss of speech and in the same way; it can be as elusive as losing control of adrenal glands in response to the infections. It is very hard to detect brain damage. 50% reliability is there in EEGs whereas, CAT/MRI scans do not take on all types of damage.
A neuro-psych evaluation is required by a neurologist. This evaluation is not a psychiatrist testing for checking mental illness, but instead, it a system of behavioral and cognition testing that can separate the functioning abilities of different areas of the brain for detecting potential imbalances, grey or white matter damage and other things that cannot be detected by scans and other tests. Just anything can result in brain injury.
As it is not easy to break the skull, the brain is not protected and may move quickly in the skull due to some motion or impact and starts to create bleeding or bruising that leads to brain damage. Chronic pain, medications, and infection can also result in brain damage.
Neurotransmitter deregulation
Neurotransmitter dysregulation is among the common types that result in brain damage and fibromyalgia combined. Apart from the fact that whether fibromyalgia or brain injury came first, the fact is that neurotransmitter issues can certainly create the other. Neurotransmitters are referred to as the process in which brain receives the messages and formulates the responses through some learned actions or biochemical reactions.
As we know that fibromyalgia is a syndrome whose disorder is present in the body, so it does make sense that there would be some dysregulation of neurotransmitters also that result in creating chronic pain, inflammation and various other collections of symptoms. The neurotransmitter dysregulation can be the first domino with a brain injury that falls in the body and creates a bunch of symptoms that leads to fibromyalgia.
Impact of chronic pain on the brain
Your brain can be damaged by chronic pain. The sympathetic nervous system is over-stimulated in addition to the brain that is covered in the positive neurochemicals that facilitate in alleviating pain. Due to which there can be an occurrence of increased risk of damage and disruption.
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In addition, there are long-term side effects of pain medications that can reduce the functioning and cognition, and try to make sure that the brain and the body are looked up is going to be useful in identifying. These tests are not required to be done frequently. You are able to identify the methods and treatments with each one, in helping to recover the quality of life more and more, so you need not suffer anymore.
Dealing with the cognition issues: Fibro-fog
Fibro-fog is there where the connection between fibromyalgia and brain damage becomes more obvious. Most of the people think about fibro fog that it is feeling in which you just can’t seem to wake up and it’s like you are walking in a fog. The neurotransmitters dysregulation can result in fibro-fog that is caused by fibromyalgia. Also, undetected brain damage can also be a cause of it. Unfortunately, the long-term experience of chronic pain and inflammation linked with fibromyalgia can result in its occurrence.
What to do?
You need to document any incident of your brain injury that you have faced in your life and talk to the doctor about it, and you should also notice carefully on all the fibromyalgia symptoms of yours. Keep this in mind that you need to write down everything; even those things aren’t related to fibromyalgia-like balance, hand tremors or memory. Those issues can be a part of problems present within the brain that may or may not be the reason of fibromyalgia.
Is you are also suffering from fibromyalgia; go for the second opinion of the neuro-psych too. The evaluations of the neuro-psych search for those issues in behavior and functioning that can highlight the areas of the brain that may be damaged.
Make sure everything has been looked up by a doctor
Fibromyalgia and brain damage are those issues that are much serious and mysterious as well. There are a lot of cases of brain injury in which the full extent may not be known for many years, or they can be detectable by tests. Brain injury can cause fibromyalgia, but there can be symptoms of it that are masked by the brain damage also. You should try hard with your doctor in finding the complete means of checking your symptoms and after checking them, the doctor cross-references them just to make sure that you are dealing with known issues. Changes in lifestyle can also help in alleviating the symptoms of brain damage and fibromyalgia.