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The Fibromyalgia Community Newsletter # 6 Friday, 01/11/2002
http://www.fibrom-l.org or
http://www.fmscommunity.org
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This week's News Summary:
1) Article: The Patient Registry at the Fibromyalgia Resource Center
2) Research: Modern Antidepressants Are Created Equal
3) Advocacy: Advocacy Project 2002: Forget Me Knots
4) Website: Memory Dysfunction in Fibromyalgia
5) Website: Help With Your Medications
6) Research: Long-Term follow-up on restless legs syndrome patients treated with
opioids.
7) Article: Pain, the Disease
8) Research : Quantitative sensory testing in fibromyalgia patients and in
healthy subjects: identification of subgroups
9) Research: Predictions and associations of fatigue syndromes and mood
disorders that occur after infectious mononucleosis.
10) Research: Chronic fatigue and anxiety/depression: a twin study.
11) Research: Neurobehavioral deficits associated with chronic fatigue syndrome
in veterans with Gulf War unexplained illnesses
12) Research: Is pain-related fear a predictor of somatosensory hypervigilance
in chronic low back pain patients?
13) Research: CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS: A Time to Rest: Clock Signal Identified
14) Article: Male Menopause and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
15) Research: Protein that controls bad pain found
16) Article: Heart Attack or Panic?
17) Article: Bruxism and Stress
18) Article: Allergy Cookbooks
19) Article: Writing Ergonomically
20) Research: Periodic Limb Movement in Juvenile Fibromyalgia
21) Website: FibroDoc
22) Website: Site for Men with Fibromyalgia
23) Notice: Winter CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Self-Help Courses Announced
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Note: Full Stories on most articles are available via web links
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1)
The Patient Registry at the Fibromyalgia Resource Center
The Fibromyalgia Resource Center at
http://www.FMSresource.com, is a website providing information about
Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) treatment and research, is now available online.
Cypress Bioscience, Inc. is funding the site.
The medical content on the site was developed in conjunction with the Georgetown
University Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and provides an overview of
FMS pathophysiology and treatment. Also available on the site are updates
regarding news and events, FMS clinical research, and a directory that allows
patients to locate an FMS physician. Included in the directory are physicians
who have expressed an interest in treating new FMS patients and participating in
FMS research.
FMS patients visiting the site have the opportunity to join the FMS Patient
Registry — a research program with a goal of understanding the various factors
associated with FMS and as a result contributing to research efforts to develop
better diagnostic and therapeutic tools. FMS patients participating in Cypress'
FMS Genomics Research program, a study of the links between genetics and FMS,
can also visit the site to provide their medical history data.
The FMS Advisory Board is chaired by Daniel J. Clauw, MD, Director of the
Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at Georgetown University Medical
Center, and includes many prominent researchers whose names are familiar to FMS
patients.
To Join The Patient Registry and complete the patient survey, which is the most
comprehensive questionnaire we've seen regarding FMS, its symptoms, treatment
options, and potential genetic links, go to:
http://www.fmsresource.com
[AOL: <a href="http://www.fmsresource.com">The Patient Registry at the
Fibromyalgia Resource Center</a>]
***********************
2)
Modern Antidepressants Are Created Equal
by: Adam Marcus HealthScoutNews Reporter
http://www.acurian.com/patient/content/detail.jspid=0900744b8001617a&cd=NEWS&camp=mlnews.html
(Note: If this line wraps, copy and paste each line into your browser)
[AOL: <a href="http://www.acurian.com/patient/content/detail.jspid=0900744b8001617a&c
d=NEWS&camp=mlnewshtml">Modern Antidepressants Are Created Equal</a>]
Drug makers would like patients to believe that their choice of an
antidepressant makes a big difference in how well they'll pull out of the blues.
But a new study designed to simulate everyday medical practice shows that, on
average, three of the most popular mood drugs perform equally well in easing
adult depression.
Such parity has important implications for health care financing, experts say,
because generic versions of these medications may be much less expensive than
their branded siblings.
The study focused on 573 adults treated for depression at more than three dozen
primary care sites in the United States. Of those, 189 were initially given
paroxetine, 193 took fluoxetine, and 191 received sertraline, but they were
allowed to switch if they had bad reactions or didn't respond to the drugs.
