For those of you who don’t hawk the news feeds for any mention of Fibromyalgia studies — there was a recent study in the PLOS ONE medical journal which might well be shining a new light on Fibro and (more importantly) how it can be managed.

They also found some interesting diagnosis results when trying to define their Fibromyalgia control group.

In the study, they treated Fibromites with an insulin resistance drug usually the kind of thing used for Diabetes. Now researchers did expect pain levels to go down so it’s not the shocking clickbait title some make it out to be.

BUT they weren’t expecting it to be as promising as it turned out to be.

And the treatment would be a lot cheaper than a lot of the other options being touted in the market at the moment.

“When a fibromyalgia patient goes to a regular doctor that is not familiar with these concepts, they might be operated on or given a high dose of opiates,” said Pappolla. “Thirty to 40 percent of fibromyalgia patients have surgery for a dominant pain site, like lumbar spine or a joint, and they respond poorly to surgery. This drives costs.”

The insulin resistance option is a very different story. If it gives people a noticeable relief at a lower price point then everyone stands to benefit.

“It’s a low-cost medication, easy to administer,” said Rubin. “It would be off-label as usage, but there are lots of off-label usages for medications where they’ve been used for different purposes. We’ve seen it with ketamine for depression. We’ve seen it with aspirin for heart conditions. There’s a long history of meds out there that have been repurposed and this is another interesting example.”

The results are (of course) still in the early stages and more research is needed. The next steps mean confirming their findings with other markers of insulin resistance which can be more complex.

It’s still in the early stages of research but the results so far are promising.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a way to track and improve your treatment and pain levels take a look at the Fibro Remission Workbook on Amazon.

You can also see the study here.