Fibromyalgia - Small fibre neuropathy detected in the eye

[Marco]

This is an interesting new article from Cort :

http://www.cortjohnson.org/blog/201...uropathy-found-in-fibromyalgia-patients-eyes/

Now that we have several objective findings of small fibre (peripheral) neuropathy in around 50% of fibro patients it suggests that fibro may not be solely a central pain condition (although the researchers have been a little coy to date as to whether these findings suggest misdiagnosis, a co-morbid condition or represent a clue to the underlying pathology).

One drawback of investigating small fibre neuropathy is the need to tale a skin punch biopsy. However small fibre neuropathy also effects nerves in the cornea (and the autonomic nervous system) and neuropathy can be detected non-invasively by corneal microscopy.

Given repeated findings of autonomic dysfunction in ME/CFS with 'something' possibly acting as a peripheral signal, this non-invasive test strikes me as worth a pilot study at least.

 

[wastwater]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the early reports of me/cfs where people lost there finger prints.Fibromyalgia is quite common in Axenfeld riegers syndrome.I found another paper of interest(it is a download)http://neuroskinbiopsy.mgh.harvard.edu/FinkandOaklander.pdf

 

[Marco]

Oaklander's group was one of the first to find small fibre neuropathy in fibro patients and her clinic offers objective testing which would be good if the finding is shown to hold up in large numbers of consecutive patients.

 

[voner]

Oaklander's group was one of the first to find small fibre neuropathy in fibro patients and her clinic offers objective testing which would be good if the finding is shown to hold up in large numbers of consecutive patients.

Marco, at this point I still wonder if there's any significance to all this. It's just a causal relationship. None of these groups sampled painful areas (what used to be called tender points) on fibromyalgia patients. they sampled areas where small fiber nerve dysfunction is known to be more prevalent. perhaps, once again, I am missing something?

 

[Marco]

Marco, at this point I still wonder if there's any significance to all this. It's just a causal relationship. None of these groups sampled painful areas (what used to be called tender points) on fibromyalgia patients. they sampled areas where small fiber nerve dysfunction is known to be more prevalent. perhaps, once again, I am missing something?

As far as I'm aware 'tender points' are pretty much bunk and have been ditched from recent fibro criteria on the basis that the same points are 'tender' in healthy controls.

The significance (for me) is that either a proportion or all fibro patients may have smal fibre neuropathy that may extend to autonomic fibres that might explain the extensive overlap with ME/CFS symptoms and therefore might hint at common underlying pathologies; But then I'm easily excited.