New Information on Fibromyalgia from a Rheumatologist

I just wanted to have some information that a rheumatologist I saw recently gave me about fibromyalgia that I hadn’t heard in my 8 years of dealing with it so far. Maybe it will be helpful to someone else! 1. She said that even though many neurologists do not recognize fibromyalgia as a real condition yet, that it is a neurological disease. She said that much of the pain experienced is more about nerves firing than other types of pain, which is why medications such as Gabapentin can be helpful. (When she squeezed my toes to test for arthritis I almost jumped off the table from a pain response - she said that this was an angry nerve in my toe and that we get angry nerves all over). I keep getting sent to rheumatology for fibromyalgia, but she told me that rheumatology is a field that is mainly about arthritic conditions but that general doctors tend to send their “tricky” patients to them when they can’t figure out what’s going on because of a misconception about them diagnosing all autoimmune diseases and funky diseases like those. She said even in the autoimmune world they really can only speak into the arthritis types such as RA. That was news to me! 2. She told me that without quality sleep my pain would never improve in any significant way. She said that sleep and exercise are the most important factors of pain management for fibromyalgia and that they often go hand in hand. 3. She said that as far as exercise goes - cardio will help reduce pain even if it feels counterproductive in the moment. She said that strength training could potentially do the opposite, causing a flare, if it is not done in a mindful way.