If You're Living With Fibromyalgia Pain, Ketamine Can Help

Even though fibromyalgia is a widespread condition — affecting about 4 million American adults — it’s still mysterious. Researchers are working to pinpoint the precise cause. At this point, an increasing number of experts think your persistent pain and other symptoms may stem from overstimulation in your nerves resulting in too many pain-signaling chemicals in your brain.

Ultimately, though, because the cause behind fibromyalgia still eludes us, treatment can feel elusive, too. Medications and physical therapy help some people but not others. If you fall into the latter category, don’t despair.

Here at Integrated Spine And Pain Care, Mikael Sarij, MD, applies his specialization in general body conditions to offer you targeted treatment. Specifically, our team has seen fibromyalgia patients see notable improvement with ketamine infusions. We now offer this highly effective chronic pain treatment at our offices in Farmingdale and Deer Park, New York.

Should you consider it for yourself? A closer look at how it works can help you decide.

Understanding fibromyalgia

To get a good feel for how ketamine works, it’s first helpful to get clarity around fibromyalgia.

As we said, research is still evolving, but the current body of work suggests that people with fibromyalgia process pain signals differently than the rest of the population. Your brain accumulates abnormally high levels of the chemicals associated with pain. That causes the pain receptors in the brain to develop memories and sensitization to past pain, leading to overreactions to both painful and non painful sensations.

Physical trauma, persistent stress, and infectious illnesses can all trigger fibromyalgia. That said, in some people, the pain develops gradually and there’s no defined starting point.

Because fibromyalgia can run in families, researchers think it may be a genetic condition.

When you have fibromyalgia, you usually feel a constant and widespread ache that affects both sides of the body, above and below the waist. It’s also long-term. In fact, you’ll only get a fibromyalgia diagnosis if you’ve had that pain for three months or more.

Fibromyalgia also comes with other symptoms, like fatigue, sleep disorders, and overly long periods of sleep. The pain occurring with the condition can disrupt your sleep, too.

Fibromyalgia can also cause cognitive symptoms like a lack of concentration or focus and forgetfulness. People call this fibro fog.

Furthermore, as with any chronic pain condition, fibromyalgia may also cause anxiety and depression.

Getting fibromyalgia relief with ketamine

To reiterate, fibromyalgia research suggests that your pain is caused by irregular nerve activity. With ketamine, we can directly interact with the resulting pain signals.

At our offices, Dr. Sarij intravenously applies a low dose of ketamine. Even in small amounts, ketamine is strong enough to treat pain symptoms. It can create a relaxing and sedative effect.

Ketamine offers your brain a reset from pain by blocking pain receptors. In many people, it alleviates the hypersensitivity that comes from fibromyalgia. If other treatments have failed to ease your pain, ketamine offers an alternative.

We recommend that you arrange a ride to and from your session. Post-treatment fatigue is common and is one of the few side effects that ketamine creates.

If you want to learn more about this new and exciting treatment option for fibromyalgia, don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment at the Integrated Spine and Pain Care office nearest you. Call us or book your appointment online today.