Ever pulled a muscle before? Even the most inactive folks will have pulled one at least once, and for active people it happens a whole lot more often. But that’s just one muscle, and there’s more than 600 in the body. Can you imagine how much discomfort you’d be in if you pulled even a third of them? People who have the misfortune of fibromyalgia don’t have 200+ muscles in pain either, but they have muscle pain all the time and immobility all the time. Physical therapy is a part of treating fibromyalgia, as well as using fibromyalgia drugs like Cymbalta and Savella. But what about natural remedies for fibromyalgia?
There are ones, but the medical community consensus would be that natural remedies for fibromyalgia are best used to complement medication use and physical therapy for providing fibromyalgia pain relief. Of the two fibromyalgia meds mentioned above, Cymbalta is the lower priced one of the two, with Savella being quite a bit pricier. However, they are different meds and some patients will have doctor’s that see how Savella is going to be a better fit for them.
If you’re one of them and you need a better price for Rx drugs then ordering medication online from Canada will save you money. In the case of this particular fibromyalgia drug you’ll likely pay around $50 less for 100mg tablets at the 60 count, and often pharmacies will offer you favorable shipping options too. Meds to your door for less, that has to sound good to a lot of people in the USA who struggle with the rising costs for prescription drugs.
This entry is going to be about natural remedies for fibromyalgia and how to treat fibromyalgia though, so we’ll leave any talk of immobility and pain drugs there and look into this topic further. Use the medication you doc recommends for you, but consider adding these treatment approaches too for even better results.
Researchers studying fibromyalgia are fairly unified in the believing that fibromyalgia is primarily related to immune or endocrine system malfunction in the body. Biochemical imbalances are believed to play a role too, but what’s more interesting is that some believe problems with sleep and stress are a factor as well. We won’t get too scientific and terminology heavy, but basically it’s believed that certain cognitive actions in the brain make the person unable to process and disperse stress and then a lack of certain brain-restorative brain benefits provided by deep-stage sleep combine to make fibromyalgia more likely.
These two co-factors also introduce health risks that extend beyond fibromyalgia, as poor sleep and high stress levels can affect heart rate variability. This variability is important for overall health, and another thing to consider is that fibromyalgia can cause symptoms that are similar to ones for IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) as well as causing pain that is similar to arthritis pain. Some of the approaches related to how to prevent arthritis can also be good for people with pain from fibromyalgia who see the value in natural. Another complaint that many people looking for the most effective fibromyalgia treatment may have is that they suffer from what’s called ‘fibro fog’ which is similar to brain fog but with inability to focus or think clearly because of fibromyalgia.
Alright, let’s now get to how to treat fibromyalgia naturally. As we mentioned above, these approaches are known to be helpful but it’s equally well known that nearly every fibromyalgia patient is going to have to take some kind of stiffness and pain management medication plus physical therapy. However, it’s the same as most physically debilitating conditions – if you’re proactive and get moving more you can get better results from your treatment by pairing an effective medication and natural therapy approaches.
The first of these natural remedies for fibromyalgia is yoga. It improves mobility and decreases pain, and it also lowers cortisol levels in the blood, which causes the stress we also talked about earlier that factors into fibro in the first place. The next is meditation, and there are many rheumatologists who see naturopathy value in pain meditation. And it also improves sleep – see above again. Acupuncture for fibromyalgia can be good too and some people have taken up Tai Chai to help with their pain and immobility.
The last of our natural remedies for fibromyalgia will be supplements. Both 5-HTP and SAMe are OTC supplements you can buy without a prescription. Both can help with pain, morning stiffness, fatigue, and anxiety.