Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain-related condition marked by widespread musculoskeletal pain, tenderness, fatigue, non-restorative sleep, cognitive symptoms often called “fibro fog,” and heightened sensory sensitivity. It is not typically explained by ongoing tissue damage alone. Contemporary Western models often describe fibromyalgia as a disorder of centralized pain processing, where the nervous system becomes more sensitive to pain and other stimuli. Many people also have overlapping concerns such as irritable bowel symptoms, headaches, mood symptoms, and myofascial pain features.

Treatment options vary because fibromyalgia affects multiple systems at once: pain processing, sleep, activity tolerance, stress response, and day-to-day function. In Western care, approaches with the best support often include graded exercise, education, cognitive behavioral strategies, and selected medications for pain or sleep. In Eastern medicine, therapies such as acupuncture, tai chi, qigong, and individualized herbal medicine are used to address patterns involving pain, fatigue, sleep disruption, and body-wide imbalance. Research suggests that outcomes are often best when care is multimodal and individualized, with attention to symptom severity, flare pattern, energy limits, and a person’s comfort with medication, bodywork, or mind-body practices.