I am satisfied with the strong connection between fibromyalgia and fluoride poisoning that I have documented. I need some time to digest the material I have presented. I also need some time to attend to personal matters I have neglected while researching this topic - I tend to be pretty obsessive about doing research on the web. After a few weeks or so, I hope to start a new thread on what things might be helpful for fibromyalgia/fluoride poisoning. Of course, if I come across anything helpful for establishing the connection between fibromyalgia and fluoride poisoning I will post it on this thread. But, from now on my focus will be on what might be helpful to sufferers of fibromyalgia/fluoride poisoning.

I would like to look into the following, among other things:

Avoiding:
fluorides, mercury, aluminum, and excess iron

Supplementing with:
aloe vera, alpha lipoic acid, apricot kernels, boron, raw cacao, chia seeds, coconut oil, vitamin D, glutathione (GSH Complex), colloidal gold, IP6, magnesium taurate, Neprinol, pine bark extract (eg. Moducare), sea buckthorn, SOD

Receiving:
massage, chiropractic care (particularly to areas that affect the base of the skull and uppermost vertebra)


Again, I wish to thank those who take the time to read what I have posted, and especially those who have posted responses. God bless you all.

wasabi

This all sounds so very interesting. I can't even begin to imagine what may have triggered my fibro as I've had so many of the 'symptoms' before ever having been diagnosed with the fibro.

I had ulcerative colitis rear it's ugly head 30 years ago and wasn't expected to live through the first bought. But, I had a lot of trauma to my body well before the onset of the UC and after. A LOT of body trauma from one thing or another from beatings in my early 20s to numerous car accidents and untold number of falls that hurt some part of my body.

This fluoride idea is very interesting. Thanks for all the info.

Could fluoride in the gut cause Paneth cells to continually release bacteria killing substances unnecessarily, thus harming stem cells and/or other cells of the small intestine villi? This could explain why fibromyalgia is often preceded by or accompanied by digestive problems.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r52xvv58wv62207m/

I am beginning to think that fluoride poisoning is only one possible cause of fibromyalgia. I think that trying to tie ischemia and fluoride poisoning to fibromyalgia was a very good place for me to start. I am now starting to wrestle with the cause of fibromyalgia from a broader perspective - perhaps too broad. But it's a good way for me to continue my investigations and ruminations. I can always make another course correction later on.

What I am now thinking is this, fibromyalgia is the result of incomplete healing. Fluoride poisoning fits into this idea of incomplete healing in two ways. First, in high enough quantities, fluoride can cause serious wounding of the body. Second, even in relatively low quantities, fluoride can interfere with the body's messenger chemicals, keeping certain processes clogged in the on position. This could prevent the body from turning off certain responses to wounding such as the production of substance P. I don't have any hard evidence yet to back up my idea, but it just kind of makes sense to me at this point. There are many ways in which the body can be wounded, so yes, I now believe there are multiple causes of fibromyalgia.

Your abdominal pain is an important part of your health condition. Not knowing the cause makes it difficult to even try to answer your last question. Fluoride poisoning can cause digestive problems. If something caused your sympathetic nervous system to work overtime - heart rate up, blood pressure up, muscles ready for fight or flight - that could affect your digestive system even possibly leading to leaky gut (by keeping blood flowing to your muscles instead of your digestive system). I am still trying to make a connection between fluoride poisoning and ischemia in muscles. Regardless of cause, some sort of ischemia could account for your painful tender points. Whether or not an overabundance of some sort of chemical messengers produced when one part of the body is seriously wounded can cause ischemia in other parts of the body (when the wound fails to heal for a long time) - I just don't know.

One more thought, mental stress and chronic pain can lead to magnesium depletion. Magnesium is required for muscles to relax. Magnesium deficiency can cause muscles to be chronically tensed which can lead to ischemia, which can lead to pain. I use magnesium taurate as my magnesium supplement. If the pain in your tender points is not severe, massage could also be very helpful.

As you say, the tender points are a diagnostic tool. What they signify to me is a persistent, pervasive (all over the body) overcontraction of muscles. I am not familiar with using the tender points to diagnose fibromyalgia, so I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that these tender points are points near where various muscle groups attach to bone. If this is the case, then pain at these points can be caused by tight muscles with restricted range of motion such that normal activity causes stress at the attachment points. Fibromyalgia is not about the tender points, it is about tight muscles that will not lengthen to accomodate normal range of motion.

The million dollar question is what causes the tightening of these muscles? As I mentioned earlier in my thread, I am pursuing the idea that ischemia is involved in the involuntary tightening of muscles. So, I ask myself this question - is there something that can cause the tightening of arteries which causes ischemia which causes voluntary muscles to tighten and also causes pain. Apparently, fluoride can cause artery tissue to tighten:

http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/co...tract/258/1/66

One person, Walt Stoll, believes that fibromyalgia has to do with being in a state of sympathetic nervous system dominance (severe chronic "bracing" he calls it), which causes the muscles to be chronically stressed. I don't believe that this is the cause of fibromyalgia, but sympathetic nervous system dominance for whatever reason, could be a part of the problem of fibromyalgia.

If you are one of those people who believe that Fibromyalgia and Mycoplasma are connected then here is a link that you might be interested in:

http://www.newtreatments.org/doc.php/Mycoplasma/29

Has anyone investigated the relationship of CFS and ciguatera fish poisoning?
A 96% correlation is pretty high! Here is a place to start:

http://www.ncf-net.org/forum/CiguateraEpitope.htm

Tea tree oil and mycoplasma pneumoniae:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Is there a connection between Lyme Disease and Fibromyalgia? Lyme Disease and ALS? Lyme Disease and Parkinson's? Here's some good information:

http://www.springboard4health.com/no...l#breakthrough

If there is, then cat's claw (especially TOA free cat's claw) could be helpful. Note that it could take up to a year to restore health because:

"Considering the life-span of intracellular forms of Bb equivalent to the life-span of the cells invaded by these forms, they are constantly released into the surrounding environment upon natural cell death and destruction. The release of intracellular forms of Bb is gradual over time due to the various life-spans of various invaded cells. Since about 90% of these forms reside in various cells (including all blood cells) which have a life-span of 2-3 weeks to 6-8 months, it may be assumed that within a 6-8 month period, a significant majority of all intracellular forms of Bb will be released into the environment where they can be successfully attacked by a properly functioning immune system and a natural powerful antibiotic."

"Bb" refers to Borrelia burgdorferi, a mycoplasma bacteria that causes Lyme disease. There may be other bacteria involved as well.

that is a very interesting article re the Lyme Disease info wasabi

would you mind also posting this on the Lyme Disease board here at NeuroTalk
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33

Here is what one person suspects about her abdominal pain and what helped her:

"Two weeks ago my Doctor prescribed Wel-Chol(I don’t have high cholesterol-it’s actually VERY low), and my abdominal pain [of 17 years duration] is virtually gone along w/ several other bothersome sysmptoms! I believe that most, if not all, of the chronic conditions I developed manifested because my gallbladder harboured biotoxins very early on."

http://fattyacids.wordpress.com/2006...toxins/#more-5

Wel-Chol works by binding to cholesterol in the intestines so that the liver can't keep recyling it (and presumably the toxins that adhere to that cholesterol). Interesting idea - as long as you don't have any bowel obstructions.