MAKING MEMORIES AND SOBERING THOUGHTS FOR FIBROMITES

by Jeanne Hambleton © 2007 NFA Leader Against Pain-Advocate   I well remember how much I enjoyed Gene Kelly’s performance in the film “Singing in the Rain”. It made me feel so good, in spite of the bad weather, and between us, I really felt like being silly, running outside in the rain and singing [...]

Dear Editor,

This year we are helping to support the mission of the Arthritis Foundation by raising money and participating in the Arthritis Walk. Our team Looking Good is walking in honor of Nancy Clay, BSN RN. She has taught us through experience and expertise. In addition Nancy has brought resources and speakers to us to help [...]

Opioids for managing chronic non-malignant pain: safe and effective prescribing.

Kahan M, Srivastava A, Wilson L, Mailis-Gagnon A, Midmer D. Addiction Medical Service, St Joseph’s Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. kahanm@stjoe.on.ca OBJECTIVE: To review the evidence on safe and effective prescribing of opioids for chronic non-malignant pain. QUALITY OF EVIDENCE: MEDLINE was searched using the terms “opioid effectiveness” and “adverse effects.” There is strong evidence [...]

Prevalence of Interpersonal Abuse in Primary Care Patients Prescribed Opioids for Chronic Pain.

Balousek S, Plane MB, Fleming M. Department of Family Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA. BACKGROUND: Interpersonal abuse is associated with clinical problems including chronic pain disorders. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to describe 30-day and lifetime prevalence of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse found in [...]

SOUNDING OFF ABOUT FIBROMYALGIA AWARENESS WEEK

By Jeanne Hambleton© UK Fibromite I know I am always going on about raising awareness and fibromyalgia and this is especially important as far as the UK Government is concerned. Although we have E Petitions allegedly for the eyes of the Prime Minister, asking for support for various aspects of fibromyalgia, I have my doubts [...]

Publication trends in chronic fatigue syndrome: Comparisons with fibromyalgia and fatigue: 1995-2004.

Friedberg F, Sohl S, Schmeizer B. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Stony Brook University, NY, USA. OBJECTIVE: In order to identify publishing patterns in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), we compared the annual number of peer review articles for CFS, fibromyalgia (FM), and non-CFS fatigue over a recent decade (1995-2004). METHOD: Citations were drawn from [...]

Mouse genome will help identify causes of environmental disease

Research on the DNA of 15 mouse strains commonly used in biomedical studies is expected to help scientists determine the genes related to susceptibility to environmental disease. The body of data is now publicly available in a catalog of genetic variants, which displays the data as a mouse haplotype map, a tool that separates chromosomes [...]

Violence, stress, and somatic syndromes.

Crofford LJ. Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health, University of Kentucky. lcrofford@uky.edu. Syndromes characterized by pain, fatigue, mood disorder, cognitive dysfunction, and sleep disturbance have been referred to as stress-related somatic disorders by virtue of the observation that onset and exacerbation of symptoms occur with stress. These syndromes include but are not limited to [...]

EULAR evidence based recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia syndrome.

Carville SF, Arendt-Nielsen S, Bliddal H, Blotman F, Branco JC, Buskilla D, Da Silva JA, Danneskiold-Samsøe B, Dincer F, Henriksson C, Henriksson K, Kosek K, Longley K, McCarthy GM, Perrot S, Puszczewicz MJ, Sarzi-Puttini P, Silman A, Späth M, Choy EH. King’s College London, United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: To develop evidence based recommendations for the management [...]

Fibromyalgia: a rheumatologic diagnosis?

Endresen GK. Department of Rheumatology, The National Hospital Rikshospitalet, Forskningsvn. 2, Block B, 0027, Oslo, Norway, gerhard.endresen@rikshospitalet.no. Fibromyalgia (FM) is a medically unexplained or functional somatic syndrome (FSS). The two classification criteria are chronic widespread pain (CWP) and the finding of 11/18 tender points (TP). FM overlaps and co-occurs with other FSSs, and auxiliary symptoms [...]