Fish Oil for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) for Fibromyalgia and CFS

Essential fatty acids are, as their name implies, essential for our existence.

Essential fatty acids cannot be manufactured by the body and must be obtained from food.They make up the outer membranes of each cell. These membranes determine which nutrients get into and out of the cells. The membranes of healthy cells can resist entry by viruses and other pathogenic agents and, at the same time, facilitate the entry of nutrients-the “happy hormones” serotonin.

When EFAs are deficient, cell membranes are weakened in their abilities, and the wrong substances are allowed into the cell. A deficiency in EFAs can cause some of the very symptoms associated with fibromyalgia and CFS: fatigue, anxiety, depression, GI disorders, muscle pain, insomnia, poor mental function, and lowered immunity. It’s estimated that at least 40% of the population suffers from some amount of EFA deficiency.

There are several interesting interrelationships between EFA metabolism and viral infections (commonly chronic in those with CFS).  EFA’s have direct antiviral effects and are lethal at surprising low concentrations to many viruses. The antiviral activity of human mother’s milk seems to be largely attributable to its EFA content. 

Interferon is dependant on EFA’s and in their absence will be compromised.

 

Viral infections lower the blood levels EFA’s.  This has been confirmed in the case of the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV).  Of particular interest was the observation that at 8 and 12 months, those who have recovered from EBV showed normal or near normal EFA blood levels.  In contrast, those who were still clinically ill from Epstein-Barr show persistently low EFA levels. 

In a Scottish trial, patients with chronic fatigue syndrome were given EFA supplements with great success.  Placebo controlled trials were held for 70 patients with persistent CFS giving them linolenic acid (flax seed oil) and eicosapentaenoic acid (fish oil).  After 6 months, 84% of the patients in the group receiving EFA supplements, and only 22% of those in the placebo group rated themselves as better or much better. 

In another successful study, 63 adults with CFS were enrolled in a double blind placebo controlled study with essential fatty acid therapy.  The patient’s were ill for an average of 1-3 years after a viral infection. They all suffered from severe fatigue, myalgia (muscle pain), and a variety of psychological symptoms.  After one month, 74% of the patients taking EFA supplements, and 23% of those on placebo, assessed themselves as improved.

Depression

A deficiency of Omega-3 fat is one of the main causes of anxiety, depression and other mental disorders.  Omega-3 fats work to keep us mentally and emotionally strong in three ways: 

1) Omega-3 fats act as precursors for the body’s production of pre-prostaglandins and neurotransmitters (specific hormones). 

2) Omega-3 fats provide the substrate for B vitamins and coenzymes to produce compounds that regulate many vital functions, including neurotransmitters.

Omega-3 fats provide energy and nourishment to our nerve and brain cells. 

Eat to reduce inflammation.

The pro-inflammatory hormone PG-2 is made from arachidonic acid (AA).

AA increases bodily inflammation. Since AA is found in corn, and corn products are used as the prominent foodstuff for westernized livestock, red meat, cheese, eggs, and pork products have a high AA content in the United States.

Several research articles have demonstrated that the more animal fats a human eats, the more AA is in his blood and cell membranes and the more likely he is to have inflammation. So reduce your intake of grains and corn-fed livestock.

If your inflammation is severe, reduce or avoid red meat and dairy as well. Cook with olive oil or canola oil. (Avoid instant coffee, as well. It contains substances that block the receptor sites for endorphins.) Vegetables are fine and are encouraged-avoid vegetable oils not vegetables.

The functional opposite of PG-2, PG-1 and PG-3 are anti-inflammatory hormones. They help reduce and eliminate inflammation and pain. You should increase your intake of these hormones. The best sources of PG-1 and PG-3 are fish oil supplements or a diet high in deep cold-water fish.

I recommend taking 2,000 to 4,000mg of fish oil a day.

