Chronic Pain & The Brain

Puzzling RA pain resembles fibromyalgia.

- Marianne Wait

Many people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have pain even when their inflammation is well controlled with medication. Some doctors attribute it to a different condition, fibromyalgia, and the results of a new study support the theory.

Fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread chronic pain among other symptoms, such as memory and mood issues and fatigue. The pain likely stems from changes in the central nervous system (CNS) – the brain and spinal cord – where pain signals are processed. In people with fibromyalgia, the CNS is thought to crank up pain signals, or even create them out of nowhere. The pain is known as centralized pain because it’s coming mainly from the CNS.

GETTING THE PICTURE

To test whether people with RA have centralized pain in addition to joint pain, researchers turned to high-tech brain imaging.