What is fibromyalgia and how does 5-HTP help?

What is fibromyalgia and how does 5-HTP help?
Fibromyalgia is a recently recognized disorder regarded as a common cause of chronic musculoskeletal pain and fatigue. Fibromyalgia is a relatively common condition estimated to affect about 4% of the general population. Diagnosis requires fulfillment of all three major criteria and four or more minor criteria.

Major criteria

Generalized aches or stiffness of at least three anatomic sites for at least three months.
Six or more typical, reproducible tender points.
Exclusion of other disorders which can cause similar symptoms.

Minor criteria

* Generalized fatigue
* Chronic headache
* Sleep disturbance
* Neurological and psychological complaints
* Joint swelling
* Numbing or tingling sensations
* Irritable bowel syndrome
* Variation of symptoms in relation to activity, stress, and weather changes

The history of the development of 5-HTP as an effective treatment for fibromyalgia began with studies on the drug fenclonine (21). This drug blocks the enzyme which converts tryptophan to 5-HTP and as a result blocks serotonin production. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was thought that increased serotonin formation may promote migraine headaches (the opposite of what was later proved, i.e., increasing serotonin levels reduce migraine headache occurrence). The researchers discovered that providing headache sufferers with fenclonine resulted in very severe muscle pain. This effect was exactly opposite of what was expected, but led to some important advances in the understanding of fibromyalgia--a way to induce its severe symptoms of (as well as symptoms nearly identical to EMS, the condition caused by contaminated L-tryptophan). The researchers also discovered that migraine sufferers reacted to the drug much more than non-headache sufferers. In fact, in most normal subjects fenclonine produced no fibromyalgia. These occurrences highlight just how sensitive migraine sufferers are to low serotonin levels.

Migraine headaches and fibromyalgia share a common feature: both are low serotonin syndromes. After over 25 years of research, one of the lead researchers has stated that "In our experience, as well as in that of other pain specialists, 5-HTP can largely improve the painful picture of primary fibromyalgia" (22). Double-blind studies support this contention (23, 24).