Cognitive behavioral therapy reduces fibromyalgia

Edwards, a clinical psychologist in the Division of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discusses the results of the Massachusetts General Hospital Brigham study, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Fibromuscular Randomized Controlled Neuroimaging Trial of Pain,” in which patients who received CBT were able to reduce pain intensity, pain impact, and fibromyalgia symptom burden.¹

“There’s been a lot of recent research showing that non-pharmacological treatments for a variety of chronic pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia, are very safe and effective,” Edwards explains. “These treatments include CBT, meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. What we don’t yet know is the mechanism by which talk therapies, such as CBT, actually benefit chronic pain patients by helping to reduce their pain burden and reduce their pain burden.” of disabilities and improve their functioning and quality of life”.

Edwards and his team found that CBT was more effective than an active control group. In addition to improvements in pain and quality of life, these patients were able to experience less catastrophic pain, according to neuroimaging data. These changes are directly related to the benefits they receive in reducing pain and to changes in the brain’s processing of pain-related information.

“There are a lot of very talented research groups working in this area, and the more discoveries these groups come up with, the more we understand that we have a lot of effective non-drug treatments for fibromyalgia,” Edwards concluded. “We hope can help figure out which combinations of treatments are most effective. I want to emphasize that there are many effective and safe treatment options. I hope this can increase people’s optimism if they have been living with this condition for a considerable period of time, Allowing them to identify effective management strategies.”

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

refer to

1. _{Jeungchan Lee, Asimina Lazaridou, Myrella Paschali, Marco L. Loggia, Michael P. Berry, Dan-Mikael Ellingsen, Kylie Isenburg, Alessandra Anzolin, Arvina Grahl, Ajay D. Wasan, Vitaly Napadow, Robert R. Edwards. A randomized controlled neuroimaging trial of cognitive behavioral therapy for fibromyalgia. Arthritis and Rheumatology2023; DOI: 10.1002/art.42672}