What Causes Fibromyalgia? with Dr. Martin Rutherford - Power Health Talk

What Causes Fibromyalgia?

Dr. Rutherford: I'm Dr. Martin Rutherford. I am a board-certified
chiropractic physician, and I am a certified functional medicine
practitioner. This is...

Dr. G: I am a chiropractor as well as a board-certified
chiropractic neurologist.

Dr Rutherford: The largest part of our practice is treating chronic pain,
and within the framework of that we treat a lot of fibromyalgia. A lot of
fibromyalgia. And I have fibromyalgia.

A lot of people want to know what's the cause. People ask us all the
time, "What's the cause of fibromyalgia?"

So I think the most important thing we could do in a couple of
minutes here is just delineate the definition between cause and trigger.
And I would say that there is a distinct difference. Most of our
fibromyalgia patients, Dr. Gates will elaborate on this, will have kind of
as the cause underlying problems that are set off by triggers. And this is
very important, because once the trigger is there, with the possible
exception of stress, it's usually gone. And we're still trying to treat
the trigger when the cause is sitting in front of us and needs to be
figured out. Triggers.

My trigger was pneumonia. I had an overwhelming pneumonia infection
that didn't get taken care of very well, because of me, and it morphed into
fibromyalgia. It affected my immune system. It affected my stress
mechanisms. Overwhelming infections, stress is a big one. Stress can be a
trigger and it can perpetuate it. Traumas, for example motor vehicle
accident. We are chiropractic physicians, we have done musculoskeletal
work over the years. I've had scores of patients that had a motor vehicle
accident and the next thing, everything in their body hurt, their life fell
apart, fibromyalgia.

Surgeries, surgeries. Very frequently, the person goes in, they have
a surgery, the next thing they know every part of their body hurts, they
start getting pain everywhere, they start getting chronic fatigue, their
hair starts falling out, et cetera. How could that be? How could they get
this flu-like symptom all over the place?

And I think the last thing, and the biggest one of what we see
consistently, is pregnancy. Either getting pregnant and during the last
trimester of pregnancy, or delivering the child. I delivered my child, the
next thing I know I put on a bunch of weight, my hair started falling out,
I was totally lethargic, chronically fatigued, et cetera.

Those are the big triggers that I hear all the time. Absolutely.
And those triggers set off, probably what I would define as the cause of
this, of fibromyalgia. And I think maybe, you want to do the?

Dr. Gates: Go into the causes? Yeah. Absolutely. So, like we talked
about in one of the other videos, let's step back and know that
fibromyalgia is basically a problem where the brain keeps focusing on the
pain. The pain has become learned in the brain. And that happens due to a
variety of mechanisms, there's probably twenty-five things long. However
we know that chronic stress, or stress that has become learned, those
stress hormones actually make your brain and spinal cord learn pain. And
it can be mental stress or it can be physical stress. And chemical stress.
It can be a bad gut that's out there forever, it can be your worries and
fears about whether you have cancer or whether you're over, it can be a lot
of things. It's not just emotional, continued emotional stress, although
that can be part of it.

[Donna]

I love your Hangouts - thank you so much for these!!! Is it possible to adjust the microphone so it doesn't make the pinging sound when you set your hand on the table? Not trying to complain. :) It's just a bit distracting and many of us who are very ill--the people who need these videos the most--may be sensitive to loud, repetitive, or sudden noises may not be able to watch. Thanks!

[chloehatch]

Hi i have just been diagnosed for fibromyalgia can my childhood of been misunderstood and beeing misunderstanding to poeple then my nanna dies 3 yaers ago could that be a triger or course