The three pills are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI's),
because they lift mood by boosting brain levels of the messenger molecule
serotonin. Paroxetine is sold as Paxil by GlaxoSmithKline, sertraline is
marketed as Zoloft by Pfizer, and fluoxetine is the generic name for Prozac,
made by Eli Lilly, which funded the work. (Prozac recently lost its patent
protection, and a generic version is available for that drug but not for the
other two.)
"There's often a belief that drugs in the same class are likely to be similar.
But there are often few head-on-head studies" of drugs within the same class,
says Dr. Kurt Kroenke, a professor of medicine at Indiana University School of
Medicine in Indianapolis and lead author of the study, which appears in the Dec.
19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Kroenke's research team evaluated the three groups over the next nine months,
rating their symptoms of depression on a standard scale. They also assessed each
individual's ability to function at work and with family and friends, and looked
at such factors as sexual performance, pain, sleeping habits and memory.
By the ninth month, the adults in all three groups had gained between 15 and
17 points, on average, on the mood scale, a significant increase but an
insignificant range, the researchers say. At the same time, the number of those
who suffered serious side effects, like sexual dysfunction, or switched drugs or
dropped off the medication was equal in all three groups.
Overall, about a fifth of the adults switched drugs at least once, and by the
end of the study about half were still taking an antidepressant. More than
two-thirds showed some improvement, and about 80 percent reported being
satisfied with treatment, a percentage that didn't depend on what drug was used.
Most of the results weren't surprising, says Kroenke, who is also a scientist at
Indianapolis' Regenstrief Institute for Healthcare.
But the researchers did show that the adults responded equally to the three
drugs regardless of whether they had signs of anxiety before starting the pills,
which is a factor generally thought to influence progress with certain SSRI's.
The findings are likely to encourage health insurance plans that urge doctors to
prescribe the cheapest antidepressants.
"This study tells us. . .what we can expect if people take one of these three
medications: On average, in the end you'll come out in the same place," says Dr.
Gregory Simon, an investigator at the Center for Health Studies. The
Seattle-based center is the research arm of Group Health Cooperative, a pre-paid
health plan in Washington State.
But that doesn't mean the three drugs are identical, he adds.
Simon, who wrote an editorial accompanying the journal article, says that a
small fraction of people -- 10 percent to 15 percent -- who use the compounds
are taking other medications that can react with the antidepressants in curious
and possibly harmful ways. And genetic variation is another important, and
poorly understood, factor in how well patients will respond to SSRI's both as a
group and individually, he adds.
Ultimately, Simon says, the study doesn't argue that everyone with depression
should take generic Prozac.
"But the outcomes appear to be on average the same, so it is reasonable for
someone to recommend the least expensive option. How much the drugs cost is a
temporary phenomenon and may vary from place to place. It is probably true that
generics will be cheaper," he says, "but it isn't necessarily true all of the
time."
Both Simon and Kroenke have received funding from Eli Lilly.
***********************
3)
Advocacy Project 2002: Forget Me Knots
Last year CHARGE and NYSN* produced Advocacy Project 2001: Changing Scenes
http://chargeinc.org/ap2001/cover.html, a booklet that reflected the
life-changing effects of fibromyalgia syndrome, chronic fatigue immune
dysfunction syndrome and related disorders, to communicate the complexity of
these illnesses and the way our lives have been changed to the public. (To
receive a copy please send four 34 cent stamps and your address to CHARGE, PO
Box 1085, Pearl River, NY 10965. Please do not affix the stamps to an envelope.)
Advocacy Project 2002: Forget Me Knots (AP 2002):
This year CHARGE and NYSN are creating a quipu to represent the years we have
each lost to these conditions. A quipu is the way the people of the Andes kept
records using knots tied in cotton cord. Generally there was a main cord off
which other cords hung, each cord containing a series of knots representing
numbers. We will have a main ribbon which we will hang your ribbons off. We ask
that you send us a ribbon tied with knots, one knot for each year you have been
ill with these conditions. We hope this visual aid will help others see how many
lives have been affected, and how many years we have endured.
Quipu means knot in Quechua, the language of the Andes.
