Prisoners of Pain: Younger's Mission to Help Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS Patients Highlighted in Article

[Cort]

“I made it my mission to figure out what is wrong with these patients and how to treat them,” Jarred Younger​

• http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/features/prisoners-of-pain

A good piece from the University of Alabama highlighting Jared Younger's work and providing hope for pain sufferers.

From the piece - a fibromyalgia patients story:

[bimg=fright|no-lightbox]http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/images/1015-prisonersofpain-younger2.jpg[/bimg]For 10 years, Gail De Sciose felt that pain controlled her activities, her schedule, her every move. She often found herself sprawled on the floor of her Birmingham home, sharp pains radiating down her neck, back, and hips. It was an abrupt change from the vibrant life she once led in New York City, where she had worked as a sales manager, traveled around the country, and volunteered at a local animal shelter.

“It felt like a hot poker being dragged across my body,” De Sciose recalls. And the pain was accompanied by debilitating fatigue; De Sciose remembers falling asleep in the middle of conversations. “There were times I just couldn’t function,” she says. “I had to cancel theater tickets, vacations, and lunches with friends.”

Then it's onto Jarred Younger and some news: he has a research lab - and now wants to create a clinical center in Alabama as well. That makes sense - one of the reasons UAB grabbed him up was they recognized there were few resources for FM and ME/CFS patients in the region....

At UAB, Jarred Younger, Ph.D., hopes to establish Alabama’s first research and clinical care center specializing in fibromyalgia and related conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War Illness"

It sounds like he's got a rhemuatologist who could fit the bill - Dr. McClain are you coming on board?

Younger’s work “is really cutting-edge; it’s groundbreaking,” says David McLain, M.D., a Birmingham rheumatologist who treats the disease and often collaborates with UAB researchers. “He’s responsible for opening up a whole new avenue of treatments, and it’s fortunate he came to UAB.”

Younger's theory

“Microglia defend our brain against everything,” Younger explains. “When we get the flu, for instance, microglia are activated. These cells make us want to crawl into bed and do nothing—so our body can devote its resources to fighting off the flu.”

In both fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue patients, Younger hypothesizes, the microglia are turned on when they’re not supposed to be, causing fatigue or pain, a depressed mood, and cognitive dysfunction.

Low dose naltrexone - Younger's gift to the FM and ME/CFS communities - he's the only researcher to researched it's effects - works for the FM patient

“I didn’t have any expectations; we hear so much about miracle drugs,” De Sciose says. “But within the first two or three weeks, I stopped having that daily searing hot-poker pain. Then, a month later, different massage therapists told me that my muscles were feeling better.”
Today, De Sciose wouldn’t say she’s cured of fibromyalgia—she still has to watch her activity levels to prevent flare-ups. But she can make plans again—lunch dates, theater tickets, and trips—without worrying that she’ll end up sprawled on the floor every night. “Any small gain in pain reduction or quality of life is very important to me,” she says.

In the best part of the article to me Younger compares the track ME/CFS and FM are on with that of rheumatoid arthritis

“Twenty years ago, rheumatoid arthritis absolutely wrecked people’s bodies, and there wasn’t a lot that could be done about it,” he says. “Over time, researchers discovered the parts of the immune system that were involved, and that helped them develop better treatments.”

Theoretically we should be able to move more quickly with ME/CFS and FM because the technology is so much more advanced and we know so much more - we just need the funding.