CAIRO - About 15 to 20 per cent of the patients at hospital outpatients clinics suffer from rheumatic diseases and 50 per cent of them complain of fibromyalgia. There is commonly held wrong belief that rheumatic diseases afflict only joints. However, specialists have noted that these diseases afflict different body organs as well as muscles and nerves. That was highlighted during a rheumatology conference held in Cairo last week and organised by the School of Medicine, Ain Shams University. Fibromyalgia is a disease characterised by widespread muscular pains, fatigue, and sensitivity. It afflicts females aged between 20 and 50 much more than male and also affects children and its underlying causes remain unknown. According to Dr Abdel-Samad Ibrahim Hewala, Zagazig University: “When a woman suffers from the disease, the pain reaches to the nerves raising a hyper-execration in the brain. The pain feels severe and affects the muscles. It also hits arms, legs and the back. The patient feels more fatigued than normal people.” He added that patients with fibromyalgia complain of pain even when exerting the slightest least effort, with painkillers becoming ineffective, and it being accompanied by other symptoms such as headaches, colon complaints and women suffering severe menstrual pain. The pain is chronic in most cases, ranging from mild to severe. Dr Hewala noted that symptoms vary from one person to another. “These complications perplex doctors and fatigue patients, who describe their condition as having to ‘push themselves' to get things done”. Fibromyalgia is not easy to diagnose and here is no specific test or X-ray. Dr Hewala recommends sports and aerobics, the avoidance of junk food and good intake of vegetables, fruit and fish to help prevent the disease. Dr Nagwa Nassar, rheumatology consultant, specialises in diseases that affect the immune system, including lupus and ankylosing spondylitis, which have hereditary and genetic factors. She remarked that such diseases could also affect different body organs, the urinary system, skin and joints. She stressed that beneficial treatment of immune diseases is available in Egypt but very expensive and appealed to the Ministry of Health for its inclusion in health insurance treatment.
