January 16, 2009
THURSDAY, Jan. 15 (HealthDay News) — Savella (milnacipran hydrochloride) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat fibromyalgia, a chronic condition characterized by restricted movement and widespread pain, makers Forest Labs and Cypress Bioscience announced.
The safety and effectiveness of the drug, a selective serotonin and norepinephrine dual reuptake inhibitor, were established in clinical trials involving 2,084 patients. In a news release, the drug’s makers said it’s not known exactly how Savella improves symptoms of fibromyalgia, which some scientists believe is related to abnormalities in certain brain neurotransmitters. Read More
January 14, 2009
TUESDAY, Jan. 13 (HealthDay News) — Antidepressants may help people living with the chronic pain of fibromyalgia experience fewer symptoms and improve their quality of life, new research shows.
The study, lead by Dr. Winfried Hauser, of Klinikum Saarbrucken in Germany, found that fibromyalgia patients had less pain, fatigue and depression while on certain antidepressants.
Tricyclic and tetracyclic antidepressants helped the most to reduce pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances, according to the report published in the Jan. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors helped with those three symptoms but to a much lesser extent, while selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and monoamine oxidase inhibitors helped lessen pain some. Read More
November 4, 2008
MONDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) — Researchers have detected abnormalities in the brains of people with fibromyalgia, a complex, chronic condition characterized by muscle pain and fatigue.
“We showed in our study that the functional abnormalities observed were mainly related to disability,” and not to anxiety and depression status, said Dr. Eric Guedj, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Centre Hospitalier-Universitaire de la Timone in France. Read More
