By Phoebe Starr
The way patients with fibromyalgia experience pain may be a result of abnormal pain signal processing associated with reduced opioid receptor binding, according to a study presented during the 2012 meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.
First Japanese clinical trial for this condition
By Charles Bankhead
Patients with fibromyalgia had significant improvement in pain, sleep, and quality-of-life measures when treated with pregabalin (Lyrica) versus placebo, according to the results of the first clinical trial of this condition in Japan (Ohta H, et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2012;14:R217 [Epub ahead of print]). Significant pain relief occurred within the first week of treatment with pregabalin and persisted over the 15-week duration of the trial. Significantly more patients reported being “very much improved” or “much improved” with pregabalin than with placebo (P = .078).
By Rosemary Frei, MSc
An intense program of telephone support does not have a significant effect on the motivation of patients with fibromyalgia to exercise or on their disease symptoms, according to the first randomized study to expressly address exercise in this patient population (Ang DC, et al. Clin J Pain. 2012 Oct 5 [Epub ahead of print]).
By Rosemary Frei, MSc
Milan, Italy—The combination of childhood emotional abuse and current depression gives rise to higher pain sensitivity, a new study has shown. In a poster presented at the 2012 World Congress on Pain, a group of Belgian researchers showed that among patients with fibromyalgia who suffered childhood emotional abuse, a strong positive correlation exists between depression levels and pain sensitivity. The same correlation does not exist in patients who did not have emotional abuse when they were young.
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