Real Pain and 'Explosive' Brains | Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is not a well-understood malady, but scientists are making breakthroughs that could eventually help pin down both the causes and the cures.

Hosted by: Hank Green
----------
----------
Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters:
azarus G, Sam Lutfi, D.A. Noe, الخليفي سلطان, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, Patrick D. Ashmore, charles george, Kevin Bealer, Chris Peters
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
----------
Sources:

[Craznar]

Doctor : "This pain is all in your head".
Patient : "Of course it is - that's how pain works".

[DukeofDusk]

Now I understand what my sister means when she says "everything hurts" thanks sci show for opening my eyes I can be a better brother now

[NachosNVeganChili]

Imagine being in very real and constant pain and just being told that it's a delusion...

[kimbekaw]

I am appreciative that you covered this topic. However, one critique is that you should not have said "psychologists diagnosing" Fibromyalgia. Psychologists generally don't diagnose this. You have to see a Rheumatologist or even a Neurologist to get a respectable diagnosis (after going through a litany of testing). By saying that psychologists diagnose Fibromyalgia will only perpetuate the "it's all in your head" stereotype. I also wish you hit on another key symptom, the fatigue, and how debilitating and possibly disabling this disorder can become. Regardless, this fibro sufferer really thanks you for bringing positive attention to this disorder!

[DarrylLearie]

Pain is pain regardless of its specific cause(s) thus we should be empathetic.

[Jay-udjv]

Oh it's very real and it's destroying my life. I wish those who say it's not real could experience what it feels like for a couple of days.

[cexilady]

I was diagnosed with fibro 6 months ago after 4 years of being told by family it’s not worth investigating because it’s all in my head and not real, I started crying three times during this video- once when you debunked the myth in the beginning, when you listed risk factors and I have all except genetics predisposition, and when you said “there’s nothing delusional about it”...

It’s nice to hear I’m not crazy.

[adriannah]

I'm a psychiatrist. I would like to add that it would be hard to make the argument that any pain is delusional- it's a sensory experience-, though a person may have delusions related to the pain (e.g. the pain is because of a chip in my head, my arm hurts because it is dead, etc). And even if the symptom--pain or otherwise--is "all in your head, " as some might put it, that does make it any less real, it just means a different mechanism is causing it and that there may be different avenues for treating it.

[joanrankin]

Thank you for helping to spread awareness about this illness. I have been suffering for nearly 18 years. It's important to share new research on this as well as educate society about this and any chronic pain disease. Chronic pain is having a huge, but invisible, impact on society.

[bethlaubenthal]

Please let there be more research.
I'm tired of being tired and in pain all the time.
Thank you for this video.
Fibromyalgia sucks. Changed my life.
~Beth

[Kenkire]

Thank you for covering this. I was diagnosed with fibro 5 years ago. Before that, I had a lot pain tolerance. I gave birth to 3 children with no pain meds and recovered fairly quickly. I had a toenail ripped off once (gym accident), and was walking fine the next day. I used to exercise regularly. Now, I get a flu shot, and my arm is on fire for a week or more. I can't exercise very much, or I will pay for it with weeks in pain. Some days I'm okay and can do stuff. Others it's like I'm a zombie. During a fibro flare, my memory is gone. I have a hard time communicating. I can't form simple sentences. I have a hard time even making it out of bed. Before the fibro, I had 2 jobs working in janitorial. I was let go from my jobs because I kept forgetting to do many of my tasks. Now I can't even walk up stairs too many times a day without hurting myself in the future. The state has said I do not qualify for SSD because of all the controversy around fibro. I wish there was more understanding about this condition.

[DeathbyPixels]

“It’s all in your head, stop whining.”
“Yeah, just like the cancer is all in your lungs, Karen.”

[AnnikaVictoria]

Thank you. I developed fibromyalgia after having a painful life threatening autoimmune condition ravage my body, and it took years and years trying to convince doctors that I was in pain “when I shouldn’t be, because I was fine”. This was very validating. And gave me some hope!!

[CeliaTyree]

I could be feeling super happy and calm and still get an unexpected flare up. Everyone assumes I have pain because of how I'm feeling and if anything it's the other way around, being constantly in pain ends up taking its toll.

[LulitaInPita]

FINALLY SOME FIBROMYALGIA
I came to YouTube today to search for a specific video, but then I saw the thumbnail. The other video can wait, now I don't even remember what it was!

[rubyve]

I have fibro and I honestly can't thank you enough for making this video. It means so much to me to have my illness recognised.

[RaeneDroppe]

I suffer from fibromyalgia myself and the 'explosion' bit it very accurate. Sometimes something or someone my graze the hair on the top of my head and suddenly the movement of every individual hair feels like needles digging into my scalp and then the rest of my body suddenly can't handle anything touching it. The softest cloth on my skin feels like super rough sandpaper and it lasts and lasts and I just feel so damn tired all the time. It's absolutely awful. Thank you for covering this.

[DigitalFumbles]

My mother's had fibromyalgia since her 20s, I believe. I know she's had a lot of trouble throughout the years with getting taken seriously, like not being granted treatment that works best for her and such.

[lunacouer]

They're finding more and more that mental illnesses like depression have an inflammatory response component to them. A lot of the key genes linked to depression code for immune system proteins. Like, 8 out of the top 10 of them.

Well, fibro is also has an inflammatory component to it, and is considered by many to be an auto-immune disease. For so many fibro patients, their symptoms begin after getting a flu or cold. A lot of fibro patients test positive for lupus intermittently (take it one time, positive, take it 6 months later, negative, take it again, positive) - and just like on House, it's never lupus. Jacked up circadian rhythms are another part of it, and the body is unable to make those small muscle repairs as a result.

I'm glad you brought up that it needs the biopsychosocial approach, because people with fibro have a body and mind under siege. I hope you do another video on SciShow that's more comprehensive, because they're just now bringing pieces together in research. That whole "It's all in your head" thing really screwed people with fibro for decades. It's only in the last 10 years that research has really taken off.

[tracydumka]

Your genes are the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger. I was super human healthy & fit, but always a very emotionally sensitive person & then some traumas snowballed into depression which maybe crapped out my immune system over time, then got a virus that never went away & affects all the body systems. Now I have to unwind the threads backwards to fix it, if that's even possible. But I have hope for some definite recovery, however incomplete.