sleep apnea causing fibromyalgia?

I was diagnosed with FM about 3 years ago and have been on Cymbalta to help with the pain. It helped but didn't get rid of it completely. I just started CPAP last Friday. Two days in I noticed I no longer had pain in my neck. This tells me that there could definitely be a connection between MY fibromyalgia and OSA.

It is possible that there is some association between sleep apnea and fibromyalgia. Proving it would be very difficult, if not impossible. Sleep apnea is associated with an increase in inflammation in the body, but I haven't seen any evidence of cause in either direction. There is an inflammatory component to migraine, but does migraine cause the inflammation or the other way around? I do not know. I do know that for me the effective treatment of my sleep apnea has been associated with a significant (for me) reduction in frequency and severity of migraine headaches that I still get from time to time. Those that I do get seem to be associated with stress, and/or coffee intake. Does that mean that stress or coffee causes apnea? Who knows. At the end of the day all one can say is that I have heard that cpap may reduce the level of pain in FM, arthritis, migraine, or whatever else ails you (or me), or that it worked for me. The level of evidence that xpap reduces/eliminates snoring is much higher, but does that make it more important on an individual level than a few people on a forum saying that it worked for their condition?

Randomized controlled trials are the "gold-standard" that the medical profession looks for as "proof" that something works. However, with a little research I could come up with a long list of products that had "failed" or "negative" studies before or after "successful" or "positive" studies. Also, products that were "successful" in clinical trials, but "failed" in the clinics and "real-world" patients outside of those trials. I do know that this forum is a wonderful sounding-board for some (sometimes crackpot) ideas about connections between sleep apnea and every single disease known to mankind (and probably some that are not known. We should all have an open mind about what might be the cause of any condition. If our condition is cured by xpap we should be very excited. We should not condemn someone else whose experience does not match our own. We are all different.

Uh, well. I have to acknowledge a lot of what you guys said was significant, Once, in a nordic country, where they sometimes do medical studies for gaining knowledge, rather than a study which is really based in someone making money. Making money studies is mostly what we do in the US.

To begin again. They did a study where they did not allow people get to deeper levels of sleep. Study participants, when they hit REM sleep were awakened. Many of them developed joint pain. After the study, when they were allowed to sleep, the joint pain went away. These patients did not have other causes of joint or arthritic problems.

Perhaps it might be more fun to talk about are there levels of what a sleep doc would call successful therapy, yet, there still exists a level which might give the patient some relief from joint pain. Or maybe to classify the types of joint pain, Fibro, with types of arthritic disease, level of sleep apnea, as well as the successfulness of apnea treatment.

Of all the posts hereabouts, the ones that I find most interesting are related to questions about possible related OSA symptoms. I tend to think that there will be more and more evidence to support links of OSA to a host of disease states; and that fibromyalgia is one candidate.

Fibromyalgia appears to be one of the more common (apparent) OSA related sequela. (Over my years of reading posts here and on other OSA-related sites, OSA patients with fibromyalgia are not uncommon.)

I suspect that the progression is OSA => Inflammation => Fibromyalgia.

There are many useful links that add some support my suspicion; and, here are just a few…

Patients with fibro have a 10x incidence of sleep disordered breathing over gen population

http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/ ... ng-concern

OSA causes both local and systemic inflammation

http://journal.publications.chestnet.or ... id=1082648

… evidence leads many researchers to believe that excess cytokines may be responsible for CFS and FM symptoms.

http://www.prohealth.com/library/showAr ... libid=8610

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I never give med advice, but I will say when it comes to inflammation (along w xpap) fish oil might be your friend.



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Yes, buy fish oil and avoid wheat and sugar.