E7: Discovery of New Effective Fibromyalgia Treatment by Scientist who shares Chronic Pain Insights

Wisdom From The Other Side Of Recovery from Fibromyalgia, ME, CFS, POTS & MCS

In this episode, world-renowned fibromyalgia researcher Professor Dr. Kati Thieme shares her research and understanding of the root cause of fibromyalgia. She tells of how her theoretical research accidentally led to the discovery of an effective treatment for fibromyalgia called Systolic Extinction Training (SET), which when combined with psychological brain-training strategies, is very effective in resolving chronic pain in fibromyalgia and other conditions.

Professor Dr Kati Thieme explains how blood pressure and baroreceptor sensitivity relays to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in the brainstem via the NTS nucleus, and how this part of the brain becomes 'blind' to the data from the body leading to dysregulation or dysautonomia as well as chronic pain.

We discuss heart rate variability in this context as well as problems around fibromyalgia research and why a tailored approach to recovery is required, plus much more.
For full show notes visit: https://cfsunravelled.com/episode7

Chapters

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Podcast Disclaimer (00:03:57)

3. Dan introduces Kati and asks why she focusses on fibromyalgia (00:04:39)

4. Dan and Kati discuss whether fibromyalgia is a syndrome and the connection to 'other' illnesses (00:06:53)

5. Dan asks Kati about the importance of understanding how the illness works (00:08:54)

6. For a non-psychological illness, why is psychology relevant? How does ANS dysfunction occur? (00:11:28)

7. Dan asks about how the blood pressure variation sensing changes in fibromyalgia (00:18:30)

8. Dan reflects on heart rate variability vs blood pressure variations (00:21:34)

9. How does pain and blood pressure sensing delay connect? (00:23:24)

10. How can this occur in people with different blood pressure? (00:26:15)

11. Why people with POTS & ME/CFS sometimes don't develop pain (00:30:08)

12. Dan asks about why people struggle to create a healing environment to encourage recovery (00:37:40)

13. Dan asks about medical consensus about the cause of fibromyalgia & evidence that ANS dysfunction is central (00:41:46)

14. Dan highlights the issue of needing different treatment evaluations and tailored treatments (00:47:42)

15. Katie talk about the need for different medications and how some medicines provoke diminished baroreceptor sensitivity (00:49:01)

16. Dan asks how they discovered the process of Systolic Extinction Training (SET) (00:50:38)

17. Dan asks if she had any other surprises or unexpected findings - discussion about other pain conditions (00:52:57)

18. Dan raises discussion on opioid and cannabinoid effectiveness (01:02:05)

19. How effective is SET and operant conditioning for fibromyalgia (01:03:07)

20. Dan asks about physical treatments (01:06:24)

21. Dan talks about the importance of education in the medical community (01:08:00)

22. A discussion of the different psychological factors of pain perception (01:10:30)

23. Katie talks about how the perception of muscle tension is disturbed in fibromyalgia (01:16:41)

24. Dan discusses how our hormonal cycles affect pain and what is the mechanism (01:21:14)

25. When will people be able to benefit from Systolic Extinction Training (SET) (01:28:38)