Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Have This In Common

What do Fibromyalgia (FM) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) have in common?

The answer may surprise you, they have more than one thing in common:

1. These debilitating conditions have no identifiable cause (but you knew that already, right?)
2. There’s no cure, only “treatment” of symptoms (you probably knew this one, too!)
3. Environmental toxins, known as xenobiotics, are associated with their onset (betcha didn’t know that!)

It was in the 1980s that public awareness of these illnesses began to build in the United States and Great Britain.  Although originally viewed as a disease of upper-middle class White women, CFS and FM appear in significant rates with the rest of the population.  However, these illnesses seem to afflict four times as many women than men, specifically a significant workforce demographic: women aged 40-60¹.

CFS/FM, strikes approximately three percent of the American population (~9,816,000), and is a neuro-immune fatigue spectrum of illnesses characterized by a suite of symptoms commonly including intense fatigue, postexertional malaise, headaches, sleep disturbances, difficulties with concentration, muscle pain, hormone disruption, thyroid disruption, allergies; immune collapse, joint pain without swelling, sore throats, tender lymph nodes, intense headaches, among other less common symptoms.² The symptoms may vary in intensity and duration, some sufferers are routinely ill at all times, others experience good days and bad days. Full recovery is rare, but disabling pain and fatigue is the norm.

CFS/FM is biologically characterized by an array of immunological malfunctions, and endocrine disruptions. This disease is an illness at the cellular level, which is why David S. Bell, author of “Cellular Hypoxia and Neuro-Immune Fatigue”, speculates it has been so long to come to our medical establishment’s attention. Dr. Bell posits that medical personnel are taught to diagnose at the organ level, and thus totally miss diseases occurring at the cellular level. His research indicates that CFS/FM is caused by cellular hypoxia—a disruption of cellular metabolism which prevents oxygen from being transformed into energy, and as part of this faulty process, producing chronic cytokine cascades, which induce the painful flu-like symptoms of CFS/FM.²

The etiology of CFS/FM is currently a mystery to the public and most doctors. It has only been relatively recently that some doctors acknowledge CFS/FM as a physically-based illness, rather than a psychosomatic complaint. Dr. Bell suggests that CFS is misdiagnosed or overlooked because rather than an organ-based illness, it is a cellular issue, and that cellular hypoxia and mitochondrial malfunction are at the root of the illness of CFS sufferers.

Dr. Todd Mangum, an endocrinologist specializing in CFS/FM and hormonal disorders, has extensive experience treating patients with this illness.  This background has led him to conclude that CFS/FM is caused by collapsed immune and hormone systems which then leads to an inability to resist infection, resulting in the recurrent Epstein-Barr infections commonly observed in CFS/FM patients.³

Dr. Mangum’s further conclusion after decades of observing ill CFS/FM patients is that the hormone and immune collapse seen in patients is a direct result of the toxic body burden of Americans derived from constant daily exposure to a myriad of environmental chemicals—chemicals in our food, air, water, our cleaning products, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals, and endocrine mimickers and disruptors, such as birth control pills, and plastic water bottles.³

Our population is faced on a daily basis with toxic contaminants such as BPAs, phthalates and genetically modified
foods which have been outlawed in other parts of the world because of their dangerous qualities yet are still permitted in the United States due to corporate lobbying and the media/advertising inspired disinterest of the American public. Many of the toxins we encounter on a daily basis are mitochondrial disruptors, precisely at the root of CFS/FM.

THE GOOD NEWS:  RELIEF IS OUT OF SIGHT!

Infrared sauna therapy has been shown to significantly decrease pain and other symptoms of fibromyalgia, according to University Health News Daily.  Researchers from Kagoshima University Hospital, Japan, studied the effects of infrared sauna sessions in 13 female fibromyalgia patients. Patients received infrared sauna therapy in cabins heated to 140°F once per day for 15 minutes, two or five days a week. After the sauna sessions, the patients went into a warm room and were covered with a blanket from the neck down to keep them warm for 30 minutes.

All patients’ pain was significantly reduced by about half after the first session and the effect became lasting after about ten treatments. At that time, pain was decreased by 20% to 78%.⁴

In another study in 44 female fibromyalgia patients, three months of sauna therapy three times a week, along with underwater exercise twice a week, decreased pain and other symptoms by 33% to 77%.  And the improvements lasted: pain was still 28% to 68% improved six months after the end of the study.⁵

An infrared sauna is a type of sauna that uses invisible light to create heat. This type of sauna is sometimes called a far infrared sauna—”far” describes where the infrared waves fall on the light spectrum. Whereas a traditional sauna uses heat to warm the air, which in turn warms your body, an infrared sauna heats your body directly from the inside.

Far infrared saunas penetrate up to 1.5 inches under the skin, and are able to vibrate cells thus causing a mobilization of fat-stored xenobiotics from fat cells. Combined with their ability to promote the sebaceous glands in the dermis layers to produce sebaceous sweat, far infrared saunas detoxify 4.3 times greater than traditional, convection saunas.⁶

With far infrared technology, CFS/FM pain and associated symptoms are greatly reduced.  When a complete detox protocol, like Detoxination^®, is included in the overall program, results are dramatic!  Detoxination harnesses the amazing power of niacin (vitamin B3) to promote 200 times more toxin release from fat cells so you can sweat them out faster in your far infrared sauna!

This video will explain how all this works:

If you would like to learn more about the infrared saunas we carry, and how you “Get Detoxinated!” in the comfort of your own home, click here.

Remember, Health Brings Good Things To Life!

All the best,
Dan

Bibliography

¹ McCleary, K., & Vernon, S. D. (2010). Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The Pain Practitioner, 20(1), 14-19.

² Bell, D. S. (2007). Neuro-immune fatigue ME/CFS/FM and cellular hypoxia (1st ed.). Livermore, CA: WingSpan Press

³ Woodcock, Jennifer. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fibromyalgia/ (ME/CFS/FM) Body Burden: The Social and Environmental Justice Ramifications of Invisibility. n.d. https://www.academia.edu/4111422/Myalgic_Encephalomyelitis_Chronic_Fatigue_Syndrome_Fibromyalgia_ME_CFS_FM_Body_Burden_The_Social_and_Environmental_Justice_Ramifications_of_Invisibility.

⁴ Matsushita, Kakushi, Akinori Masuda, and Chuwa Tei. “Efficacy of Waon Therapy for Fibromyalgia.” Internal Medicine 47, no. 16 (2008), 1473-1476. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.47.1054.

⁵ Matsumoto, Shuji, Megumi Shimodozono, Seiji Etoh, Ryuji Miyata, and Kazumi Kawahira. “Effects of thermal therapy combining sauna therapy and underwater exercise in patients with fibromyalgia.” Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 17, no. 3 (2011), 162-166. doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.08.004.

⁶ Root, Daniel L., and David E. Root, M.D., M.P.H. “Don’t Just Detox, Get Detoxinated!™.” In Health Controls Wealth: How To Take Control Of Both With Detoxination, 65. Sac: Sabre Hawk, LLC, 2019.