Deadline: To add your knots to our quipum, go to:
http://chargeinc.org/ap2002.html
and submit the following by Monday April
15, 2002:
a) An AP 2002 entry form, available in Word and Works format at the site listed
above.
b) Your ribbon, see specifications on the site.
Sponsored by CHARGE and NYSN
[AOL: <a href="http://chargeinc.org/ap2002.html">Advocacy Project 2002:
Forget Me Knots </a>]
***********************
4)
Memory Dysfunction in Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia patients may have to endure some level of memory dysfunction that
is brought on by pain, poor sleep, or general stress.
The National Fibromyalgia Partnership provides a number of strategies to help
you train yourself to learn and recall things better.
http://go1.warp9ems.com/go.pl?tu=7036544-2199
[AOL: <a href="http://go1.warp9ems.com/go.pl?tu=7036544-2199">Memory Dysfunction
in Fibromyalgia</a>]
***********************
5)
Help With Your Medications
RX List - http://www.rxlist.com - Search for
information on more than 4,500 popular drugs written in plain English and more
than 3,000 in plain Spanish.
[AOL: <a href="http://www.rxlist.com">RX List</a>]
Drug Interaction Checker
Drug interactions can result in unwanted side effects or prevent a medicine from
doing its job. Find out if your medicines interact with each other.
http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy/drugchecker/default.asp?trx=1G5002&atrx=d
ps-16&atrxp1=18454&atrxp2=1&atrxp3=%2Fpharmacy%2Fdrugchecker%2Fdefault%2Easp%3Ftrx%3D1G5002&atrxp4=10663
(Note: If this line wraps, copy and paste each line into your browser)
[AOL: <a href="http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy/drugchecker/default.asp?trx=1G5002&a
trx=dps-16&atrxp1=18454&atrxp2=1&atrxp3=%2Fpharmacy%2Fdrugchecker%2Fdefault%
2Easp%3Ftrx%3D1G5002&atrxp4=10663>">Drug Interaction Checker</a>]
http://www.destinationrx.com/prescriptions/ - Find the lowest prices online
for your prescriptions.
[AOL: <a href="http://www.destinationrx.com/prescriptions/">Find the lowest
prices online for your prescriptions</a>]
The Medicine Program -
http://www.themedicineprogram.com/info.html -
provides help with accessing free medications. Their function, in cooperation
with the physician, is to assist patients who may qualify to enroll in one or
more of the many patient assistance programs now available.
These programs provide prescription medicine free-of-charge to individuals in
need, regardless of age, if they meet the sponsor's criteria.
[AOL: <a href="http://www.themedicineprogram.com/info.html">The Medicine
Program</a>]
***********************
6)
Long-Term follow-up on restless legs syndrome patients treated with opioids.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-0post/Entrez/query?form=6&db=m&uid=11748742
[AOL: <a href="www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?form=6&db=m&uid=11748742"
Long-Term follow-up on restless legs syndrome patients treated with opioids</a>]
***********************
7)
Pain, the Disease By, MELANIE THERNSTROM
A modern chronicler of hell might look to the lives of chronic-pain patients for
inspiration. Theirs is a special suffering, a separate chamber, the dimensions
of which materialize at the New England Medical Center pain clinic in downtown
Boston. Inside the cement tower, all sights and sounds of the neighborhood --
the swans in the Public Garden, the lanterns of Chinatown -- disappear,
collapsing into a small examining room in which there are only three things: the
doctor, the patient and pain. Of these, as the endless daily parade of
desperation and diagnoses makes evident, it is pain whose presence predominates.
''Yes, yes,'' sighs Dr. Daniel Carr, who is the clinic's medical director.
''Some of my patients are on the border of human life. Chronic pain is like
water damage to a house -- if it goes on long enough, the house collapses.
By the time most patients make their way to a pain clinic, it's very late.''
What the majority of doctors see in a chronic-pain patient is an overwhelming,
off-putting ruin: a ruined body and a ruined life. It is Carr's job to rescue
the crushed person within, to locate the original source of pain -- the leak,
the structural instability -- and begin to rebuild: psychically,
psychologically, socially.
