Management of patients with chronic low back pain and fibromyalgia

Abstract

Management of patients with chronic low back pain and fibromyalgia is an urgent problem of modern medicine. In real clinical practice, fibromyalgia (FM) is often undiagnosed, with chronic back pain no combined diseases are detected, so patients do not receive comprehensive therapy, as demonstrated by two clinical observations. One patient suffered from chronic lumbodynia (skeletal-muscular lumbar pain against the background of lower lumbar facet joint lesions), chronic insomnia, anxiety disorders. The second patient suffered from FM combined with osteoarthritis of the hip joints and sacroiliac joint. Comprehensive personalized treatment, which included identifying and treating comorbidities, working with patients’ misconceptions about the causes of pain, predicting and planning physical activity, conducting an educational program with elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), regular exercise therapy, and pharmacotherapy, led to significant improvement in the patients’ condition. In both observations, a persistent (for 6 months) positive effect in the form of pain reduction, improvement of the functional state, emotional status, and sleep of the patients was achieved.he study also discusses the issues of effective therapy of chronic musculoskeletal chronic lumbar pain and FM, doctors’ poor awareness of FM and criteria for its diagnosis. It is noted that regular therapeutic exercises, restriction of excessive physical and static loads form the basis of management of patients with chronic back pain. Patients with chronic back pain often have misconceptions about their disease, its prognosis, and effective therapies, so identifying and resolving these problems using CBT contributes to a positive treatment outcome.