Written by Amy Myers, MD
It is estimated that fibromyalgia affects nearly 6 million or 1 in 50 people, causing chronic pain, particularly muscle pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, brain fog, or cognitive impairment, depression, and painful tender points throughout the body.
Not surprisingly, conventional medicine focuses only on managing symptoms through pain medications and antidepressants.
Functional medicine, on the other hand, looks to find the root cause of fibromyalgia and other chronic diseases, treating the problem at the root level in order to restore the patient to health. As a functional medicine physician, I have helped many patients recover from fibromyalgia. Below are the top ten root causes of fibromyalgia I see in my clinic.
10 Root Causes Of Fibromyalgia
Gluten Intolerance
Gluten has been liked to more than 55 diseases and is often called the ‘big masquerader’. The reason for this is that the majority symptoms of gluten intolerance are not digestive in nature but rather neurological such as pain, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbances, behavioral issues, fatigue and depression.
Candida Overgrowth
Candida is a fungus or yeast, and a very small amount of it lives in your intestines. However, when overproduced, candida breaks down the wall of the intestines and penetrates the bloodstream, releasing toxic byproducts into your body causing a host of unpleasant symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue, digestive issues, and pain. Virtually every one of my patients with fibromyalgia have had Candida overgrowth.
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Thyroid
More than half of the people with thyroid issues have no idea they have one and 90% of these have hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid gland. It is vital that your doctor check six different blood markers to measure your thyroid gland’s function, and it’s imperative that your doctor use the optimal levels rather than the standard reference range when assessing and diagnosing thyroid disorders. Getting my patient’s thyroid levels into an optimal range, typically alleviates their fatigue, brain fog, sleep disturbances and depression.
Vitamin Deficiencies
Magnesium, vitamin D and B12 deficiency are the most common vitamin deficiencies I see in those who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I have had several patients completely reverse their fibromyalgia symptoms with magnesium alone. The best way to measure magnesium is a red blood cell (RBC) magnesium level, which can be ordered by your conventional doctor and tested through any conventional lab.
Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and Leaky Gut
There are more bacteria in us and on us then there are of our own cells. When these bacteria get out of balance through use of antibiotics or a sugar-rich diet we can lose our ability to digest and absorb nutrients, particularly B12. Gluten can cause SIBO and leaky gut and SIBO and leaky gut can lead gluten and other food intolerances. It’s a catch-22 and a vicious cycle. You must ‘fix the gut’ first in anyone with fibromyalgia or any chronic illness.
Adrenal Fatigue
Adrenal fatigue is a result of the chronic stress whether real or perceived. Chronic pain is a stress to the adrenal glands, though typically not the initial adrenal stressor. The initial stressor is usually something such as food intolerances, Candida, mercury toxicity, vitamin deficiencies, or mycotoxins. My goal is to support the adrenals with adaptogenic herbs while we search for the root cause of the stress and correct it.
Mycotoxins
Mycotoxins are toxic substances produced by molds. Only about 25% of the population carries the genes to be susceptible to the effects of mycotoxins. Conventional environmental mold testing only tests for levels of mold spores and does not test for mycotoxins. In my clinic, I used a urine mycotoxin test to determine if someone has been exposed to molds.
Mercury Toxicity
I recommend that all my patients find a biological dentist and have their mercury amalgam fillings removed. Mercury is toxic to our bodies and can be one piece of the puzzle for those with fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders and cancer. I then recommend heavy metal testing using a pre and post DMPS urine challenge test.
MTHFR Mutations
This is a genetic test you can get though any conventional lab. The more mutations you have at the MTHFR gene, the less able you are to methylate and detoxify, particularly toxins such as mercury and lead.1 The more mutations you have at this gene the higher your requirements for methyl-B6, methyl-B12 and folinic acid in order to keep your detoxification pathways working properly.
Glutathione Deficiency
Glutathione, a molecule, is the most critical part of our body’s detoxification system. Glutathione gets recycled in our body unless our toxic burden gets to high or we lack GSTM1 and GSTP1, the enzymes needed to recycle and produce glutathione. Taking a glutathione supplement or the precursors (NAC, alpha lipoic acid, milk thistle) often help my patients dramatically with fatigue.
As you can see from the above list, many of these causes are interrelated and often there is no one single root cause to fibromyalgia or any chronic illness. It is a combination of several or possibly all of the above. Because getting to the root cause can be complex, I recommend that you find a functional medicine physician in your area to help uncover the root cause for you. You do not need to suffer needlessly or mask your symptoms with pain medication and antidepressants. There are doctors like myself who can help you.
For more information
I spoke with David Brady, licensed naturopath and board-certified clinical nutritionist, about the association between fibromyalgia and thyroid disease.