For leaders in the field like Carr, this year marks a critical watershed. In
January, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the
basic national health care review board, implemented the first national
standards requiring pain assessment and control in all hospitals and nursing
homes. Standards for evaluating and managing pain in lab animals have long been
tightly regulated, but curiously there had never before been any legal
equivalent for people.
Maine took the further step last year of passing its own legislation requiring
the aggressive treatment of pain, and California and other states are
considering following suit.
''It's a field on the verge of an explosion,'' Carr says. ''There's no area of
medicine with more growth and more public interest. We've come far enough
scientifically to see how far we have to go.'' Chronic pain -- continuous pain
lasting longer than six months -- afflicts an estimated 30 million to
50 million Americans, with social costs in disability and lost productivity
adding up to more than $100 billion annually. However, only in recent years has
it become a focus of research. There used to be no pain specialists because pain
had always been understood as a symptom of underlying disease:
treat the disease and the pain should take care of itself. Thus, specializing in
pain made no more sense than specializing in fever. Yet the actual experience of
patients frequently belied this assumption, for chronic pain often outlives its
original causes, worsens over time and appears to take on a puzzling life of its
own.
Research has begun to shed light on this: unlike ordinary or acute pain, which
is a function of a healthy nervous system, chronic pain resembles a disease, a
pathology of the nervous system that produces abnormal changes in the brain and
spinal cord. New technology, like functional imaging, which is generating the
first portraits of brains in action, is revealing the nature of pain's
pathology.
Far from being simply an unpleasant experience that people should endure with a
stiff upper lip, pain turns out to be harmful to the body. Pain unleashes a
cascade of negative hormones like cortisol that adversely affect the immune
system and kidney function. Patients treated with morphine heal more quickly
after surgery. A recent study suggests that adequate cancer-pain treatment may
influence the prospects for survival: rats with tumors given morphine actually
live longer than those that do not receive it.
Paradigm shifts occur slowly; if arriving at a new medical conception of pain
has been difficult and protracted, disseminating the knowledge will be more so.
Pain treatment belongs primarily in the hands of ordinary physicians, most of
whom know little about it. Less than 1 percent of them have been trained as pain
specialists, and medical schools and textbooks give the subject very little
attention. The primary painkillers -- opiates, like OxyContin -- are widely
feared, misunderstood and underused. (A 1998 study of elderly women in nursing
homes with metastatic breast cancer found that only a quarter received adequate
pain treatment; one-quarter received no treatment at all.) While the
undertreatment of pain has led to lawsuits -- recently, a California court
issued a judgment against a Bay Area internist for undertreating a terminally
ill patient's cancer pain --
so has the overprescribing of OxyContin in cases of patient abuse. It takes only
a few lawsuits -- along with the threat of Drug Enforcement Administration
oversight and regulation -- to exert a chilling effect on prescribing practices.
''Doctors feel damned if they do and damned if they don't,'' says Dr. Scott
Fishman, chief of the division of pain medicine at the University of California
at Davis Medical Center. ''The enormous confusion about pain has led to the
hysteria around opiates.'' Dr. James Mickle, a family doctor in rural
Pennsylvania, describes the leeriness most physicians feel about treating pain:
''Is it objective or subjective? How do you know you're not being tricked or
taken advantage of to get narcotics?
And chronic-pain patients are, generally, well -- a pain. Most doctors' reaction
to a patient with chronic pain is to try to pass them off to someone who's
sympathetic.'' And what makes a doctor sympathetic to pain?
''Someone who has pain himself,'' Mickle says. ''Or has an intellectual interest
-- who isn't interested in immediate results, doesn't want to make money, has a
lot of degrees. There's one in a lot of communities, but then they get all the
pain patients sent to them and eventually they burn out and quit.'' Daniel
Carr's interest in pain began as an intellectual one. After training as an
internist and endocrinologist, he published a landmark study in 1981 of runners,
which showed that exercise stimulates beta-endorphin production, leading to a
''runner's high'' that temporarily anesthetizes the runner. He began to wonder:
if the runner's high is an example of how a healthy body successfully modulates
pain, what abnormality leads to chronic pain? He did a third residency in
anesthesia and pain medicine, became a founder of the multidisciplinary pain
clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital and a director of the American Pain
Society. Six years ago, he moved to Tufts and set up a pain clinic (which loses
money) and created the country's first master's program in pain for health
professionals.
