What is Fibromyalgia?
- Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition and a significant cause of disability.
- FM is pain everywhere accompanied by fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, problems thinking clearly, and sometimes mood and anxiety symptoms.
- The pain is mostly a tiring, aching sensation in large muscles that worsens with repetitive use.Â
- Although the pain is felt in the body, brain imaging studies show that fibromyalgia symptoms are generated by the brain through neuroplasticity—the brain’s ever-changing structure and function.
- Small fiber neuropathy is found in approximately 49% of cases, suggesting that structural nerve damage may play a role.
- The connection between these two seemingly unrelated findings is a topic of discussion in the field.
- Understanding the connection is important to develop effective treatments for people with FM.
Download the 2016 Fibromyalgia Criteria
Online Courses
Self-Study Course
Pathways to Improvement
Learn to take charge of your health to help you feel and live better with fibromyalgia. Self-management works!
More DetailsLive Online Mentorship
Pathways In Action
Learn to individualize and optimize your self-management with the support of a mentor and group. Ask your questions in the live sessions about fibromyalgia.
More DetailsMembership to Live Sessions
Live! with Dr. Stein
Evidence-based presentations and Q&A with Dr. Stein. Credible, science-based, and cutting edge information about how to live longer and healthier.Â
Self-Study Course
Pathway 3: Sleep
Better sleep means less pain and more comfort. Wake more refreshed and have more energy to enjoy life by learning proven self-management strategies for more effective sleep.Â
More DetailsWebinars (recordings)
Vagus Nerve
Dr. Navaz Habib explains how the vagus nerve controls essential body functions like breathing and inflammation. He shares simple exercises to activate the vagus nerve and improve your health.
More DetailsCauses & Treatment
Dr. Neil Nathan explains how to solve underlying causes of ME, CFS, FM and ES. Learn strategies to recover from mold and infections that make people sensitive and reactive.
Know Pain
Debbie Patterson, a registered physiotherapist and teacher, explains key concepts of pain science, emphasizing neuroplasticity and providing guidance on how to rewire your brain to produce less pain.
More DetailsDeep Pacing
Dr. Stein explains DEEP pacing—providing strategies for attending holistically to the mind and body, to stabilize your energy, make your life and health more predictable, and give you more control.Â
More DetailsBooks
Let Your Light Shine Through
In this manual, Dr. Stein shares the strategies she has found to be the most successful for patients in her 35-year medical practice working with ME, CFS, FM, ES, chronic pain, and more recently, long Covid. Readers are guided through a 286-page, 4-month program specific to these conditions. Let Your Light Shine Through is filled with practical, no-to-low-cost management suggestions, tools and resources. Formats available: paperback (coil-bound) or digital download.
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More Light
Building upon Let Your Let Shine Through, More Light contains up-to-date, science-based information, clinical approaches, and affordable interventions that you can do on your own. Currently, only individual chapters are available at affordable prices. Choose the subjects tailored specifically to your health needs. Current topics are Self-management, Diagnosis, Biology of Change, Sleep, and Energy and Activity.
More DetailsRecommended Free VideosÂ
A Conversation About Fibromyalgia
with the Bill Nelems Pain & Research Centre
Dr. Stein discusses nociplastic pain of which Fibromyalgia is the poster child. The type of persistent, widespread pain-associated symptoms found in FM is caused by a brain process called sensitization. This is good news because we can learn to return the brain to normal processing by consistently applying simple neuroplasticity-based tools. This neuroscience is the basis of Dr. Stein's new online course, Healing through Neuroplasticity.Â
How to Use Neuroplasticity
to Heal Chronic Pain
Dr. Stein shares some of the keys to using neuroplasticity to decrease chronic pain and other associated symptoms. Fibromyalgia patients could benefit from learning how to use neuroplasticity to help with their pain. The recording includes over 30 minutes of Q&A with some great questions asked.
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Neuroplasticity of the Brain Meetup
In this presentation, Dr. Stein gave a detailed summary of neuroplasticity, how it causes pain, how we can leverage it to heal from persistent pain, and the neuroplasticity boosters which allow practice to be more effective. Very helpful for fibromyalgia patients! The presentation is 45 minutes, followed by a very engaged Q&A session with the attendees.
What Can Help Heal Your Pain? An interview with Simon Pimenta
Simon lives in the UK and had ME/CFS and fibromyalgia for 8 years.Â
In this video, Simon talks to Dr. Stein on the topic of healing pain using Neuroplasticity and other approaches. Â
Articles and Peer-Reviewed Publications
Concerns with FM Guidelines: Letter to the editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ)
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