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128 active trials for Fibromyalgia

Essential Hypotension and Allostasis Registry

The essential arterial hypotension and allostasis registry is a prospective, observational research that has the purpose of demonstrating that essential blood pressure (BP) disorders and the associated comorbidities are a result of the inappropriate allostatic response to daily life stress. This required a functioning brain orchestrating the evaluation of the threat and choosing the response, this is a mind-mediated phenomenon. If the response is excessive it contributes to high BP, if deficient to low BP, and the BP itself will identify the allostatic pattern, which in turn will play an important role in the development of the comorbidities. To do so, consecutive patients of any age and gender that visit a cardiologist's office in Medellin, Colombia, are recruited. Individuals are classified according to their arterial BP and allostasis and follow them in time to see what kind of diseases develops the most (including BP) in the follow up according to the categorization of the characteristic chosen and after adjustment for confounder's variables. In addition, stress events with their date are registered. HYPOTHESIS The causes of the diseases are multifactorial. Physical, biochemical, psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of development dynamically interact to shape the health development process. A person´s health depends on their: Biological and physiologic systems External and internal environment (a) physical, b) internal behavioural and arousal state as registered by the brain. Their interaction. The allostatic mechanisms to the internal and external stressors (allostatic load) involves a network composed by: Functional systems; mediated by: The Autonomic Nervous System The endocrine system The immune system Structural changes: whenever the internal and/or external stressors are long lasting and/or strength enough, they may induce changes in: Epigenetic, endophenotypes, polyphenism. Plasticity The interaction between a) and b). The network response do not affect exclusively the BP, propitiating the development of comorbidities, which may prompt strategies for prevention, recognition and ultimately, treatment. The allostatic model defines health as a state of responsiveness. The concept of psycho-biotype: The allostasis is the result of both: biological (allostasis) and psychological (psychostasis) abilities. It is proposed that both components behave in similar direction and magnitude. Immune disorders may be associated with the development of cancer. High BP population has a higher sympathetic and lower vagal tone, this has been associated with a decrease in the immune´s system function. Resources and energy depletion: Terms like weathering have been used to describe how exposures to different allostatic loads gradually scrape away at the protective coating that keeps people healthy. It is postulated that High BP individuals have more resources and energy.

Start: January 1995
Auriculotherapy Treatment in Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia (FM) is the most common cause of diffuse pain in the bones and joints, and one of the most frequent causes of referral to the pain management unit. It affects mainly women; they are referred by a rheumatologist, an internal medicine physician or by their family physician. FM produces various degrees of disability and pain, and has an important impact on quality of life. Sleep disorders, fatigue and cognitive dysfunctions are almost always part of the clinical presentation. The wide range of symptoms and signs, the unknown etiology, the lack of efficacy of pharmacological treatments make management of FM a very difficult task. In France the consensus includes limitation of pharmacological treatment, encouraging physical rehabilitation and referring the patients to a specialized pain clinic where multidisciplinary management will be undertaken. In our hospital the investigators favor non pharmacological therapies and propose to the FM patients to learn relaxation and self-hypnosis, physical rehabilitation and use of trans cutaneous electrical neurostimulation. Auriculotherapy (AT) is a complementary therapy, based on the idea that the ear is a microsystem which reflects the entire body, represented on the auricle, the outer portion of the ear. Mapping of the auricle has been described, according to the fact that pathology of different organs can induce specific changes in the auricle, for example color change or sensitivity. Treating specific areas, which somehow would be "connected" to the affected organ could also improve the functioning of the body or relieve pain. AT uses placement of needles at points tailored to the patient's pathology. Whatever the mechanisms involved, the effectiveness of ATis currently supported by randomized controlled trials. It is validated by WHO since 1987, mapped in an international nomenclature initially proposed by Nogier. The investigators regularly use AT in FM patients in our pain management unit to alleviate symptoms as pain, sleep disorders, anxiety. The investigators established a clinical trial in this population to assess impact of FM (assessed with Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire) following 3 months of AT management (Primary Outcome). Sleep disorder, fatigue, anxiety and depression, cognitive and physical dysfunction are also evaluated as secondary outcomes. The remnant effect of AT is also evaluated, 3 month after the end of the treatment by the same tests.

Start: April 2016
The Exercise Response to Pharmacologic Cholinergic Stimulation in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/Chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), otherwise known as Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is an under-recognized disorder whose cause is not yet understood. Suggested theories behind the pathophysiology of this condition include autoimmune causes, an inciting viral illness, and a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system caused by a small fiber polyneuropathy. Symptoms include fatigue, cognitive impairments, gastrointestinal changes, exertional dyspnea, and post-exertional malaise. The latter two symptoms are caused in part by abnormal cardiopulmonary hemodynamics during exercise thought to be due to a small fiber polyneuropathy. This manifests as low biventricular filling pressures throughout exercise seen in patients undergoing a level 3 CPET along with small nerve fiber atrophy seen on skin biopsy. After diagnosis, patients are often treated with pyridostigmine (off-label use of this medication) to enhance cholinergic stimulation of norepinephrine release at the post-ganglionic synapse. This is thought to improve venoconstriction at the site of exercising muscles, leading to improved return of blood to the heart and increasing filling of the heart to more appropriate levels during peak exercise. Retrospective studies have shown that noninvasive measurements of exercise capacity, such as oxygen uptake, end-tidal carbon dioxide, and ventilatory efficiency, improve after treatment with pyridostigmine. To date, there are no studies that assess invasive hemodynamics after pyridostigmine administration. It is estimated that four million people suffer from ME/CFS worldwide, a number that is thought to be a gross underestimate of disease prevalence. However, despite its potential for debilitating symptoms, loss of productivity, and worldwide burden, the pathophysiology behind ME/CFS remains unknown and its treatment unclear. By evaluating the exercise response to cholinergic stimulation, this study will shed further light on the link between the autonomic nervous system and cardiopulmonary hemodynamics, potentially leading to new therapeutic targets.

Start: January 2020
Virtual Reality as a New Therapeutic Tool for Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a major health problem and it has been estimate to account for approximately 40% of all medical visits, costing more than $600 billion annually in the United States alone. Given that pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for chronic pain are often difficult and may be associated with limiting side effects, technology-based interventions using virtual reality (VR) may be a promising alternative treatment option. Recent findings from cognitive neuroscience show that it is possible to manipulate the body schema and to induce a range of well-controlled illusory bodily experiences by exposing participants to conflicting multisensory bodily inputs using VR, that are associated with changes in pain perception and somatosensory processing in healthy subjects and chronic pain patients. In the current project the investigators plan to follow up on these findings in patients suffering from chronic pain affecting the whole body, e.g. fibromyalgia. The project is planned as a single center clinical study at the Department of Neurology and Psychosomatic Medicine, Inselspital Bern, in cooperation with the Pain Center Inselspital Bern, the Department of Biomedical Engineering; University Bern and the Department of Psychology, University of Bern. The investigators want to explore the analgesic effect of a specific multisensory illusion (e.g. the cardio-visual illusion) in patients suffering from chronic pain as compared to a control condition (single-blinded, randomized clinical trial) using psychometric and algometric methods. Moreover, the investigators would like to assess the physiological changes associated with pain reduction, study the reduction of psychological distress and improved well-being and assess the subjective acceptance of VR as a possible treatment option for patients with chronic pain. Importantly, the investigators plan to develop and test an easy to use, mobile VR setup as a long-term treatment option for patients with chronic pain. Given that chronic pain is a major health problem, the investigators believe that there is a huge market potential for an easy to use, noninvasive and effective treatment option and a possible technology transfer.

Start: December 2019