Hello All,

I've suffered from fibro for close to 3 yrs. I'm not cured yet, but I am much improved. My definition being, going from using a walker & frequent days in bed, to only occasional use of cane, & no days in bed.

I wish I could attribute my problem to simply a cal/mag deficiency. But I've taken cal/mag citrate chewable supplements faithfully for over a decade. The fibro showed up WHILE on the supplements. I suffered a trauma (root cause:stupidity) that didn't heal, and in time the localized pain spread & fibro was dxd.

My road to healing started with a couple of observations. #1 -- That my 4x/yr periodontal treatments were putting me to bed each time, for several days, with pain. #2 -- That every time I drank a cup of tea (lipton /black /pekoe /green /oolong types) I'd have a mini-flare within an hour. A little googling revealed that one possible common denominator was fluoride. The perio used topical fluoride to decrease sensitivity. And the tea plant has a tendency to concentrate fluoride in its leaves -- tea is quite high in fluoride.

I continue to have my perio work done, without the Fl solution, and without the high-fluoride "polish" at the end. No more days-in-bed following the procedures. Yeah!

I switched to nonfluoridated toothpaste & use only RO water for cooking & drinking. But I haul it, haven't been able to afford whole-house RO, so I still do use tap water for bathing. And this is another source of fluoride, since Fl is absorbed through the skin.

My hypothesis is that fluoridated compounds, as well as chlorinated & brominated compounds (another biggie for me) -- trigger my fibro pain in part by their action on the thyroid gland. Like many fibro sufferers, I've found that keeping my free thyroid hormone levels in mid reference range is critical to doing well.

Halogens like fluroide, chlorine, & bromine, are kissing cousins of iodine, another halogen. It has been shown that Fl, Cl & Br "fit" & bind to iodine receptors in the body -- and indeed, being more reactive, are quicker to do so than the clunkier iodine. This screws up both the thyroid gland, as well as the peripheral thyroid hormone receptors.

Bromine (as brominated ...)in used in bleached grains, and is also found in a number of food additives. Bromine is also used to bleach refined oils ... which I'd found cause me to flare when consumed in excess.

Unfortunately, it's hard to find a swimming pool that does not use a combination of chlorine & bromine for sanitation. Aquacize is so helpful for fibro ... but doing it a halogenated pool may not be beneficial for some, in the long run. An ozonated pool may be a better option.

But back to fluoride. For decades, docs used fluoride to suppress thyroid in seriously hyperthyroid people. Fluoride is one of the most highly reactive elements known ... think back to that high school chemistry. Fluoride, in even minute quantities will deactivate enzymes ... thyroid enzymes, muscle enzymes, digestive enzymes. Many respected scientists believe that fluoride does more harm than good. However, there are sociopolitcal powers in place ... and inertia among the general public, to improve the situation.

One natural remedy pioneered in India for fluorosis, and also used by vets for fluorsis in animals, is using tamarind. Tamarind has been shown to bind fluoride out, even from the long bones. When tamarind is consumed, fluoride is excreted in the urine. Tamarind is most easily found in Asian/Oriental stores, IME. There is also a Mexican tamarind, however most of the research I've seen has been done w/Asian tamarind. One could do worse than taking a little tamarind every day. It's a fruit with a date-like texture, but with a tart-sweet taste. Emphasis on the tart.

IMO, every fibro sufferer should look into whether fluoride & other halogenated compounds are increasing their pain. However, there is a lotta research to suggest that there are fibro sub-groups ... some with one kinda gene, some with another. Some with methylation defects, others not. Some with bacterial/viral triggers that when treated, resolve the fibro. Some with metabolic syndrome that, when treated, improves the fibro. Some with immunological & neurological findings, others not.

Now, it is possible that some day in the future, one common thread will draw all the fibro subgroups together ... and maybe that common thread will be fluoride. But the fact that not every person America has fibro, while most Americans have fluoride exposure, argues for a certain specialness in fibro sufferers ... whether they have increased levels of exposure to FL, or decreased ability to deal with it.

Fluoride & the halogens have been a part of my fibro healing, but not the whole story. Gluten was a culprit in my IBS, now GONE with GF diet. And, nightshade-free diet, which I've been on for only one month, has been very helpful for residual muscle & joint pain.

Best wishes.

