People with fibromyalgia also suffer from sleep disturbances. At night, patients wake up at least 6 times a night.
The vast majority of people with fibromyalgia have trouble sleeping . And according to a Canadian study published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, patients have specific sleep disorders. This disorder could be a new indicator of this difficult to diagnose pathology.
Fibromyalgia is actually an unknown and poorly supported disease . However, this is not uncommon: between 2 and 3 million French people are affected. They suffer from pain throughout the body without being able to identify the source of these ailments, linked to damage to the nerve fibers that transmit pain information or to an alteration in pain management. Patients also complain of fatigue, anxiety and insomnia.
Patients wake up 6 times a night.
To better understand the nature of sleep disorders in people with fibromyalgia, researchers from the University of Ontario (Canada) studied 132 patients, 109 insomniacs and 52 people without sleep problems. For 2 consecutive nights, her complete dream was recorded by polysomnography. Thanks to the electrodes placed on the scalp and the faces of the volunteers, the researchers were able to analyze the duration of sleep, the cycles and the different stages of sleep, as well as the time to fall asleep.
Scientists observe that people with fibromyalgia and insomniacs have more difficulty falling asleep than people without the disorder and have fragmented deep sleep. Their nights are characterized by a greater succession of nocturnal awakenings and short sleep episodes than those who sleep with two ears. These participants would be woken up at least 6 times a night.
However, scientists point out that these waking phases are shorter in people with fibromyalgia than in those with primary insomnia, they are more common.
Restore a continuous dream.
This work suggests that people with fibromyalgia don’t have the same sleep problems as people with insomnia. By identifying these differences, professionals can diagnose and treat these disorders more effectively. For fibromyalgia, treatment would reduce the frequency of waking episodes and maintain continuous sleep.
A study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology last February indicated that these sleep disturbances stem from the thalamus, a region of the brain that regulates sleep. UC Berkeley researchers found abnormalities in deep sleep waves. But the latter could be restored thanks to a drug prescribed for narcolepsy. A discovery that offers a treatment opportunity to restore sleep and relieve fibromyalgia.