Continued at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/16/magazine/16PAIN.html?ex=1009553878&ei=1&en=3a1a875fe0ab6317
(Note: If this line wraps, copy and paste each line into your browser)
[AOL: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/16/magazine/16PAIN.html?ex=1009553878&e
i=1&en=3a1a875fe0ab6317">Pain, the Disease</a>]
***********************
8)
Quantitative sensory testing in fibromyalgia patients and in healthy subjects:
identification of subgroups.
Clin J Pain 2001 Dec;17(4):316-22
Hurtig IM, Raak RI, Kendall SA, Gerdle B, Wahren LK.
Department of Medicine and Care, Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Linkoping, Sweden. mailto:ingrid@hurtig@far.liu.se
PMID: 11783811
OBJECTIVE: To determine perception and pain thresholds in patients with
fibromyalgia syndrome and in healthy controls, and to investigate whether
patients with fibromyalgia syndrome can be grouped with respect to thermal
hyperalgesia and whether these subgroups differ from healthy controls and in
clinical appearance.
DESIGN: The authors conducted a quasi-experimental clinical study.
SUBJECTS: Twenty-nine women patients with fibromyalgia syndrome and 21 healthy
pain-free age-matched women participated in the study.
METHODS: Quantitative sensory testing using a Thermotest instrument was
performed on the dorsum of the left hand. Sleep and pain intensity were rated
using visual analog scales.
RESULTS: Cold and heat pain but not perception thresholds differed significantly
between patients with fibromyalgia syndrome and healthy subjects. Based on
thermal pain thresholds, two subgroups could be identified in fibromyalgia
syndrome using cluster analysis.
CONCLUSION: Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome were subgrouped by quantitative
sensory testing (i.e., thermal pain thresholds). Subgroups show clinical
differences in pain intensities, number of tender points, and sleep quality.
Cold pain threshold was especially linked to these clinical aspects.
***********************
9)
Predictions and associations of fatigue syndromes and mood disorders that occur
after infectious mononucleosis.
Lancet 2001 Dec 8;358(9297):1946-54
White PD, Thomas JM, Kangro HO, Bruce-Jones WD, Amess J, Crawford DH, Grover SA,
Clare AW.
Department of Psychological Medicine, St Bartholomew's and the Royal London
School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK. P.D. White@qmul.ac.uk
BACKGROUND: Certain infections can trigger chronic fatigue syndromes (CFS) in a
minority of people infected, but the reason is unknown. We describe some factors
that predict or are associated with prolonged fatigue after infectious
mononucleosis and contrast these factors with those that predicted mood
disorders after the same infection. METHODS: We prospectively studied a cohort
of 250 primary-care patients with infectious mononucleosis or ordinary
upper-respiratory-tract infections until 6 months after clinical onset. We
sought predictors of both acute and chronic fatigue syndromes and mood disorders
from clinical, laboratory, and psychosocial measures.
FINDINGS: An empirically defined fatigue syndrome 6 months after onset, which
excluded comorbid psychiatric disorders, was most reliably predicted by a
positive Monospot test at onset (odds ratio 2.1 [95% CI 1.4-3.3]) and lower
physical fitness (0.35 [0.15-0.8]). Cervical lymphadenopathy and initial bed
rest were associated with, or predicted, a fatigue syndrome up to 2 months after
onset. By contrast, mood disorders were predicted by a premorbid psychiatric
history (2.3 [1.4-3.9]), an emotional personality score (1.21 [1.11-1.35]), and
social adversity (1.7 [1.0-2.9]). Definitions of CFS that included comorbid mood
disorders were predicted by a mixture of those factors that predicted either the
empirically defined fatigue syndrome or mood disorders.
INTERPRETATION: The predictors of a prolonged fatigue syndrome after an
infection differ with both definition and time, depending particularly on the
presence or absence of comorbid mood disorders. The particular infection and its
consequent immune reaction may have an early role, but physical deconditioning
may also be important. By contrast, mood disorders are predicted by factors that
predict mood disorders in general.
