Fibromyalgia - The Sleep Disturbances

It is during sleep that healing processes take place. One must enter into a certain sleep pattern for this to occur. Numerous studies have been conducted which reveal that persons with fibromyalgia have a sleep disturbance that prevents healing. Here's what we know. Therapeutic or healing sleep occurs during deep sleep, and deep sleep is characterized by brain waves that are called delta waves. These are slow, deep brain waves and this pattern must be sustained. When a person with fibromyalgia is hooked up to a device called an EEG in a sleep lab, it can be demonstrated that the delta wave pattern is constantly being interrupted by something called alpha waves, which are brain waves that occur during light sleep. These brain waves are short and rapid. This is called alpha-delta intrusion. Constant alpha-delta intrusion prevents sustained therapeutic sleep from occurring and healing simply can't take place. It is during deep sleep that the regulation of the metabolism of an important neurotransmitter called serotonin takes place. We will discuss the importance of serotonin in another section. But let us establish one point here. Serotonin is necessary for the activation of an important immune system cell called "natural killer cells". Disruption of the metabolism of serotonin, the consequence of sleep disturbance, therefore is an important contributor to the inability of the body to heal in fibromyalgia due to its adverse affect on an immune system that is already dysfunctional.