A lot of people with fibromyalgia feel pain all over, and find that their bodies overreact to stress. A lot of doctors will tell them that they are just "nervous" and need to learn to handle stress better. This study showed that there is a problem with how the adrenal glands of people with fibromyalgia react to stress. The adrenal glands are tiny glands that sit at the top of your kidneys. Their job is to release cortisol into your bloodstream in response to stress. If you have ever had to have a cortisone shot or put hydrocortisone on your skin for a rash, you know that it tends to calm down swollen joints or skin irritations.
In the study, they tested how well the adrenal glands on fibromyalgia patients worked in comparison with patients with chronic pelvic pain. The results showed that the chronic pelvic pain people who had normal responses, but there was less activity of the adrenal glands in patients with fibromyalgia, namely in total cortisol release. A doctor would not pick this up from a regular blood tests, because the "free cortisol" stayed the same.
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