Thank you for a very informative post.

FYI, there is an excellent alternative to chlorine/bromine for sanitizing pools - hydrogen peroxide. I think it is more expensive though, and not many people use it.

Trying to tie fluoride poisoning in to fibromyalgia is much more complicated than I had supposed. I still think fluoride poisoning is likely the direct cause or a necessary contributing factor to the development of most cases of fibromyalgia.

Here is an excellent site that discusses many aspects of fluoride poisoning. The first url discusses the symptoms of chronic fluoride poisoning. The second url is an interesting story about one person's experience with fluoride poisoning:

http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/symptoms.htm
http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/000017.htm

As you suffer from gluten intolerance, I would draw your attention to the following statement from the link on fluoride poisoning symptoms:

"Fluoride is known to combine with HCl of the stomach and is converted to hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid is highly corrosive. The stomach and intestinal lining (Mucosa) is destroyed with loss of microvilli (the structure which is responsible for absorbing the nutrients from food), drying up and cracking of the cell surface and mucus (the slimy substance required for comfortable bowl movements) production is hampered."

Could it be hydrofluoric acid which causes the gastrointestinal distress when for instance, children consume too much fluoridated toothpaste?

Could hydrofluoric acid be involved in gluten intolerance - in triggering gluten intolerance; in perpetuating gluten intolerance?

Could hydrofluoric acid be involved in acid reflux? If hydrogen fluoride (a gas) is also being produced, this could account for esophageal burning and larynx/vocal cord irritation even without liquid reflux. It is conceivable that if hydrogen fluoride is being produced, it could even affect the lungs (there is a significant correlation between acid reflux and asthma).

You're right about tea. According to this article, tea can be very high in fluoride:

http://www.westonaprice.org/envtoxins/fluoride.html

"Fluoride content in tea has risen dramatically over the last 20 years due to industry contamination. Recent analyses have revealed a fluoride content of 17.25 mg per teabag or cup in black tea, and a whopping 22 mg of soluble fluoride ions per teabag or cup in green tea. Aluminum content was also high--over 8 mg. Normal steeping time is five minutes. The longer a tea bag steeped, the more fluoride and aluminum were released. After ten minutes, the measurable amounts of fluoride and aluminum almost doubled." (Analyses conducted by Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children (PFPC) at Gov't -approved labs. Contact: pfpc@istar.ca)


At 1 part per million, it would take 22 liters of water to get as much fluoride as in one cup of green tea; and if you forget to take your tea bag out (I do that pretty often) you would have the equivalent of nearly 40 liters of fluoridated water in one cup of strong green tea...yikes!

Also rooibos (Masai) tea is high in fluorides.

Thank you for the links, Wasabi. The thought of hydrofluoric acid inside the human body ... yikes! I did take a little chem & biochem in college.

There are cases of villi destruction in the absence of celiac antibodies. Sometimes this is known to be attributable to an infection, or to use of NSAIDs. But sometimes, the cause just isn't known. I wouldn't be surprised at all if fluoride might contribute.

Best wishes.

The following statement by Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D. is significant because sleep disturbances are a major problem with fibromyalgia sufferers.

"The new data showing fluoride's impact on melatonin biosynthesis, and the high concentrations in the human pineal gland, should be a real eye opener for many. I am ill at ease with this enzyme poison (fluoride) being that close to the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis functions in the body."

http://fluoridealert.org/pmullenix.htm


Fluoride exposed children have been found to have kidney and liver damage. The body's inability to filter out or detoxify certain chemicals could be a part of the fibromyalgia syndrome:

http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/news/30.html

I would like to suggest a reason why fluoride poisoning could cause fibromyalgia especially in the case of muscle injury caused by severe overexertion or severe muscle trauma.

Suppose someone is ingesting an amount of fluoride that the body is barely able to deal with. Then the person suffers a severe muscle injury. How could this cause fibromyalgia? If the muscle injury caused a significant decline in kidney function, it would allow for a greater buildup of fluoride in the body, because the kidneys are the main way that the body (slowly) rids itself of fluoride. Check out this link which has to do with exertional rhabdomyolysis in horses. I would like to point out that rhabdomyolysis (would it be fair to call it muscle disintegration?) and kidney damage are both known side effects of fluorine containing statin drugs. Maybe fibromyalgia sufferers wake up feeling so beat up, because they have been - only on a wide-spread but micro scale:

http://shady-acres.com/susan/tying-up.shtml

Great info, Wasabi, thanks for posting.

