4 Pain Relieving Treatments for Fibromyalgia

Pain is likely something you’ll experience more than once in your life. However, if the pain is widespread and never seems to let up, you could be dealing with a condition known as fibromyalgia. This condition is tricky to diagnose, and even harder to treat.

However, our team at Pinnacle Health Chiropractic are experts in pain relief, even in the most difficult cases. Our specialist in chiropractic care, Dr. Jason Ablett, takes a front-seat approach to diagnosing fibromyalgia and getting you the treatment you need.

Understanding fibromyalgia

If you’ve ever experienced muscle pain or joint discomfort, you know how much it can affect your life. Now just imagine that pain spreading all through your body, and nothing seems to make it better. That’s exactly what happens in fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition that leads to unprovoked discomfort in your muscles and joints. Along with this pain, you often feel fatigued and even lethargic at times. This condition may also lead to brain fog or sleep issues.

Because the symptoms of fibromyalgia are relatively vague, it makes it a hard condition to diagnose. It often goes overlooked, even by the best medical professionals, because it mimics so many other problems and disorders.

It’s also unknown what actually causes you to develop fibromyalgia. Some of the factors that might play a role include genetics, illness, and stress. There are also no definitive tests that can confirm a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

How is it diagnosed?

Even though there aren’t any specific tests for fibromyalgia, Dr. Ablett helps you come to a diagnosis with other methods. 

For example, Dr. Ablett assesses your symptoms, including when they started and how often they affect your daily activities. He also asks you where your pain is located and if anything makes it better or worse. 

After taking your symptoms into account, the only real way to come to a diagnosis of fibromyalgia is to rule out other issues that could be causing the same types of symptoms. This includes blood tests to rule out thyroid problems or an Xray or MRI to rule out injury.

Dr. Ablett also may check for inflammatory markers in blood work, which could be a sign that fibromyalgia is the culprit behind your discomfort. Once you have a diagnosis, Dr. Ablett starts making a treatment plan to help you rid yourself of constant pain.

Four treatments that can help

Unfortunately, fibromyalgia isn’t curable; but it can be managed through a number of different treatments. At our facility, Dr. Ablett uses four specific approaches to help you lessen your pain so you can live your life without the everyday discomfort of fibromyalgia. The following are four treatments that may be able to help:

1. Massage therapy

Dr. Ablett uses massage to help soothe your painful muscles. However, this type of therapy isn’t only for the physical pain associated with fibromyalgia. It also helps you to relieve the mental stress that may come along with this disorder.

2. Chiropractic adjustments

Joint pain is one of the key symptoms of fibromyalgia. Dr. Ablett specializes in manual chiropractic adjustments, which often help to ease the discomfort brought on by inflammation in or around your joints. These adjustments also help you to move better, which in turn helps reduce your pain.

3. Rehabilitative exercise

Exercise is a great way to not only keep your body healthy, but your mind as well. Rehabilitative exercise is different forms of therapeutic activities to help you strengthen your body, and over time, relieve pain and discomfort.

Dr. Ablett often combines therapeutic exercise with some of the above therapies to help you lessen your overall discomfort from fibromyalgia.

If you’re suffering from fibromyalgia and need treatment, call our office today to learn more about our different therapies, or you can schedule an appointment online using the booking tool on our website.