
Dr. Amy Myers focuses on getting to the root cause of fibromyalgia rather than just managing symptoms. She has identified 10 potential causes of the illness, which include vitamin deficiencies,leaky gut, adrenal fatigue, glutathione deficiency and MTHFR gene mutations. FMS is thought to have a genetic component and MTHFR gene mutations are a very important contributor to fibromyalgia.
Like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia is also seen as a condition of mitochondrial dysfunction. Treatment with D-Ribose has been shown to improve symptoms and quality of life in one study. High-dose thiamine has also been found to improve symptoms. Additionally, patients should be checked for elevated homocysteine and heavy metal toxicity. While adequate treatment depends on eliminating the root cause of fibromyalgia, the practices of Tai-Chi, qigong, acupuncture, hypnosis, and aquatic physical therapy may assist in the management of symptoms.
Treating these patients with a methylation protocol that included methylfolate, methylcobalamin (B12), folinic acid and a vitamin B complex that contained the active forms resulted in significant increases in positive patient outcomes compared to the standard naturopathic treatment protocol.
In chemistry, a methyl group is simply a carbon atom surrounded by 3 hydrogen atoms, which chemically looks like this:
H
C - H
H
This grouping acts as a unit and if we tack this unit, this methyl group, on to another molecule, that is what we mean by methylation. You don’t need to be a chemist to understand that this process of methylation is absolutely critical to a host of the most important chemical reactions in our bodies.
Most important is that we need methylation to:
• Create glutathione (the body's 'master' antioxidant and detoxifier),
• Produce energy,
• Impact brain chemistry,
• Repair DNA,
• And make melatonin from serotonin.
These are only a few of the essential reactions that require our ability to methylate.
In a series of papers, Rich Van Konynenburg, PhD, a biochemist, demonstrated that virtually every known biochemical imbalance known to occur in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome could be explained by this inability to methylate properly.