Fibromyalgia is a very painful condition that is not life threatening but it is difficult in terms of living with a condition that causes pain and often chronic fatigue and tiredness. In addition there can be other symptoms or even other conditions that people have; so it can feel as if people are being beaten from all sides, with nothing in the body going well.
Although trigger points are in medical terms, a very complex area, perhaps the easiest way to describe them is as the tiniest of nodules that are to be found in muscles; but they then transmit messages of pain throughout the body.
It is also believed that many of the trigger points start to spread within the body. At first it starts off with the one trigger point, then another trigger point appears etc. Although we may think about trigger points as being ‘exclusive’ to fibromyalgia, they are not and they often present within most other pain conditions.
The problem is what to do about them!
Treatment for Fibromyalgia
There is no magic wand that can be waved and fibromyalgia will be cured, but there are some options that can help and one of these, which surprises may people is the use of Botox. It is important to be realistic about any option for treating fibromyalgia. The internet may be awash with ‘miracle cures’ that will work within a month, but these may work for some but not everyone. However, Botox is at least based on scientific research, unlike many of the miracle cures on the internet…..
Botox targets the muscles involved by effectively disarming them and ensuring that they do not send panic signals throughout the body. The body is then of the opinion that there is no pain being experienced.
The difficulty with Botox is that it needs to be used specifically at the trigger points or the muscles where the patient is having muscles that go into spasm. For obvious reasons it cannot be used throughout the whole body, since it defectively disables the muscles to which it is applied.
Botox As A Non-Medication
Botox comes with slight risks, simply because it is an injection and it is a tiny amount of ‘botulism’. But as procedures go it is actually very safe and because it can be repeated it is not a ‘one off’ treatment and patients can have different muscles targeted according to the pain. Botox is also not a medication and since many of the medications used to treat pain are actually quite potent many people prefer taking other treatments as opposed to drugs.
There are no real side effects with Botox, which is great news for anyone who is sensitive to medication or who is quite ill with fibromyalgia and fear taking anything which will make them feel worse in other ways, though the pain may be cured.
Thus Botox rally can help with regard to trigger points. It has a high rate of success; it is not a panacea for everyone, but it certainly helps a lot of people and reducing pain felt with trigger points is no mean feat!
