Fibromyalgia Update

This web site is for informational purposes and is not to replace medical advise. Consult with your doctor.

A MISSING LINK IN FIBROMYALGIA TREATMENT

MY WIFE'S FIBROMYALGIA WAS CAUSED BY A PROBLEM IN HER BRAIN WHICH TOOK YEARS TO DISCOVER BUT NOW WE HAVE FOUND OUR CURE!

This web site is dedicated to my wife's true story and what we discovered about her fibromyalgia diagnosis that caused her years of muscle pain, back pain, neck pain, headaches, weakness, lack of sleep (insomnia), excessive and frequent urination (polyuria), dry eyes, dry mouth, constipation, dizziness, vertigo, low energy, chronic fatigue, low blood pressure, dehydration, constant thirst, foggy thinking (brain fog), poor cognition, and irritability.

HOW WE FOUND THE BEST TREATMENT TO OVERCOME THIS TERRIBLE, DRAINING ILLNESS KNOWN AS FIBROMYALGIA (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)

I hope this true story will help you discover the real cause of your fibromyalgia pain and disability. This information may actually return your life back to Fibromyagia painnormal.


As a child, my wife was in several serious car accidents which resulted in many head injuries. Back in the 1970's hardly anyone wore seatbelts. One accident happened on a foggy day when visibility was very poor. Cresting over the hill, they came upon a semi trunk that had crashed and was straddled across the highway. It was a miracle nobody was killed, but that accident resulted in my wife flying from the back seat of an old station wagon until she hit the back of the driver's chair and then crumpled to the floor. She was not found for quite a while because the crumpled car collapsed around her. Nevertheless, we feel this was the accident that resulted in a head injury that seemed to be the the initiating incident which led to her fibromyalgia years later.

My wife remembers having poor stamina though her high school years. She tried out for the school basketball team in her junior year but never felt she could give it her all because something was preventing her from keeping up with the rest of the team. She just did not have the energy. She thought she was just out of shape.

She remembers always having a dry mouth even when she drank plenty of water. She was always thirsty. She usually chewed gum to keep her mouth moist. She was always constipated which caused frequent abdominal bloating, pain and gas. She felt her mind was always in a fog and struggled with focusing on her school work. Every day seemed to drag because she never had the energy to live life to the fullest.

neck pain fibro

Sleeping was a constant struggle. She could never get a good night's sleep. This made her fatigue even worse. She could not get the deep, restorative sleep she needed to function normally the next day. She often thought that "something must be wrong with me" but could not figure out what? Doctors thought maybe she had allergies or some viral infection (maybe Mono). But no treatment or medication seemed to really help.

She often felt dizzy and faint, especially when she stood up too fast from a seated or lying position. She always seemed to have lower blood pressure than most people but not really low enough to alert any doctors to any serious disease. Her blood pressure would be 100/65 mmHg or 95/60 mmHg. With most people (and doctors) having high blood pressure is concerning and having low blood pressure is a blessing. No worrying about the risk of a stroke or heart attack....right? Low blood pressure means less blood to the brain causing mental fog, irritability and poor cognition or attention span. Low blood pressure means less blood to the muscles causing muscle pain, weakness, poor muscle endurance and muscle fatigue.

One thing she really remembers is that she always seemed to have to pee a lot. More recently she noticed that she was getting up in the middle of the night to urinate more and more often and this was why she was finding it harder and harder to sleep. Her bladder was filling up and although she could hold the pee in her bladder she could not sleep well because of the discomfort and pain caused by a full bladder. She would go pee just before leaving the house to go shopping and then after a 20-30 minute drive to the mall she would have to go pee again. The volume of pee at each bathroom visit always seemed high. "How could my bladder fill up so fast", she often thought. She was often checked for a bladder infection but no infection was ever found. She was checked for "sugar" diabetes but the tests were always normal. Sugar diabetes (diabetes mellitus) can cause excessive urination but this was not the cause in her case.

MRI

Blood tests, xrays, urinalysis and other diagnostic tests were not revealing any answers until one day we decided to measure how much urine she was actually producing in one 24 hour period. After peeing in a bucket for 24 hours and measuring the volume of urine... we discovered that she was producing 3.0 to 3.5 liters (a liter and a quart are close in volume) of urine per day (on average). Now, according to the Mayo Clinic, the average person should only produce 1.5 to 2.5 liters of urine in a 24 hour period. She measured her 24 hour urine volume for three days just to make sure that she was producing 3.0 to 3.5 liters of urine every day. Yes, she was producing too much urine. This means that she was peeing out too much water and was living in a state of partial and continuous dehydration. What are the symptoms of dehydration? Again, according to the Mayo Clinic dehydration can cause the following:

Dehydration can cause:

You do not need to have all the symptoms of dehydration to be dehydrated.