Here We Go Again-Another Idiot Doctor

I was just made aware of a story on fibromyalgia that The New York Times ran early last year. How many arrogant idiotic doctors are there in this world. Just when I feel like patients with fibromyalgia are finally getting the support and understanding they deserve, some prehistoric physician, locked in the dark ages, paints fibromyalgia with the "all in their head" label. It would be funny if it weren't so offensive to those who battle this illness on a daily basis. Fibromyalgia is a real disease and those with  the syndrome suffer real pain. Who would want to make all this up in their head?


Here is a partial snippet of the article


The Voices of Fibromyalgia

People who suffer from fibromyalgia experience problems beyond the pain caused by their illness. Their condition is little understood and hard to explain, and often they are disbelieved by doctors. Even friends and loved ones may express skepticism toward the fibromyalgia sufferer, who, burdened with inexplicable pain, may cancel social plans, miss work and recoil from physical affection because it hurts too much.

For a glimpse into the frustrating world of fibromyalgia sufferers, listen to the latest installment in the Patient Voices series by producer Karen Barrow.

You’ll meet Christine Wysocki, 33, of St. Augustine, Fla. who waited three years before a close friend and co-worker believed she had a health problem.

“Frankly I still don’t know if I understand exactly what it is,” says Ms. Wysocki. “Everything seems so vague about what fibromyalgia is, and it feels like no one wants to commit to what an actual answer is.”

And there’s Leon Collins, 59, of Clayton, N.J., who was relieved when he heard he had fibromyalgia because he at least had a diagnosis after many other doctors had dismissed his symptoms.

“We even experienced one doctor who wanted to send me to a psychiatrist because he felt my pain was imagined,” he said.

The Skeptic 

Count me as one of the skeptics. Not necessarily whether fibromyalgia exists, just that the vast majority of sufferers actually have it. I won’t use the word hypochondria, because I think that is inadequate. I think that many of these people suffer from a somatiform or somatization disorder. Still a disorder in need of treatment, but not fibromyalgia.

Understand, I think that this has definitely had a “wolf-crying” effect on people who do have it, and also on people who suffer, quite beyond their control, from untreated somatiform disorders. This results, not from the inability of medical science to test and confirm the diagnoses of fibromyalgia beyond cataloging the symptom complaints of sufferers, but from the fact that so many people who report these symptoms also complan of other vague maladies and bring to doctors their own self-diagnoses that the doctors have little choice but to attempt to treat them as they are reported.

This is how I put it to the last such person I spoke to: “What are the odds, mathematically, that one person should suffer from so many obscure and medically unconfirmable maladies? Maladies that have symptoms that can only be accepted or rejected based on your word that they exist?” The simple mathematical improbability that one person suffer from Meniere’s Disease, Epstein-Barr Syndrome, and Fibromyalgia, all three vague disorders that seem to show up in varied combinations among middle aged women, commonly with a history of childhood abuse, begs the question: Why are doctors being guilt-tripped into rejecting the possibility that these patients don’t suffer from what they think they suffer from, but indeed do suffer from something? Is the mere social stigma of psychological and emotional disorders enough that we should reject the possibility? I say no.

— Dr Hirschberg

Dr. Hirscberg validates that there are stupid doctors in this world and you should avoid them like the plague. If you have a skeptic for a doctor, if he or she isn't listening to you FIRE THEM and get another doctor! 

Fibromyalgia and Atypical Antidepressants

Atypical antipsychotics remained the top-selling class of medicines in the United States with $14.6 billion in sales, about equal to 2008 revenue.

Atypical antidepressant drugs including Zyprexa and Abilify are being aggressively marketed "off label" for all sorts of ailments including fibromyalgia. There is a growing campaign of propaganda to make folks think they are bi-polar and need these drugs. Not a week goes by that I don't encounter a patient with fibromyalgia who has been placed on one of these mind numbing drugs.

Atypical Antidepressants are Dangerous

Researchers have already reported that newer antipsychotics are associated with an increased risk of diabetes. The Food and Drug Administration put out warnings on this danger in 2004.