PMID: 11747919 [PubMed - in process]
***********************
10)
Chronic fatigue and anxiety/depression: a twin study.
Chronic fatigue and psychological distress are strongly associated without
evidence for genetic covariation.
More info:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?form=6&db=m&uid=11772848
[AOL: <a
href="www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?form=6&db=m&uid=11772848"
Chronic fatigue and anxiety/depression: a twin study</a>]
***********************
11)
Neurobehavioral deficits associated with chronic fatigue syndrome in veterans
with Gulf War unexplained illnesses
J Int Neuropsychol Soc 2001 Nov;7(7):835-9 Related Articles, Books
Binder LM, Storzbach D, Campbell KA, Rohlman DS, Anger WK; Members of the
Portland Environmental Hazards Research Center.
Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, USA. Larry_Binder@email.msn.com
Gulf War unexplained illnesses (GWUI) are a heterogeneous collection of symptoms
of unknown origin known to be more common among veterans of the Gulf War than
among non-veterans. In the present study we focused on one of these unexplained
illnesses. We tested the hypothesis that in a sample of Persian Gulf War
veterans chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was associated with cognitive deficits
on computerized cognitive testing after controlling for the effects of premorbid
cognitive differences. We obtained Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) data
acquired around the date of induction into the military on 94 veterans of the
Gulf War, 32 with CFS and 62 healthy controls. Controls performed better than
participants diagnosed with CFS on the AFQT. Cognitive deficits were associated
with CFS on 3 of 8 variables after the effect of premorbid AFQT scores was
removed with ANCOVA.
PMID: 11771626 [PubMed - in process]
***********************
12)
Is pain-related fear a predictor of somatosensory hypervigilance in chronic low
back pain patients?
Behav Res Ther 2002 Jan;40(1):85-103 Related Articles, Books, LinkOut
Peters ML, Vlaeyen JW, Kunnen AM.
Department of Medical, Clinical and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht
University, The Netherlands. madelon.peters@dep.unimaas.nl
Pain-related fear has been found to be associated with increased disability and
increased pain perception in patients with chronic low back pain. A possible
mechanism by which pain-related fear could lead to increased pain perception is
heightened attention to somatosensory sensations. In the present study, chronic
pain patients reporting either a high or low level of pain related fear and
control participants performed an auditory reaction time task, while
occasionally non-painful electrical stimuli--accompanied by threatening
instructions--were given to the arm or back. In the primary task condition,
participants had to perform the auditory task while ignoring the electrical
stimuli. Next, the task was presented under dual task conditions in which
participants had to respond both to tones as well as to detection of electrical
stimuli. It was hypothesized that for the primary task, high fearful patients
would show greater disruption of performance on the auditory task than low
fearful patients and controls when stimuli were presented to the back. For the
dual task, slower reaction times for the auditory task, in combination with
faster detection of electrical stimuli was expected. The hypotheses were not
confirmed but patients scoring high on pain-related fear did show an overall
increase in reaction time for all conditions of the primary task, with or
without simultaneous stimulation.
Regression analyses demonstrated that high pain-related fear was associated with
increased reaction time to tones both in patients and healthy controls, and that
within patients pain-related fear was a better predictor of reaction time to
tones than present pain intensity. The findings may be interpreted as showing
that patients with elevated levels of pain-related fear habitually attend to
somatic sensations, giving less priority to other attention-demanding tasks.
PMID: 11764761 [PubMed - in process]
***********************
13)
CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS: A Time to Rest: Clock Signal Identified (p. 2453) From
SCIENCE News This Week December 21 2001, 294 (5551)
Marcia Barinaga
Researchers have made tremendous progress recently in identifying the molecular
gears and levers that run the circadian clock, but they have remained in the
dark about the signals it sends out to control circadian behaviors. Now, on page
2511, a team of researchers reports that it has discovered the first known
output signal from the mammalian clock, a molecule called transforming growth
factor alpha, known for its role in cancer and embryonic development. The work
opens the way for clock researchers to begin to study the neural circuits by
which the clock controls behavior and physiology.