I'd just assumed that the F directly interfered with the muscle enzymes, as well as with the hormones that facilitate anabolic processes. But your analysis of the fibro/exertional injury/fluoride connection is unequal to anything I've seen in past, and I think, deserving of merit & investigation.

Do you have any additional suggestions for "the way out" of this, other than avoidance of F & supplementation w/mag & boron? Do you have experience with animals & rhabdo -- & if so, what else is recommended.

I'm not sure how to handle the F in shower/bath water, other than brief showers, tepid water. Sponge baths with hauled R/O water? -- doesn't really appeal.

Best wishes.

I thought I would share with you a hypothesis I have concerning fibromyalgia. It goes like this:

Fluoride poisoning causes varied and widespread ischemia. Varied and widespread ischemia cause many of the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

From Answers.com:

Ischemia - A decrease in the blood supply to a bodily organ, tissue, or part caused by constriction or obstruction of the blood vessels.

What would the result of ischemia be? Basically, there would be two main effects. Certain substances would not be supplied to a certain group of cells at a rate that they require. Other substances would not be removed from a group of cells at a rate they require. The group of cells would suffocate for lack of oxygen. They would starve for lack of food supplies. They be ill-repaired for lack of proper building supplies. They would be intoxicated because of a buildup of waste products and abnormal levels of substances produced by cells in distress.

If brain cells were intoxicated, suffocating, starving, and ill-repaired - a person might very well experience fibro fog, even permanent memory loss (a side effect of statins)

If muscle cells were intoxicated, suffocating, starving, and ill-repaired they might very well be fatigued, cramped (a sign of ischemia), and painful even at rest. If forced to work hard under ischemic conditions, they would even fare worse. (heart problems, rhabdomyolysis are a side effects of statins)

If liver cells were intoxicated, suffocating, starving, and ill-repaired one might very well expect damage to the liver's ability to detoxify chemicals in the blood.


If nerve cells were intoxicated, suffocating, starving, and ill repaired they might very well function poorly and be hypersensitive to pain.

This is just a hypothesis at this point, but I hope to be able to build a case for it over time.

I wish I had any kind of expertise in the area of health sciences, but I don't - just one college course in chemistry and one in biology many years ago. I am posting stuff about fibromyalgia almost as soon as I come across it on the internet. But here are a couple of things that you might consider.

Even though I do not have fibromyalgia, I am not as energetic as I would like to be. One thing that helps me a lot - both for helping me take fewer naps and also for helping to make my thinking clearer - is chia seeds. This is the article that got me interested in consuming chia seeds:

http://www.thechiaco.com.au/history.htm

If you want to try out smaller amounts, you might be able to get it from your health food store. But this is where I order mine from - 10 lbs. at a time. For my wife and I, we use about 1 oz. per day for the two of us:

I put a little less than 16 oz. of water in a shaker, add 1 oz. of chia seeds and shake thoroughly. I drink 4 oz. of the mixture twice per day. Chia seeds are a source of omega 3 fats.

It is possible to get a whole house fluoride filter. The filter contains some kind of aluminum compound which grabs onto the fluoride. If you want to drink your tap water, you will need to further filter the water to eliminate any aluminum that escapes from the fluoride filter. It's not cheap though.

Here is an article that describes well the idea that fibromyalgia is connected with muscle cells going anabolic. It is just that the author attributes the cause to viral infection rather than ischemia caused by fluoride poisoning:

http://www.krysalis.net/chronicfatigue.htm

I realize that my hypothesis that fluoride poisoning causes ischemia which in turn causes many fibromyalgia symptoms is rather simplistic. But I hold to it as a useful starting point for understanding fibromyalgia. I can't quite get my head around what the following article is saying, but I believe that it has something important to say about one key biochemical process I would also attribute to fluoride poisoning since I believe that fluoride poisoning and fibromyalgia are one and the same thing:

http://www.mcs-america.org/review.pdf

One could say that this idea of a haywire NO/ONOO cycle as a result of fluoride poisoning is hinted at by the following research results:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00003/art00002 (This is a reference to just the title of a research paper)

http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/veter...20-0302-24.pdf