Research into Fibromyalgia has seen a growth spurt over the last                                                                         32 years but more is desperately needed.  There are such a                                                                              plethora of research articles that I can't possibly list all the studies                                                                        here (I am a person with Fibro with a background in law                                                                                enforcement so some of these reports are over my head).  Every                                                                          month I will list the two or three research studies that I                                                                                       find interesting.

2024
July

Delay in fibromyalgia diagnosis and its impact on the severity and outcome: a large cohort study

Fausto Salaffi

Clin Exp Rheumatol

​2024 Jun;42(6):1198-1204.

 doi: 10.55563/clinexprheumatol/ta9xtc. Epub 2024 Jul 4.

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Abstract

75% of patients with fibromyalgia still do not get correctly diagnosed. Thus, investigators sought to assess the impact of the diagnostic delay on fibromyalgia severity.  A recent study found a delayed fibromyalgia diagnosis is linked to poorer patient outcomes, such as worsened severity.[i]  Investigators obtained data on the time to diagnosis. Participants were categorized as having an early diagnosis if their fibromyalgia was diagnosed within one year, a late diagnosis if fibromyalgia was diagnosed ≥ 1 year but ≤ 5 years, and a very late diagnosis if fibromyalgia was diagnosed ≥ 5 years after the symptoms started. 

 

The study concluded, “a significant delay in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia is associated with worse disease severity” and advised “devising diagnostic protocols for both specialists and primary care providers to facilitate timely and accurate patient evaluations.”

 

[i] Salaffi F, Farah S, Bianchi B, Lommano MG, Di Carlo M. Delay in fibromyalgia diagnosis and its impact on the severity and outcome: a large cohort study. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2024;42(6):1198-1204. doi:10.55563/clinexprheumatol/ta9xtc

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January 
Long COVID: a new word for naming fibromyalgia?
Mariette X.
Ann Rheum Dis.
2024 Jan 2;83(1):12-14.
doi: 10.1136/ard-2023-224848. PMID: 37923365.
 

Abstract

Long COVID is the name given to a syndrome comprising a wide variety of symptoms persisting more than 3 months after acute benign COVID-19, with a prevalence ranging from 10 to 80%. Symptoms are very close to fibromyalgia. Several studies showed that long COVID prevalence was much higher after the first wave of the pandemics and was associated to the fact of thinking having had COVID rather than having had really COVID. Thus, it was the stress of the first wave with the lockdown and not the consequences of the infection that probably induced this high frequency of long COVID. Numbers of studies tried to find objective biological abnormalities for explaining long COVID but none of them could be replicated and convincing. The concept of long COVID seems to be a repetition of history of medicine, in which the doctors and the society gave different names to fibromyalgia with the objective of trying to highlight the fact that fibromyalgia could be a somatic disease with a well understood pathophysiology and to avoid focusing on the psychosomatic aspects of the disease. 

In conclusion, "to name is to soothe" as said by Roland Barthes. However, "Naming things wrongly adds to the world's unhappiness" was saying Albert Camus. Thus, the term of long COVID, which suggests viral persistence of impaired immune response to the virus, is unappropriated and should be replaced by fibromyalgia-like post-COVID syndrome. Research on the psychosomatic and somatic mechanisms involved in these fibromyalgia-like post-viral syndromes must be encouraged.

TRYP THERAPEUTICS ANNOUNCES FIRST PATIENT DOSED IN PHASE 2a CLINICAL TRIAL FOR THE TREATMENT OF FIBROMYALGIA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

EQS Newswire - Tryp Therapeutics Inc. 

KELOWNA, BC

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Tryp Therapeutics Inc. , a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing intravenous-infused psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin) for diseases with high unmet medical needs, is pleased to announce that the first patient has been dosed in a Phase 2a clinical trial being conducted by the University of Michigan in a collaboration with Tryp Therapeutics. The clinical trial is evaluating Tryp's TRP-8802 in patients with fibromyalgia.

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Commenting on the announcement, Jim Gilligan, Tryp's Chief Scientific Officer, said, "We are excited to announce that the first person has been dosed in a clinical trial at the University of Michigan using oral psilocybin in combination with psychotherapy to explore its utility in patients with fibromyalgia. With positive results in this study, Tryp would look to continue clinical development in fibromyalgia with TRP-8803, our proprietary formulation of IV-infused psilocin, which alleviates numerous shortcomings of oral psilocybin including: significantly reducing the time to onset of the psychedelic state, controlling the depth and duration of the psychedelic experience, and reducing the overall duration of the intervention to a commercially feasible timeframe. Our ultimate goal is to provide even more favorable outcomes and relief to the millions of patients currently suffering from chronic pain. Currently nearly one third of fibromyalgia patients resort to opiates at some point for pain relief."

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