Full story at
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5551/2453a
[AOL: <a
href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5551/2453a">CIRCADIAN
RHYTHMS: A Time to Rest: Clock Signal Identified</a>]
***********************
14)
Male Menopause and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Contributing writer John W. Addington reports that it might come as a shock to
some, but men can suffer from a form of menopause similar to what women endure.
In fact, this malady - sometimes called "male menopause," shares a number of
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome symptoms.
http://go1.warp9ems.com/go.pl?tu=7036544-2198
[AOL: <a href="http://go1.warp9ems.com/go.pl?tu=7036544-2198">Male Menopause and
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</a>]
***********************
15)
Protein that controls bad pain found
Discovery could someday help cancer, backache victims
Jan. 9 — Researchers have identified a key protein that controls severe pain, a
discovery that might someday allow more relief for those who suffer intractable
pain from terminal cancer, chronic backaches and other problems, according to
Thursday’s issue of the journal Cell.
THE PROTEIN is known by the acronym DREAM. In tests on mice bred to have a
defective form of DREAM, the researchers discovered the animals seem completely
normal, except their sensitivity to pain was greatly diminished.
And while there are many types of pain, disabling the DREAM protein seems to
reduce them all, said Dr. Josef Penninger of the University of Toronto, a
co-author of the study.
Pain is vital to survival, allowing us to quickly draw away from scalding water
or a sharp object. DREAM, according to the new research, keeps people sensitized
to pain.
But over time, such as after a person experiences a cut, the sharp pain fades
because the DREAM protein becomes disabled, Penninger told Reuters in a
telephone interview.
“DREAM lets you feel pain. When it doesn’t work anymore, you don’t feel it
anymore.”
If researchers could find a way to disable the protein, it could lead to a new
and perhaps more effective method of pain control, he said.
However, he cautioned that finding such a treatment could be challenging because
the protein works deep inside individual cells, making it less accessible to
drugs.
“This is simply a beginning,” Penninger said. “But if you can change DREAM, you
can change pain.”
ACCIDENTAL FINDING The DREAM protein was discovered by other researchers but was
originally implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and heart function. Thus, when the
people in Penninger’s laboratory created a strain of mice that lacked a properly
working DREAM protein, they expected to see heart and memory problems.
Instead, testers at NeuroDetective in Alberta, which screens mice strains for
various defects, reported back to Penninger that the hearts and memory skills
seemed fine. However, the animals weren’t responding normally to pain.
Mice with the defective DREAM protein appeared to feel about 50 percent less
sharp pain when exposed to heat or some other stimulus.
A treatment based on control of DREAM would be particularly useful to people
with chronic pain conditions, Penninger said. For example, people with chronic
back pain are often plagued because the more pain they experience, the worse the
pain seems to become.
“The more they have, the more sensitive they get to it,” he said. “In DREAM
mutants, there was no sensitization whatsoever... With every pain we tested them
with, the pain was much, much reduced,” he said.
DREAM stands for downstream regulatory element antagonistic modulator.
***********************
16)
Heart Attack or Panic?
Heart attacks and panic reactions can be alarmingly similar. Find out why it
isn't always possible to tell the difference at the outset.
http://stress.about.com/library/blpanicheart.htm
[AOL: <a href="http://stress.about.com/library/blpanicheart.htm">Heart Attack or
Panic?</a>]
***********************
17)
Bruxism and Stress
The habit of tooth grinding, grating, or clenching is termed Bruxism, and
millions of adults and children are affected by this condition. Most experts
believe that it can occur as a response to increased psychological stress.
http://stress.about.com/library/weekly/aa010802a.htm
[AOL: <a href="http://stress.about.com/library/weekly/aa010802a.htm">Bruxism and
Stress</a>]
***********************
18)
Guide Picks - Allergy Cookbooks
Wouldn't it be nice if you could choose one cookbook that addresses all food
allergies and sensitivities? I have been unable to find such a cookbook, but the
cookbooks listed here are good resources for the food allergic.
http://allergies.about.com/library/weekly/aatpcookbooks.htm?PM=n13112901d
[AOL: <a
href="http://allergies.about.com/library/weekly/aatpcookbooks.htm?PM=n131129
01d">Guide Picks - Allergy Cookbooks</a>]
***********************
19)
Writing Ergonomically
For people who have lost manual dexterity due to arthritis, writing can be a
stressful and painful task. Now there are ergonomically designed writing tools
for the purpose of maximizing comfort. Arthritis Guide Carol Eustice recommends
the best.
