On Monday, I attended the first day of the International Association for the Study of Pain®’s (IASP’s) World Congress on Pain at the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre (SECC) in Glasgow, along with Daniel Austen, of the UK FM Clinics, and Jo Fisher, the development officer for the Surrey & Sussex Support Group.
Dan, Jo and I travelled to Glasgow separately over the weekend and attended the conference on the Monday. The conference venue, the SECC, which is huge, was a relevation in itself, as was the information that there were 5,000 delegates attending – pain is obviously big news in the international medical community.
There were a huge numbers of stands on everything from drugs to pain associations and rows and rows of poster displays (363 on Monday). The one of most interest to us was ‘Fibromyalgia: Impaired Top-Down Control during Anticipatory Pain Relief’, describing a study by Canadian researchers showing that, although anticipating pain can lead to greater perceived pain levels, the physical pain response in patients with Fibro is extreme, maintained and unaffected by whether patients think that something will hurt or not – more proof that Fibro is a real condition that causes increased levels of pain physically. The researchers concluded that:
“…[the pain reading in Fibro] cannot be reduced to a psychological epiphenomenon, but rather suggest a true neurological disturbance.”
We got the opportunity to talk with the researcher presenting the poster and we were delighted to find that he had a fantastic in-depth knowledge of Fibro.
Many of the posters weren’t relevant to Fibro, being more concerned with acute pain, opioids and CRPS. But there were 3 other posters directly relevant to Fibro being displayed on Monday.
The highlight of the conference for the Fibro community, and our reason for attending on Monday, was Daniel Clauw MD’s talk on ‘Stress and Chronic Pain: Lessons Learned from Fibromyalgia’. Dr Clauw, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan, USA, is an internationally renowned expert on Fibro.
Hearing Dr Clauw’s talk was amazing. It backed up everything that FibroAction have been saying about Fibro and it was incredible to sit in a 3,000 seat auditorium, listening to an accurate, evidence based lecture about Fibro – what this must have done for the credibility of Fibro in the midns fo the thousands of doctors and researchers present!
After the talk, Dan, Jo and I met with Daniel Clauw, and also with Patrick Wood. It was fascinating to talk to both of them about Fibro and the situation in the UK, where we are years behind the US in terms of awareness. That evening we took also Patrick Wood to dinner, which really make the Congress for me. As the originator of the Dopamine Theory of Fibromyalgia, Dr Wood’s theories and the research that has come from them are responsible for the use of dopamine agonists in Fibro. I take a dopamine agonist and owe my ability to attend such events as the Congress to the improvement I have found whilst on this med. I feel that I personally owe Dr Wood (and Dr Andrew Holman who investigated the use of Pramipexole as a treatment for Fibro) a great deal and it was a real honour to sit across a dinner table from him and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions.
My guest blogger post is up over at Invisible Illness Week. I chose the topic of ‘Do You Think of Yourself as Sick?’ discussing whether, with a chronic illness, you think of yourself as sick, disabled, or just someone who happens to have health issues. I used the example of my different attitude through years of dealing with migraine, hypermobility syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Fibromyalgia Syndrome.
