About the Survey
The survey can be divided into two parts. The first which encompasses treatments and the second that concentrates on pharmaceuticals. The two bar charts give a snapshoot of trends among group members. The subsequent pie graphs give the percentage of responses and then a qualitative assessment: either beneficial (green), no effect (yellow) or adverse affect (red). Let's start with the treatments 
The first obvious trend is that the treatments that were least used gave the greatest benefits. Diet, which only 60% made a conscious attempt to change, was effective for almost 80%, with no real downside reported. Emotional an behavioral care was also very successful, again with minimal negative experiences reported. (Note that faith and prayer was excluded from these results. They were almost universally practiced with overwhelming satisfaction, and veiled the results for other treatments.) 
Nutritional supplements (other than common multivitamins) were not well understood in our group discussions. This was played out as a large percentage of "no effect" in the survey. This may be worth a separate topic. A large percentage of respondents had negative experience with exercise - notably even simple exercise such as walking. This is a dilemma many fibro patients face; we need exercise to feel better and maintain mobility, but often the pain prevents exercise as a regular program. For complementary therapies, chiropractic and massage gave the highest responses with the fewest adverse reports. 
Next let's turn to pharmaceuticals The survey grouped pharmaceuticals into basic categories. Note that sometimes drugs are prescribed to mitigate fibromyalgia symptoms "off prescription", that is, not for the original intent of the drug. For example muscle relaxants could be prescribed to help sleep. 
Analgesics were the most commonly prescribed. In about half the cases, treatment was favorable while about 30% had adverse reactions. For antidepressants, positive responses slipped to 40%, while adverse responses increased slightly to about a third. 
Muscle relaxants, and anti-epileptic drugs had mixed success. This may change as more patients begin to take Cymbalta (antidepressant) and Lyrica (anti-epileptic) which are being specifically marketed to fibro patients. 
Anti-inflammatory drugs were particularly troubling. They had a low success rate (15%) and two thirds had adverse reactions - many reported as very severe. Also most tried more than one drug, attempting to find one that worked for them. Given the recent concern with Cox-2 inhibitors and heart attacks, it may be prudent to seriously discuss the pros and cons of this medical option with you doctor. 
Sleeping aids and anti-anxiety medications were reported to be effective - both targeting better sleep. We all know the better we sleep, the better we feel. 
That's about it. I appreciated all those that participated, it was a very useful exercise that facilitated group discussion. |
