Publication
Title
Central sensitization : a biopsychosocial explanation for chronic widespread pain in patients with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome
Author
Abstract
In addition to the debilitating fatigue, the majority of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) experience chronic widespread pain. These pain complaints show the greatest overlap between CFS and fibromyalgia (FM). Although the literature provides evidence for central sensitization as cause for the musculoskeletal pain in FM, in CFS this evidence is currently lacking, despite the observed similarities in both diseases. The knowledge concerning the physiological mechanism of central sensitization, the pathophysiology and the pain processing in FM, and the knowledge on the pathophysiology of CFS lead to the hypothesis that central sensitization is also responsible for the sustaining pain complaints in CFS. This hypothesis is based on the hyperalgesia and allodynia reported in CFS, on the elevated concentrations of nitric oxide presented in the blood of CFS patients, on the typical personality styles seen in CFS and on the brain abnormalities shown on brain images. To examine the present hypothesis more research is required. Further investigations could use similar protocols to those already used in studies on pain in FM like, for example, studies on temporal summation, spatial summation, the role of psychosocial aspects in chronic pain, etc.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Clinical rheumatology. - Brussels, 1982, currens
Publication
Brussels : 2007
ISSN
0770-3198 [print]
1434-9949 [online]
DOI
10.1007/S10067-006-0433-9
Volume/pages
26 :4 (2007) , p. 465-473
ISI
000244677200001
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 03.01.2013
Last edited 04.09.2024
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