According to the new study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, patients taking antipsychotics tended to gain weight after one month and had increases in their cholesterol levels after three to four months.

Obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes all increase the risk of heart disease.

"This change in risk is evident early in the course of treatment, within several weeks of continuous use, but may continue to alter over several years," Foley told Reuters Health in an email. The "risk varies depending on the specific drug taken and how long it is taken for," she added.

About one in 100 adults in the U.S. has schizophrenia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

But antipsychotic drugs are also given to some patients with bipolar disorder, personality disorders, or anxiety, general depression, ADHD, fibromyalgia, and other "off label" targeted conditions.

The drugs in Foley's study included Janssen's Risperdal, and Lilly's Zyprexa, among others.

Foley and her team looked at 25 previous studies that had tracked risk factors for heart disease in patients taking older or newer antipsychotics. These included high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and body weight.

They found that across all the studies, six to seven of every 10 people on antipsychotics were overweight after six months. Before taking the drugs, only about four of every 10 were overweight, the same as in the general population.

Fibromyalgia isn't caused by a drug deficiency, certainly not one as dangerous as Abilify or Zyprexa.

You  can read my article on atypical antipsychotic drugs-Abilify and Zyprexa by clicking on this link http://www.theamericanchiropractor.com/interviews/item/4886-the-evolution-of-mood-disorder-wonder-drugs.html

New Criteria for Diagnosing Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia may be under-diagnosed in both men and women because of the reliance on 11 tender points which is broad but ineffective approach for diagnosing fibromyalgia.

Consequently, fibromyalgia diagnosis in practice has often been a symptom-based diagnosis. The new criteria will standardize a symptom-based diagnosis so that all doctors are using the same process.

The tender point test is being replaced with a widespread pain index and a symptom severity scale. 

The widespread pain index score is determined by counting the number of areas on the body where the patient has felt pain in the last week. The checklist includes 19 specified areas.

The symptom severity score is determined by rating on a scale of zero to three, three being the most pervasive, the severity of three common symptoms: fatigue, waking unrefreshed and cognitive symptoms. An additional three points can be added to account for the extent of additional symptoms such as numbness, dizziness, nausea, irritable bowel syndrome or depression. The final score is between 0 and 12.

To meet the criteria for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia a patient would have seven or more pain areas and a symptom severity score of five or more; or three to six pain areas and a symptom severity score of nine or more.

Some criteria will remain unchanged. The symptoms must have been present for at least three months, and the patient does not have a disorder that would otherwise explain the pain.

You can read more about how I diagnose fibromyalgia by visiting my website www.treatingandbeating.com

Fish Oils Help Prevent and Reverse Depression

Fish Oils Help Prevent and Reverse Depression

Omega-3 fatty acids may help alleviate depression but only when a particular type of fatty acid called DHA is used in the right ratio with another fatty acid known as EPA, a new study suggests.

The researchers analyzed the results of some 15 previous controlled clinical trials on the use of omega-3s -- commonly found in oily fish or in fish oil supplements -- to treat depressed people.

They found that when used by itself, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) alone did not seem to offer any benefit. However, DHA combined with a rather high dose of EPA (eicosapentenoic acid) did improve depressive symptoms.


I recommend taking 2 grams of fish oil a day. If you experience an unpleasant aftertaste try freezing the fish oil capsules and the be sure to take with food.

Are Fibromyalgia Patients Crazy?

www.treatingandbeating.com

www.beatfms.com

Have you’ve been told you’re crazy, lazy or depressed? If so you’re not alone. Friends, family and doctors may try to make you think your illness isn’t real, “its all in your head.”

You often lose your train of thought mid-sentence, have strange reactions to medications, and suffer with an assortment of health problems; yet all your labs are normal. You’ve got numerous complaints including anxiety, depression, fatigue, chronic pain, insomnia, IBS, MVP, chronic sinusitis, tingling in their extremities, night sweats, chemical sensitivities, headaches, reflux, and other symptoms.

