Muscle pain and tiredness are symptoms of a disorder known as Fibromyalgia. There are quite a few medications that can be used to treat fibromyalgia. Lifestyle change has also proven effective. What prescriptions work well to treat fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia can bring on aches and pains that are severe enough to cause people to miss work and have problems with the activities of daily living. Fibromyalgia is a fairly common problem. In fact, one in fifty people are diagnosed with it annually. Most sufferers are female. This condition can usually be treated with conservative methods like stress reduction and exercise. However, the majority of people with fibromyalgia do take at least one prescription drug to mitigate symptoms. Antidepressants are very frequently used in the treatment of fibromyalgia.
Do antidepressants work for persons with the condition of fibromyalgia? Even fibromyalgia sufferers who do not have symptoms of depression can be helped by antidepressants. They seem to aid the aches and pains associated with the syndrome. According to a study, those patients who presented with fibromyalgia and were on antidepressants had these symptoms improve four times greater than those who did not take meds.
According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fibromyalgia patients can benefit greatly from the use of antidepressants. According to researchers who examined data from 20 high quality clinical trials, fibromyalgia can clearly benefit from the use of antidepressants. Tricyclic antidepressants are medication types that have been around since the ’60s which have proven to demonstrate the most benefit to improve overall aches and insomnia. The more recent SSRIs that are used with greater frequency these days were not as effective as other groupings of antidepressants.
This study indicates that tricyclics are the most highly effective kind of prescription drug for the treatment of fibromyalgia. They may be especially effective in improving the sleep problems and moodiness that people who have been diagnosed with this malady often encounter. Benefits notwithstanding, there are a great many side effects that accompany the use of tricyclic drugs. For this reason, they should be used only after more conservative measures have failed.
Exercise may help people with fibromyalgia. Just half an hour of aerobic exercise daily has been proven to improve symptoms significantly and provide better sleep. It may help to consume foods that are low in sugar and not overly processed. If there are problems sleeping, there should be an avoidance of caffeine. There are some folks who find they can reduce pain and tiredness with meditation and massage therapy. Conservative treatments of this sort often do away with the necessity of drugs for many people. Of course, this means that the patient will not have to deal with side-effects.
If people with fibromyalgia do not experience relief with lifestyle changes, they may gain some benefit from tricyclic antidepressants; however, it is always best to try the natural approaches initially.