Fibromyalgia and Medical Snobbery
Fibromyalgia, Womens Fibrosis Conditions and Medical Snobbery. A comment answered by:
William Wong, ND, PhD.
This comment was sent to a reader from a FMS magazine in the UK:
Hi C*******:
I’m going to do some research on this and I would like to talk to K***** further. However, there is no way I can print this on our website as it is I’m afraid. However the supplements help, the science touted for Fibro is all wrong. We have to be really careful that everything we print is science/evidence based in some way and that wrong information is not put up. Even just things like Depo Provera being good for some people, not always a “nasty” drug – we have to make sure that the wrong impression isn’t given.
Some points of concern...‘Fibrin’ is not involved with Fibromyalgia Syndrome itself. Serrapeptase, the enzyme in the ("systemic enzyme") supplement, is an anti-inflammatory (and possibly antibiotic) enzyme and the ingredients in the other supplement are similar. I can see why that could be of use for myofascial pain syndrome and other conditions that involve inflammation, but that isn’t fibromyalgia syndrome itself. Mitochondria are cells in the body involved in energy conversion. They replicate by division in a similar way to bacteria – you can’t “build them up”. Mitochondrial dysfunction as part of the pathogenesis of Fibro has long been tossed around as an idea and antioxidants could possibly help with this. But this is not an accepted and proven theory for what happens with Fibro. Mitochondrial disorders are diagnosed and can be serious, but there is little evidence that Fibro is one of them. I’m also not convinced of the supposed major role of these enzymes in absorbing nutrients. Stretching and low-weight exercise is recommended for myofascial pain anyway, and core building exercises will help correct postural imbalances that could be causing a lot of myofascial pain. It is possible that the exercise regime alone, or in conjunction with anti-inflammatories (arnica can be helpful too) and/or nutritional supplements, would have really helped K****’s Myofascial pain anyway.
For what it’s worth (quite a lot in my book), there is no record on the medical literature database PubMed for any studies relating serrapeptase (or alternative spelling serratiopeptidase/serratiopeptase/serratiapepdase) and either Fibromyalgia, endometriosis, Fibroid or Fibrin. It has been studied a little for use in dental surgery as an antibiotic anti-inflammatory.
I think it’s great that K**** is doing well, but the common theme is that her main problem by far is Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS). The supplements are very unproven and the supposed science relating them to Fibromyalgia Syndrome is nonsense. I can see that they could help with MPS though, but even then I think the continued exercise/stretching and massage is probably more important. It sounds like K**** needed something to relieve the MPS enough so that she could benefit properly from the things to help it. The enzymes might have been that and that’s great.
I hope it’s okay me saying this...and that it all makes sense! I am really glad that K**** is doing well, but I don’t want to mislead people and the makers/distributors of these enzymes are misleading people when it comes to Fibromyalgia Syndrome.
Regards
L***
My response to the comment about Fibromyalgia:
Howdy Folks:
I am suprised your gal could not find studies on serrapeptase, PubMed has several and a search for it as a key word brings tens if not hundreds of pages of information! As a FMS / CFS patient myself and having been part of the largest FMS / CFS practice in Scottsdale Arizona, (one of the largest in the nation) I came to a few physiological realizations while working on patients and on myself:
Physiological Realization #1: In all of medicine the only thing that can cause intractable pain, not reacting to opiates is - ischemia. Ischemia is where the tissues are cut off from both oxygen and ATP. Remember as a child putting strings or rubber bands around your wrist? At first the hand turns blue than it begins to hurt. The more you move it the more it hurts. That's ischemia. At that moment you could have mainlined heroin and the pain would not have been relieved!
Couple that realization with the initial finding that the painful areas of FMS patients had fibrosis growing through the muscle tissues. This finding has since been retracted BUT the initial studies were done via invivo needle biopsy and were a true image of what was happening in the tissues where as subsequent studies have used medical imaging to determine whether there was a fibrotic component in the tissue. MRI, MRA and Cat were held to be perfect images of tissue but we now know that they do miss things and in actuality leave a good bit to be desired.
