It was a small study, including only 9 women. They were all on medications for fibromyalgia symptoms, then weaned off the drugs and, about a month and a half later, started a 6-week aerobic exercise routine.
As you'd expect, self-reported pain increased when the women were off the meds, then decreased during the course of the exercise program. Working-memory tasks performed at each stage followed the reverse pattern, initially dipping and then rising significantly, researchers say.
The fMRI results mirrored the working memory results and showed a significant increase in activity in 8 areas of the brain that deal with performing tasks.
Cognitive dysfunction, often called "fibro fog," is a common symptom of fibromyalgia that is hard to measure. Working memory impairment generally goes along with fibro fog, making you forget why you walked into a certain room, or causing you to check the next step on a recipe over and over. Multi-tasking can go by the wayside as well.
For years, study after study has showed improvement with consistent, moderate exercise, but the reasons behinds the results were unclear. This study could help shed light on them by demonstrating the effect of exercise on specific areas of the brain.
However, in practice, many people with fibromyalgia find it difficult or impossible to exercise because even mild exertion can cause symptoms to flare for days or weeks afterward. Knowledgeable doctors generally recommend starting with extremely gentle exercise for a very short amount of time, such as 1 minute, and increasing the length of time and intensity of the work in tiny increments once you know what you've been doing is manageable.
While this study's results are interesting, it's important to note that it was small and results will need to be verified by larger trials.
Does exercise seem to make you think better? Do you struggle with exercising consistently? Have you given up on exercise? Leave your comments below!
Shaista, Thank you so much for finding and posting these very interesting and useful medical articles and studies. I have chronic pain from nerve damage and erosion of my myelin insulating sheaths in all my legs, arms, hands, feet, and upper body. In addition I have inflammatory lymphatic system swelling in my legs. (inflammatory lymphedema) I also am diabetic (well controlled with long acting insulin) and have severe persistent asthma. I have other chronic illnesses too, but the unbearable burning pain I have is the most serious. It waxes and wanes with my fatigue level and my activity level, becoming much worse when I am fatigued or when I am very active. Despite all of this, I am not overweight although my stamina is very limited. On Carepages.com a site similar to Caring Bridge, I communicate with and try to encourage many people with chronic pain and fibromyalgia. I have been on the same steady dose of methadone (about 30 mg/day) for the last five years and like most people who are under the close supervision of medical experts at an academic pain center, I don't misuse my pain medication. I worked in the same career as a Science and Engineering Librarian for thirty years before becoming disabled.
ReplyDeleteMany of my symptoms are similar to people I know with Fibromyalgia. I ride a recumbent bike on four to five days a week and use my walker to extend my ability to go to stores and to my physician and specialist visits. This walker lets me rest as needed and sit down when I am in a line. It is incredibly helpful because my feet have intense burning pain when standing. By using the walker and riding the bike for about 25-30 mins daily and walking perhaps another 10-15 mins a day at grocery stores and on other little trips for necessities, my energy and stamina remains at a high level. That in turn affects my mental sharpness because I've kept a basic level of fitness.
Doing all this has been and is a huge challenge. For example, my lymphedema flares up for months at a time. My legs become very hard and almost wood like (fibrosis) and so large that I can no longer bend them far at all. This adds another level of pain as my legs become very red and sometimes infected. So, in the last 3 1/2 years as my lymphedema has been very severe, it has been hard to do almost any exercise except for walking. During the intermittent periods of one to two months when I am in a kind of remission from my swelling, I am able to resume my bike riding. Then suddenly, I will have to stop that for several months at a time. So, in all this there is something else that helps to keep me sharp because in reality there are long periods of time when I am not able to exercise much at all.
What helps very, very much in addition to exercise in keeping me mentally sharp and going is my committment to writing online and blogging. It is my activity on Facebook and on Google plus, and in other ways that is so important. I stimulate myself to with a tremendous number of web information sources. My Roku box is a great help with subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu Plus. I listen to National Public Radio through the app tunein radio. There's also the subscription to the all digital access edition of the New York Times. We subscribe to satellite television too and have access to about 250 channels. I could go on here, but anything with history, science, nature, photography, astronomy, current events, news, and about cultures around the world I follow. So, it is exercise in addition to very intense mental stimulation and writing each day that has helped me so much. I don't know what I would do without my computers and my iPad. I have somehow found a place where I can thrive mentally in this digital world. I'm so thankful for the opportunities that exist for physically disabled people like me today.