September 28, 2007
 Dr. Daniel J. Clauw, MD, is one of the world's leading authorites on the mechanisms and most effective treatments of Fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Gulf War Illness, and other 'overlapping illnesses'.
If you have questions and want advice about ME/CFS and FM symptoms, treatments, or new studies, you can ask Dr. Clauw TODAY, Friday, October 12, from 12 noon to 1 pm Pacific Time (3-4 Eastern) in the ImmuneSupport.com Chat Room. If you're not yet registered to chat you can do so now - it takes but a moment. Or you can log in as a guest 10 minutes before the chat at http://www.immunesupport.com/chat/chatevent.cfm
Dr. Clauw is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, which creates University/community partnerships for clinical research and education, and will administer a new $55 million grant from the NIH. On a national level, Dr. Clauw leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers dedicated to studying chronic pain and fatigue syndromes at academic and government medical centers across the U.S. All of this work is focused on translating positive findings to effective interventions and physician education as fast as possible.
Read About Dr. Clauw's Advice to Patients and Doctors, His Treatment Protocol,
and Some of His Latest Research
n "Golden Rules for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia Patients" – simple but profound guidelines for patient self-management that Dr. Clauw has distilled from years of clinical experience.
n “Daniel J. Clauw, MD, on the Effective Treatment of Fibromyalgia” – Dr. Clauw outlines his FM treatment protocol and vision of the future.
n “Dr. Clauw’s Grand Rounds Update on Fibromyalgia Science & Theory” – a summary of new Fibromyalgia research-based findings, theories, and treatments that Dr. Clauw published recently in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology to help bring physicians up to speed. Concepts include:
FM as part of a continuum of pain and somatic syndromes;
The misdiagnosis of many male patients;
The pain sensitivity “bell curve”;
The “underpublicized” evidence of strong genetic underpinnings;
Profiles of three notable FM patient “subgroups” likely to represent different therapeutic needs; and more.
The Co-Cure Listserv library offers a pdf file of the full text article, titled – “Fibromyalgia: Update on Mechanisms and Management.”
n “How do we know that the pain in Fibromyalgia is ‘real’?” – a widely publicized article by Dr. Clauw and his colleague Richard E. Harris, PhD, citing more than 44 studies demonstrating genetic markers associated with increased risk of pain disorders, imaging studies of abnormal pain-related brain activation, and more - to document the reality of Fibromyalgia pain. See a summary at http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/id/7600
n "Why don't painkillers work for people with Fibromyalgia? Research may explain why common drugs don't help." - A PET scan study by Dr. Clauw and colleagues, just published in The Journal of Neuroscience, reports they found lower levels of natural mu-opioids ('mu' stands for morphine) in the brains of FM patients, which were associated with heightened pain perception, compared with healthy controls. The reason appears to be reduced opioid receptor availability, and may explain why opiate-based pain drugs are less effective in Fibromyalgia patients. See an abstract of the article, "Decreased central mu-opiod receptor availability in Fibromyalgia," at http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm?id=8346
n "Characteristic electron microsopic findings in the skin of patients with Fibromyalgia - Preliminary study" - An electro microscopic study of FM patients' skin identified unusual patterns in nerve fibers and insulating cells vs. controls that might contribute to or result from FM patients' lower pain threshold.
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