I’d be crazy too if I went days without sleeping, had diffuse chronic pain, no energy, no life, and no hope. You’ve been bounced from one doctor to another, had dozens of tests, taken numerous drugs which didn’t help, and continue to get worse, year after year. The traditional drugs of choice for fibromyalgia, including, NSAIDS, antidepressants, anticonvulsant medications, muscle relaxants, tranquilizers, and pain medications, may provide short-term relief, yet their results are often fleeting and their side-effects detrimental. It’s not unusual to be taking twelve or more prescription drugs, many of which contribute to their erratic behavior.

The sleep drugs Ambien and Lunesta may cause short-term memory loss, fatigue, flu-like symptoms, and depression. Tricyclic antidepressants, including Trazadone and Elavil, may cause early-morning hangover, mental confusion, and lethargy. SSRI drugs may cause anxiety, depression, mental blunting, and lethargy. Klonopin and other benzodiazepines may cause depression, fatigue, and decreased mental function. All of these drugs are known to deplete at least one or more essential mood-dependant vitamin, mineral, or nutrient (B6, B12, CoQ10, Folic acid, etc.). Individuals with fibromyalgia are also deficient in the brain chemicals, which help regulate mood and mental function.

Neurotransmitter Deficiencies

Research shows that the majority of fibromyalgia patients are deficient in serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These three neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) are essential for optimal mood and mental function. Serotonin, also known as the “happy hormone,” helps regulate mood, sleep, digestion, bowel movements, pain, and mental clarity. Individuals with fibromyalgia have low levels of the amino acid tryptophan, as well as 5HTP, which are needed for the production of serotonin.

L-phenylalanine derived norepinephrine, when released in the brain, causes feelings of arousal, energy, drive, and ambition. No wonder you suffer with “fibro fog.”

 

Stress Coping Savings Account

I like to use the analogy of being born with a stress-coping savings account. We have certain chemicals, vitamins, minerals, and hormones like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and cortisol that allow us to handle moment-to-moment, day-to-day, stress. The more stress we’re under, the more withdrawals we make. Individuals with fibromyalgia have made more withdrawals than deposits.

Serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, Lexapro, Paxil, Zoloft, and others, don’t make serotonin, they only help the brain hang onto and use serotonin more effectively. These drugs are like using a gasoline additive, but those with fibromyalgia don’t have any serotonin to re-uptake. They’ve bankrupted their stress coping savings account and depleted their serotonin. These drugs usually don’t provide long-term relief.

Fortunately, there are some tried-and-true nutritional protocols that can help build up the bankrupted stress-coping savings account.

5-Hydroxytryptophan 5HTP

Double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have shown that patients with FMS were able

to see the following benefits from increasing serotonin through 5HTP replacement therapy:

• Decreased pain.

• Improved sleep.

• Less tender points.

• Less morning stiffness.

• Less anxiety.

• Improved moods in general, including in those with clinical depression.

• Increased energy.

S-adenosyl- L-methionine  (SAMe)

S-adenosyl- L-methionine  (SAMe) increases the action of several neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, by binding these hormones to their cell receptors. However, patients with fibromyalgia have been shown to be deficient in this essential amino acid.

One study shows that patients taking SAMe for a period of six weeks had an improvement of 40 percent in pain reduction and 35 percent improvement in their depression.

Along with 5HTP and SAMe, I’ve found that a good optimal daily-allowance multivitamin with a free-form amino acid blend, fish oil, malic acid, and generous amounts of magnesium is essential for reversing the “brain fog,” poor energy, chronic pain, mood disorders, and sleep disturbances so common in fibromyalgia.

Please know that, while you might not think you’re the sharpest tool in the shed, with the right nutrients you can replenish your brain chemicals, build-up your stress coping savings account, and even remember where you put your car keys.