To me, it appears the symptoms of fibromyalgia sound just like the symptoms of dehydration!

Now your kidneys are responsible for filtering your blood and regulating urine production. Urine is mostly water. You need water in your blood stream to maintain adequate blood pressure. Dehydration can cause low blood pressure.

So, Why are my wife's kidney's producing too much urine andkidney thus causing her to loose too much water and creating dehydration?

The answer to this question is in the brain. More specifically, the pituitary gland. Everyone has a pituitary gland deep inside their skull at the base of the brain. This gland does many things. It makes and releases hormones into our body that control many different functions. One hormone it makes is called Vasopressin (aka Anti-Diuretic Hormone or ADH). This hormone travels from the pituitary gland to the kidneys via the blood stream. When it reaches the kidneys, Vasopressin tells the kidneys to reduce urine production by holding back water. Vasopressin also tells blood pituitaryvessels (arteries) to constrict thus increasing blood pressure.

 

Unfortunately, a head injury is one cause of a damaged pituitary gland which affects vassopressin (ADH) production.

All this is starting to make sense....all the puzzle pieces are coming together.

As a side note -- Many people use caffeine to get them going in the morning. Unfortunately, caffeine is a diuretic (increases urine production). Someone who has fibromyalgia who already urinates a lot should not use caffeine to boost their energy. The short term caffeine boost will cause increase urination and eventually lower blood pressure. These result in worsening the fibromyalgia symptoms. Avoid anything with caffeine.

According to the Mayo clinic, when the pituitary gland of the brain does not produce enough vasopressin the disease is call Diabetes Insipidus

When you hear the term "diabetes insipidus," you may assume it's related to what's commonly known as "sugar" diabetes, or diabetes mellitus. While the disorders share a name and have some common signs, in fact diabetes mellitus (type 1 and type 2) and diabetes insipidus are unrelated.

Diabetes insipidus (DI) is a disorder characterized by intense thirst (because of dehydration) and by the excretion of large amounts of urine (polyuria). Mild cases cause 3-4 liters of urine production per day and severe cases can cause 5-15 liters of urine production per day. In most cases, it's the result of your body not properly producing, storing or releasing a key hormone, (vasopressin) but diabetes insipidus can also occur when your kidneys are unable to properly respond to that hormone. Rarely, diabetes insipidus can occur during pregnancy (gestational diabetes insipidus).

Diabetes insipidus occurs when this vasopressin hormone system is disrupted and your body can't regulate how it handles water. The way in which your system is disrupted determines which form of diabetes insipidus you have:

In about 30 percent of cases of diabetes insipidus, doctors never determine a cause.

If you have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, you should measure how much you urinate in a 24 hour period. Collect every drop in a bucket and measure it before dumping it down the toilet. If you consistently urinate more than 3.0 liters per day, and have the signs of dehydration as listed above you probably have diabetes insipidus and most likely need the medication below


Effective treatments are available to relieve your thirst (dehydration) and normalize your urine output. This was the answer to eliminating the symptoms of my wife's FIBROMYALGIA. (diabetes insipidus)

This medication is called DESMOPRESSIN or DDAVP

This may be the answer to your fibromyalgia pain. It was for my wife.

She starting taking desmopressin (the 0.1 mg pill) twice per day (one half of a pill in the morning and one half of a pill in the afternoon and one full pill just before going to sleep at night.) She found it most beneficial to take 0.1 mg and sometimes 0.2 mg just before going to sleep so she could sleep through the night without getting up to go pee. Sleeping is very important for fibromyalgia patients. She is now getting a restful sleep. Good luck in your journey!

(P.S. We have found the best and most affordable sources of Desmopressin (aka - DDAVP) with an online pharmacy)

DISCLAIMER: We are not medical doctors. We are a fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue syndrome survivor. The purpose of this website is not to diagnose or cure any disease or malady, but is presented as food for thought.  This information cannot take the place of professional medical advice. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should come under the direction of a physician. No guarantees are made regarding any of the information in this website.

Two good website with great fibromyalgia tips: website 1 - click here or website 2 with video - click here

Questions welcomed email: info@fibromyalgia-update.com

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