http://arthritis.about.com/library/weekly/aatp111701.htm?PM=n13112901a
[AOL: <a
href="http://arthritis.about.com/library/weekly/aatp111701.htm?PM=n13112901a
">Writing Ergonomically</a>]
***********************
20)
Periodic Limb Movement in Juvenile Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia has been recently recognized in children and adolescents as
juvenile fibromyalgia (JF). In adult fibromyalgia, subjective complaints of
nonrestorative sleep and fatigue are supported by altered polysomnographic
findings including a primary sleep disorder known as periodic limb movements in
sleep (PLMS) in some subjects.
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fww
w.medem.com%2Fsearch%2Farticle_display.cfm%3Fpath%3Dn%3A%26mstr%3D%2FZZZCZBV
OXIC.html%26soc%3DAAP%26srch_typ%3DNAV_SERCH
(Note: If this line wraps, copy and paste each line into your browser)
[AOL: <a
href="http://sleepdisorders.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.medem.com%2Fsearch%2Farticle_display.cfm%3Fpath%3Dn%3A%26mstr%3D%2FZZ
ZCZBVOXIC.html%26soc%3DAAP%26srch_typ%3DNAV_SERCH">Periodic Limb Movement in
Juvenile Fibromyalgia</a>]
***********************
21)
FibroDocs
http://www.fibrodoc.org
A site run by doctors with FMS. A discussion board is available and a lot of
departments to find answers. Here is their opening blurb and list of topics they
cover:
"We are here with our team of experts to answer your questions and provide
information about Fibromyalgia. All of our columnists are experts in their field
of expertise and each of us has Fibromyalgia".
What you'll find at www.fibrodocs.org:
Information for people with Fibromyalgia Information for Physicians Physician's
Information for Chiropractors Information for Massage Therapists Resources Your
rights as a Fibromyalgia patient FibroDoc's Discussion Boards FibroDoc's Forum
(Bulletin Board) FibroDoc's Chat Rooms FibroDoc's Interactive e-mail Current
Research and Clinical Trials
[AOL: <a href="http://www.fibrodocs.org">FibroDocs</a>]
***********************
22)
Site for Men with Fibromyalgia
http://www.plaidrabbit.com/fms/menspage.htm
This page contains a link to a support group for men It also contains a
non-scientific poll taken that addresses men and FM, how they feel, what they
respond to, how they feel they got FM and more.
[AOL: <a href="http://www.plaidrabbit.com/fms/menspage.htm">Site for Men with
Fibromyalgia</a>]
***********************
23)
Winter CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Self-Help Courses Announced
(Note: The Fibromyalgia Community would like to thank Dr. Bruce Campbell for
making these timely announcements possible)
Signups for the Winter groups of the CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Self-Help course end
Monday, January 14. The course begins the following week, January 21. The class
is an 8-session, solution-oriented email discussion group that focuses on
practical strategies for coping with common problems of CFIDS and fibromyalgia.
The course fee of $30 includes a copy of the book "CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Toolkit."
In the class, you share experiences and ideas in a small group setting in order
to learn how to:
pace yourself set realistic short-term goals reduce stress manage emotions
minimize relapses
For more about the course, see:
http://home.flash.net/~brucepa/course.htm
[AOL: <a href="http://home.flash.net/~brucepa/course.htm">CFIDS/Fibromyalgia
Self-Help course</a>]
To sign up, see:
http://home.flash.net/~brucepa/signing_up.htm
[AOL: <a href="http://home.flash.net/~brucepa/course.htm">CFIDS/Fibromyalgia
Self-Help course</a>]
Bruce Campbell, Ph.D.
mailto:brucepa@flash.net
http://CFIDSselfhelp.org
[AOL: <a href="http://CFIDSselfhelp.org">http://CFIDSselfhelp.org</a>]
***********************
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non-profit corporation)
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The Fibromyalgia Community website is a privately owned site.
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Page Updated:
August 03, 2004
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