Detailed guides to painful problems, treatments & more

Fibromyalgia guide updates 

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Two new sections about two fibromyalgia treatments, one old and one new.

EXERCISE THERAPY for chronic pain in general and fibromyalgia in particular seems like it should be a slam dunk, but it’s not nearly as clear a win as you’d think, and it can even backfire. As with everything in health, turns out “it depends” on how you do it. The section offers some evidence-inspired tips on how to improve the odds that working out will work out.

HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY is new fangled and exotic. It involves sitting in a pressurized chamber with an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The idea is that it squeeeezes extra O₂ into your body! Which … helps? I review the positive but scanty evidence. Spoiler: more study needed.

Both new sections are near the end of the tutorial.