Again back to physiology for Realization #2: There are only two things in physiology that can cause fibrosis, trauma (which includes long term inflammation) and estrogen. Hormone testing on our Scottsdale patients both male and female, showed them all to be terribly estrogen dominant with low or no progesterone or testosterone. We are familiar with estrogen causing the women's fibrosis diseases of Fibrocystic Breast Disease, Uterine Fibroids, Endometriosis etc. Control the estrogen formation and you slow or stop the progression of the fibrosis formation and begin to control the ischemia.
Realization #3: While some FMS patients did not have the CFS component the vast majority did. One brilliant pathologist who was also a CFS / FMS patient looked at the signs and symptoms and had two major findings: from the mild encephalitis that sets off the condition initially to all of the other symptoms of CFS (ME), and he declared that ME IS Post Polio Syndrome in those of us that got the live Sabin vaccine. It has also now been reveled by Dr. Hillerman the chief developer of vaccines for Merk that there were also wild live monkey viruses in that vaccine see: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=327_1195303011).
One other component of Realization #4 is that similar to Mononucleosis, there is a dramatic decrease in the number of muscular mitochondria and since 80% of the energy used for all body processes comes from the mitochondria of the voluntary muscles, then a patients energy will be very low.
Realization #5: 60% of our FMS patients were faking it, they were actually Munchausen's patients, seeking secondary gain from being sick. (Read the Article: Baron of Vampires).
So, from those realizations we began to piece together a plan of action against FMS and CFS. First we got rid of all doctor hoping, non-compliant patients who were "faking" their illness to control their families and loved ones.
Then to lyse at the fibrosis component of the disease, systemic enzymes were taken by the patients. Used in German, Japanese and Eastern European medicine for 5 decades, there are over 200 peer reviewed clinical and university studies to show the absorption, anti-inflammatory and fibrosis lysing effect of orally administered systemic enzymes. (Research abstracts at: www.enzymescience.com).
The enzymes were administered to an activation dose (Which is a dose sufficient to have a physiological effect. As with antibiotics, enzymes are either in the body in sufficient levels to have an effect or they do quite little). At this dose the enzymes will lower or eliminate inflammation. Not operating on either an NSAID or Cortico steroid mechanism of action they have no side effects and are completely non toxic (no LD-50 or 100). This chart shows the mechanism of action common to all working systemic enzymes: How Systemic Enzymes fight Inflammation.
With the lysing away of the fibrosis and the quenching of the inflammation ischemia, its resultant pain was reduced.
To increase the size of the vascular bed, further improving circulation and oxygenation of tissue, AND since it is the ONLY thing that can increase the number of mitochondria, a particular form of Progressive Resistance Exercise was developed for the patients which did not "blow out" their energy reserves. Up to now all studies attempting exercise with CFS and FMS patients have ended in failure due to the fact that: Medical personnel were developing the parameters of the studies and these people have no formal training in Exercise Physiology; thus they had no flipping idea as to adapting the work to the limitations of the patient. Mono patients have no ATP reserves and the high intensity strength or aerobic exercise bouts the researchers made the patients undergo completely wiped out the little ATP they had, causing the need to spend weeks convalescing to rebuild what little energy they could. Exercise for FMS and CFS patients should be only be done under these guidelines: Minimalist Strength Training
As to hormones; the patients were put on natural progesterone cream and some a natural testosterone replacement or given supplements that helped the younger patients make their own testosterone. Most all estrogen was removed from the diet and medication. See the sources of estrogen in foods from this Canadian Pharmacological journal article: PhytoEstrogen Food Sources
All foods above 600 mcg need to be stayed away from. It goes without saying that all estrogen HRT, such as Depo Provera, makes the FMS worse!
We had a 88% success rate. Higher than any other form of FMS therapy. While many will argue that these are mere clinical findings and not "hard double blind research" clinical experience is the TRUE hard science and cannot be spun as the research done these days so very often is. Doctors see FMS patients as a steady source of income and are loath to do anything that might cure them as that would cut back on return visits! The cure the hundreds of patients we had in clinic and the thousands of patients who've used this program of working systemic enzymes, anti estrogen and focused PRE since then have attested to the fact that the science is clear and the system works. They have found their way out of FMS and CFS.
Be well and God bless,
Dr. William Wong
** Please note that some of these linked articles and websites are not active as of this re-publication (8/2/2023). The servers are down and we are in the process of getting them up and running again.